Things Done This Week

On Monday, I posted a blog about things to do this week.  I have made some dents, I don't know if it will all get done by the end of the week or not, but I have been making some progress...and it feels good.  So here is the play by play along with some before and after shots.

I started with Cameron and Jacob's room.  I thought this was the best place to start cause it was going to be a lot harder to do while either of the boys are home, and Jacob is with his dad Sunday - Tues/Wed and Cameron is scheduled to be here this weekend.  Meaning that this one had limited time to complete.  Its much easier to throw away or package up toys to donate when there aren't little boys pleading for every toy that they haven't played with in over a year and promising that the tiny arm of a cartoon monster that does not have a matching body is CRUCIAL to when they play attack of the monster arms - which they swear is every weekend!  As you can see, this means that I was pressed for time to get their room done, so it had to be first.  And if anyone cleans like I do, it ALWAYS looks worse before it looks better. 

The main focus for this room was their closet and moving all of their toys down into the playroom.  I emptied out the closet and filled a black trash bag FULL of broken toys, torn costumes, and chewed shoes.  While I was at it, I decided to clean out their TV stand as well as both of their dressers of all those clothes that don't fit, and haven't fit, but kept getting pushed to the side.  I filled another black trash bag full of clothes to donate (or hold onto for the church yard sale).  So...it was definintely productive!  I placed two baskets - one green and one blue (which is generally their colors - green for Cameron and blue for Jake), and some hooks, also green and blue.  The baskets are for me and Vince to put anything that we find throughout the house along with clean clothes that need to be put away.  The hooks are for their coats, bookbags, hats, etc. which usually find their way strewn all over the house in some way or another, causing a search party everytime we need to leave the house. 

Anyway!  That was the big job.  It took two days, but was interupted slightly by my son coming home early from his dad's house because he had the stomach flu YUCK! 

The next job was my closet.  I filled a white kitchen trash bag full of clothes that don't fit or I don't wear(mostly pants - my butt has not been very forgiving), even though I have been holding onto them with fingers crossed that one day they will fit, or one day I will wear them.  It was funny, because I ended up displaying a lot of them via a fashion show for Jake and Vince, and some of the pieces of clothing neither of them had ever even seen! 

The good news was that I even found some fabric that I had purchased to eventually use for window mistreatments and never got around to it.  The whole year and three months that we have lived here, we have had only roller shades on our master bedroom windows - and nothing on our master bath window.  Well, seeing the fabric inspired me and now there are mistreatments on both bedroom windows and a work in progress on the bathroom window!  YAY!  And I think that cleaning out my closet helped motivate Vince as he says that he is going to clean out his closet and his dresser too!  Double YAY!

Then I moved onto the basement.  With Jake's help, we hauled all of the toys, games, etc from his room to the basement.  Now I needed to put them away.  We moved one of the toy shelves from the boy's room to the basement, along with the toy box, so that was the basis for toy storage down there as well.  I would really like to obtain a bookshelf to store the board games and art supplies.  I have been looking on Freecycle, but haven't found anything yet.  Thank you to my friend, Kate, for suggesting I keep an eye on this great resource!  So this means that this is also a work in progress and not quite organized the way I would like, but it will work for now.  I laid down the old rug from the living room, which works, but I don't plan to keep it there.  It would be nice to have something with some color - but anything the kids can sit on while they play is good.

The laundry area was a big deal for me.  I hate doing laundry, so anything to make it more tolerable.  I setup a rolling clothes rack for drying pants or other unmentionables, and hanging clothes that wrinkle easily.  I also cleaned off the top of the washer and dryer and folding table, as well as better setting up the storage area nearby to hold the laundry detergent, etc.  I also put down a rug (which I got at Walmart for $3.97)!  So the basement, overall, has made me very happy!

All in all, a good start!  Still to go....buffet, bathroom closet, and hall closet.  Better keep trucking!