My Clutter Nemesis

Well, the hubby started back to school last week. And the Bub starts again next week. This year it’s Pre-K and he will be gone more than ever.

I don’t know if I should cry or do a happy dance. I’m so confused.

Next year he goes to all day kindergarten and I’m quite sure they will have to pry him from my white knuckles. ;) I am already dreading it.

But it’s back to school time! I’m supposed to be happy, right?

Yay.

:)

Anyhoo, every change of seasons brings up some major organizing mojo in me. After Christmas I’m ready for a clean slate, in the spring I’m cleaning like mad (OK, not really, but I feel like I should), summer I’m a slug, and then in the fall, I’m determined to get our lives back in order before the holiday madness hits.

Back to school always bring this up too. This year I’m determined to conquer one of my biggest and baddest clutter spots. I’ve told you about the piles. And the laundry room. I’ve hinted at the disaster that is the master closet.

But this one is waaaay up there at the top. I mean bottom. Wherever the biggest catastrophes go. ;)

It’s the car. I just can’t keep it under control. It’s like, physically impossible. For real. But this year, I want to at least try. Trying is something right?

There’s one thing I notice each morning when I drop off the Bub at school. It’s that every Mom seems to be a size two.

Wait, that’s not it. (But seriously, how??)

It’s that my car seems to be the worst of them – not one is as messy as mine. It makes no sense. Actually, it does, cause they go to the gym after drop off and I go to Goodwill. And then fill my car with crap. But whatever. Details schmetails.

Well, I’m done – I’m going to make a REAL effort this year. For at least a week. ;)

I started yesterday by pulling the car out of the garage so I’d have plenty of space. I then pulled EVERYTHING out and dumped it behind the car:

Yes, all of that was in my car. No, it’s not a big car. And this does not include the trash -- I spared you that. You’re welcome. :)

I had a meeting last night so I dumped everything behind the car on purpose – I had to get it all put away before I left, or I wasn’t going anywhere. Brillz, yes?

Let’s see what was in my car, shall we?:

Randomness. My specialty.

I took out every last bit of bits. Emptied consoles and drawers and nooks.

About half I put away. The other half is in the garage (my next project) and the laundry room. Moving piles around is my other specialty. ;) But it’s OUT of my car!

I took the car seat cover off and washed it, then hosed down the seat.

Yes, hosed. This might clue you in to why there are no before pictures.

The only things I put back in were the car seat and the car manual:

And a state map. Cause I’ll need that. You never know.

Back in high school and college, when things weren’t so good financially, I would scrounge up change and take the car (mom’s or later mine) to the car wash. Cleaning it out and and using their awesomesauce vacuums would always completely change my mindset. I felt so in control of life when my car was clean.

So now, even though we have a shop vac at home, I always go to the car wash to vacuum out the car:

It’s just one of those weird things, you know?

I talk about how amazing it is to rid your home of the stuff you don’t use or need or appreciate. It will make you feel control over your home and your life – there’s something really powerful about it.

It’s the same for the car, in my opinion. Some of us spend a LOT of time in the car – and when it’s clutter-free, it’s a much more peaceful place.

I need to take my own advice more often. ;)

The only things left in the back are items I need to return and our outdoor blanket I always keep in there, just in case.

I’m determined to keep the car spotless for a week. If I can do it a week, I can do it two. If two, well, I’m going for a MONTH. Shooting for the stars people!! WHOO!

So far so good. It’s only been a day. You have no idea what a big deal that is. ;)

I’m on a mission –  if I can’t be a size two, I can at least have the cleanest car in the school parking lot! Yesssss…

Do you keep your car clean, or is a problem area for you too? Have you tried and tried to keep it clean like me? Any success stories? I’d love to hear!

Are you a piler too?

Do you ever have one of those moments…when you walk through the same spot in your house for probably the 50th time in a day and all the sudden it hits.

IT is the STUFF.

The I’ve been too lazy to put you away for the past week and yet I’m still surprised to see you JUNK.

I swear it’s like I’m wearing glasses and someone finally cleaned them off. All the sudden I can see it all. And all if it drives me MAD:

I always joke that STUFF multiplies. But it does! It starts with that very first piece of whatever, and festers from that point on.

My thought process is “There’s already one thing to put away there, I’ll just put this one here too, and put them away together. Later.”

Snort.

That makes me laugh.

:)

And over the years I’ve determined I’m a piler. I will take the same group of stuff and stack it in a spot over and over and OVER in the same spot, thinking it looks better:

It doesn’t.

I’m a Master Piler though. One of the best. ;)

I can pile a TON of stuff in one spot, balancing it oh so delicately.

I’ve gotten pretty high. Pretty proud of myself.

The island is my nemesis. I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to keep it completely clean for more than 24 hours:

Oh my…that is so awesome.

There’s a little spot in the kitchen where my deep secret lies…

When I take pictures of our kitchen for the blog, I pile all of the crap to the left of the fridge.

It’s why most of our kitchen pics look like this:

Cause you can’t see the PILE-O-JUNK:

I’m a sneaky one. ;)

OH, but wait…I forgot about the very very worst spot.

THE STAIRS…

Dun dun dunnnnnnnn.

Namely the basement stairs.

I’ve tried baskets. I’ve tried…well. I haven’t tried anything else. Especially the one thing that would work – just putting the stuff away when I’m done with it. ;)

On those days when the fog clears and I finally see the piles around me, the hives start and it must be cleaned up immediately.

Rightthisverysecond.

I’ve developed a very complex method of fixing the situation fast. I grab a big basket or bin and pile everything in the room inside:

Sometimes there’s a few things that are put away during the process, sometimes not. This time about half got put away, half went into the bin.

I’m also a bagger:

I’m not even going to tell you how long that stuff has been in the bag. Let’s just say a long time.

It’s the weird odds and ends stuff that hurts my brain – I have to really think of where to put it away.

I don’t like my brain to hurt, so I do what any normal person would do – I ignore the bag for as long as possible. ;)

Really, I could probably throw the whole bag away and never miss it.

But what if I stuck $20 in there? I didn’t. But what if I did??

That’s how my mind works.

The occasional grocery bag is easy to ignore, so that’s why I usually use the bin. It’s too big to avoid, too bulky for me to keep walking around.

After I fill it up, I carry it around with me from room to room, putting the stuff away where it belongs.

It works for me because it cleans off the surfaces fast, and that instant gratification is saaahweet!

In about 45 minutes, (with the Bub’s help), we had the whole family room and kitchen spotless:

Ignore the overflowing basket of toys…at least they’re off the floor!!

I can now get to my cereal, and that’s important:

My hiding spot is CLEAN! :)

And the island is free of clutter for one shining moment:

The coffee table is cleared:

And I’m starting to remember why we’ve always had a smaller table in the family room – less surface to clutter up!

I found a smaller beauty at Goodwill a few weeks ago, and I can’t wait to show you! And it will be soon, because the new sectional is IN people!!

It’s done about four weeks earlier than we thought!

(Store photo. Not our configuration or color.)

WHOO HOO!! I am so excited! We have to wait a week for the delivery, and then the TV is getting moved a few days later…so I’m hoping to show you everything in a couple weeks. :)

I’m determined to keep the room picked up at all times when we get it all completed.

Stop laughing. I can DO. THIS.  :)

It will probably last a week, but at least I have aspirations.

So…tell me, are you a piler too? A bagger? A take your time and put it all away-er? Or do you just keep the stuff off your surfaces? If so, I want to be you.

**Oh yeah…and the stairs? They still look like that. I’ll get to that tomorrow. Or something.

Organizing the inspiration

Hey all! Some of you may have noticed that Blogger was down for awhile this week, and when it came back up, my last post lost all of it’s comments. So if you left a comment with a suggestion (I’m looking for perennial ideas), I would love it if you would add it to the comments again. (I reference them later!)

Speaking of referencing ideas. ;)

Many of you have asked how I organize all of the DIY project ideas that fill my brain. You know, those ideas that pop into my head right as I’m falling asleep and then keep me awake at night. (For reals…it’s sad.)

If it’s something I want to make sure not to forget, I’ll write it down on a notepad. I have one I’ve written ideas on for years. But many of my projects are born from inspiration I see in magazines or online.

Up till a couple weeks ago, my main method for organizing those was a binder:

I showed you my loverly binders on this paper organizing post – and one of them is filled with pages I tear out of magazines. I have four categories – walls/art, holiday, general projects, and general decorating ideas.

Some ideas I’ve had in there for years, like this project:

And I’ve had the supplies for it all that time too. ;) Need to get on that.

I love these fence pots:

And I look at them every summer and haven’t done it yet. ;)

I keep lots of how-to’s, like this one for all types of bows:

And this one for the proper way to prune a bush:

Most of the sheets are just pictures of beautifully decorated spaces. This Pottery Barn gallery wall is one of my favorites:

Love those lights at the top!

Every once in a while I’ll look back at my filed pictures and wonder what in the heck I wanted to remember. So I started writing on the pages:

The binder is stuffed FULL with ideas. But the problem is, I rarely have a few extra moments to sit and peruse my pretty binder. And if I do have an extra few minutes, you know I’m usually painting something. :)

Then I heard about Pinterest. It’s such a FUN way to organize and categorize all of the inspiration I find online:

I was so scared of it for the longest time – it seemed like it would be so complicated and all…technical. Me and techy don’t mix. ;)

But I tell you what – I had it figured out in about three minutes and I haven’t stopped “pinning” since.

When you sign up you just drag the “Pin It” icon up to you tool bar and whenever you’re online and see something you love, it just takes a click on that little button. It pins it into the category you specify, just. like. that.

You can also follow others and see what they’re pinning, and I find most of my ideas from those I follow. It’s awesome. I’ve already found SO MANY beautiful projects I want to try!

Like outdoor projects:

Or fun stuff, like how to make moon sand:

The stuff is evil, but the Bub loves it.

There’s all kinds of helpful tips I didn’t know about, like how to remove a stripped screw:

A bunch of yummy recipes and ideas:

And plenty of good old beautiful decor ideas:

I LOVE that red door!

My favorite part is that it saves the permalink when you save from your computer – so you just save it to your account, and you can always go back later to see more details.

You can also load pictures from your computer and if you have an iphone and the new app, you are supposed to be able to take photos and load them, although it hasn’t worked for me yet. :)

Although many bloggers use it – I think it’s a great resource for anyone! I have a girlfriend who does does a lot of etsy searching for the fantastic birthday parties she throws for her kids. This is a perfect way for her to save those ideas!

It really is SO FUN. It’s easy to get sucked in though – you’ll go in for two seconds and be on for an hour. And all of the sudden I want to search the Internet for every idea I’ve ever had, just so I can pin them. ;)

The only kicker is you have to be invited by someone who has a Pinterest account, or you can request an invite on their site. I hear that takes a few days to come through though.

If you would like a invite, send me an email and I’ll try to send you one! I’m not sure how many I can send out, but I’ll invite as many as I can (and as many as I can get to!)

So there you have it – two ways to organize the inspiration! One for the magazines, one for online ideas. I’m definitely referring more to the online method now that I’m using Pinterest.

**My friend Beth created a great tutorial on how to use Pinterest! Check it out here.

***I have no affiliation with Pinterest, I just love it. :)

The PAPER, organized

Hello all! Hope you had a fabulous weekend! It was absolutely FREEZING here. Ugh – spring is such a tease. :) I guess the planting will have to wait till next weekend. (Crossing fingers.)

If you remember a couple of months ago, I showed you how I was starting to get control over the paper in our house – once and for all. I had let it get waaay out of control, and it was time tame the paper monster around here.

It involved a lot of shredding – make that an INSANE amount of shredding:

But I prevailed people, I prevailed!! I have ridden (ridded?) our home of all the old paper that was creating clutter, found a home for the rest of it, and (pretty much) kept up with what has come into the house since then.

I think I’ve finally figured out a process that works for our house, so I wanted to share it with you. :)

The first couple of steps are total DUH moments, but they’re the ones that were the biggest issues for me in the past. Most days, I get our mail in the car – cause I’m lazy like that.

And that caused my first problem – the mail was piling up in my car daily. Cause I’m lazy. :) I littered my car with it and created a pile I had to catch up with when I did take it inside.

So my first tip for you – get control of how much mail you’re getting. Over the years we’ve changed many of our bills to paperless, so we get emails instead of mail.

I luuurve catalogs like you wouldn’t believe, but sometimes we start getting one we don’t care for and those add to the paper clutter quite a bit. About three years ago, I found a site called Catalog Choice, and so far we’ve unsubscribed from about six catalogs. Love. it. (Cause it works.)

One of my readers mentioned a site a couple of months ago that’s already made a huge difference – Opt Out Prescreen. It allows you to opt out from credit or insurance mail offers (that you have not initiated). It has really cut down on our junk mail, and it only took a couple of weeks for it to kick in.

My next step was to figure out a way to corral all that mail in the car, for the lazy days when I didn’t want to address it immediately. I grabbed an old laptop bag and now it sits next to me every day.

It’s not super large, so once it starts to get full, I know it’s time to address it and take it inside. It’s SO much better than having the paper strewn all over the front seat. My friends and hubby appreciate not having to move a pile of paper when they take a ride. ;)

The next step is to address as much as possible before I get in the house. I’ve had trash bins out in the garage for the mail for over a year now, but I wasn’t using them.

So I put our monster shredder out, next to the the bins:

Part of my paper issues were because I’m a bit of a freak about what we shred -- basically everything. :) I tear our address off of catalogs, prescriptions, junk mail with our address – everything.

So the shred pile was always HUGE. Now, I deal with it before I even walk in the door. It’s SO awesome to walk in with one piece of mail instead of five. ;)

Every Monday I empty the shredder and put the shredded paper and other to-be-recycled items and take them to our local recycling center.

I’m doing it!! I’m actually keeping up with the paper! WHOO HEW!

Next up is getting it taken care of inside. Anything that needs to be addressed but-I’m-not-going-to-address-right-now is put into a decorative box on top of the dresser in my office.

(Cutie little box was from HomeGoods!)

Right now it’s full cause I’m going through magazines and have a ton of inspiration pics to file. Normally, once it gets about half way full, I know it’s time to address it.

Anything left (invoices, utility bills, etc.) that I need to file goes into a bin in the top drawer to be filed in the basement:

But there’s always items I want to keep upstairs, easily accessible. I had tried wall mounted organization before, and they never worked for me. It all seemed to be just another “pile” of papers.

There were three different subjects I needed to keep organized – my inspiration pictures from magazines, stuff for the Bub (notices from school, game instructions, toy assembly) and general household stuff I didn’t want to keep downstairs (instruction manuals, phone numbers, receipts).

And when I saw the cover of Better Homes and Gardens a few months ago, it hit me. They had the prettiest, simplest binders and they were exactly what I had been looking for all my life.

Or at least what I had been looking for all of a few weeks. :)

I found them at Naked Binder and I LOVE. But they needed a little somethin’. Some honeysuckle blingity blang. I’ve been adding little touches of that beautiful pink color through the office here and there. Just a smidge. A skosh.

I wanted to label the binders without labeling the binders, you know what I mean? So I busted out my Silhouette and and made some cutie new tags.

I picked out some paint chips in the pretty pink color and used my Silhouette to make images of a house (for the house binder), an idea “cloud” for the inspiration binder (couldn’t decide between the cloud and a lightbulb, but thought the cloud was cuter), and an “E” for the Bub’s binder.

I just cut my tags out of the paint chips like I showed you here, and then glued two back to back, and put my little images (on vinyl) on top:

And they are just the cauuutest (free!) tags I ever did see!:

Precious! :)

The last step of my paper process is to take the to-be-filed box from the drawer downstairs every few weeks or so. I completely reorganized all of our hanging files after I went through all of the paper. Everything is filed by the most basic titles (credit – old credit thankyouverymuch), house, medical, etc.

I wanted to make sure the filing was as simple as possible – no standing there for five minutes trying to figure out where to put each piece of paper.

The hanging folders are organized alphabetically, the taxes by year.

I also have a couple magazine file holders on hubby’s desk down there, near the scanner. I keep the Bub’s artwork in those that I want to scan…eventually.

And finally…I’m DONE. Whew!! :)

Yes, it’s lots of steps. But it’s what works for me. I finally learned that I am NOT a get the mail, take it in, sort, shred, deal with, file it immediately kind of girl. I’m just not. When I was trying to force myself to be that, it didn’t work. I ended up with piles everywhere.

Now I still have piles everywhere, but they’re organized and they have a purpose. Solutions for taming the paper monster are different for everyone – so this may not work for you. But if you’re a procrastinator like me, it may work great. ;)

When I posted about my paper dilemma a couple of months ago, some fine folks from Sentry Safe contacted me about their Fire File:

  

Which was freaky weird, because while I was in the process of getting our paper under control, I was planning on purchasing this exact product.

We wanted a heavy duty safe for important files that would be fire safe and had a lock, and they read my mind!

They graciously sent me one to use, and I love it. It’s so heavy and sturdy, it’s fire safe up to half an hour, and it comes with a key for security:

If you keep your important documents like insurance info, birth certificates and social security cards at home, this is an ideal place to keep them.

The great news is the fine folks at Sentry Safe want one of you to have one as well!

All you have to do to enter for your own free Sentry Safe is leave a comment here – I’ll leave this open for the week, till Friday the 1st at noon. Remember, if you comment anonymously, please leave your email (write it out using “dot” and “com".)

Hope my crazy getting the paper under control process, or at least a part of it, helps some of you organize the paper insanity in your lives! If you’ve figured out what works for you, are you the git er done kind, or a break it into a million steps kind of chick like me?

I love hearing what works for you! (And it may help someone else!)

My biggest purge yet!

Hello there! Hope you’re having a GREAT week!

I mentioned earlier this week that I’m DONE with the decluttering of the basement…this is huge for me peeps. HUGE. Every year for the past few years, I spend what seems like half the year decrapifying this space.

This time, it only took me a whole year. :)

For reals. Seriously. A YEAR.

One thing I have learned on my decrapification journey is that ridding your home of STUFF is not something you can do just once every twelve months. At least in our house – it’s a constant process.

Now our home is a bit different than most. I mean, I tend to gather stuff faster than the average person. It’s the nature of my “job” – being a home decor blogger. Add to that a thrifty home decor blogger, and it just spells T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

It physically pains a thrifty blogger to leave that perfect such-and-such or so-and-so at their local Goodwill because if I see it, leave it and walk out without it, OHDEARLORDIMIGHTNEEDIT!!!

Like, tomorrow! Or next week. Or next year?

Or something like that. :)

Sheesh. It is intense people.

But over the past year, I was increasingly over the STUFF. I wanted our house back. I wanted empty shelves back. And I was tired of seeing wasted money sitting around.

I got really intense with it late last summer when my father-in-law passed away. As we went through his house (for weeks), I found my tolerance for our unused, unappreciated stuff was less and less.

I decided then that I only wanted items in our house that 1.) we found useful (and currently USED) 2.) were meaningful to us or 3.) we loved (things that were passed down, or that we truly enjoyed). 

If it didn’t meet one of these three, it was gone. Our biggest problem area has always been our basement. It’s just a prime landing spot for junk, obviously.

I’m happy to announce I have gone through and organized every. little. bitty. thing in the space now. It’s done.

I started with my craft area back in January:

This spot holds extra pantry and entertaining items, tools, craft supplies, electronics and my stash of decor stuff. Those plastic shelves are awesome! I think they run about $20 each and really hold up great.

The area to the left of my craft room will be our future movie viewing spot:

Hubs envisions a very large flat screen on that long wall. I see some gorgeous built ins.  ;)

We used to have a massive weight system in that space:

And it had turned into a perch for STUFF. We never, ever used it. EVER. For months and years, we kept it, thinking we’d use it again.

We didn’t. :)

(In our defense, there were a few problems that needed to be fixed. We kept saying we’d fix them. We didn’t.)

And then I decided it didn’t meet our criteria – so it was GONE. I called a company to see how much they’d charge to take it down, and it was $250. PuSHAW. I figured I could totally do that myself – so I did.

I spent a few days with a socket wrench and took that baby down. It felt SO GOOD.

We didn’t use it, didn’t love it, so why keep it? Yes, I know it was an investment at one time. But I’d rather it go to someone who would use it, rather than sitting in our basement, acting as a coat rack.

Over the last few months, I’ve moved the majority of the Bub’s toys down to this space:

His DIY train tables are a perfect play surface and there’s plenty of floor space (covered with a carpet remnant). It’s so nice to have a spot dedicated to the toys!

The plastic shelves make an appearance in this area too:

We keep the kitty litter in the spot behind these (under the stairs), so to keep that area as separate as possible, I stapled some cheap muslin up on the studs behind the shelves.

I also hot glued a fun polka-dot fabric to the backs of the shelves:

It helps to keep the toys put and it’s just a dash of cute. :)

We already have some great lighting in the basement, but there’s a few spots that need a little extra. I’ve found these plug-in lights at most hardware stores:

They ROCK. Ours hold up to a 150 watt bulb. It’s fantastic for extra light! (They run about $7 each.)

One of my favorite changes in our basement is hubby’s office. It used to look like this:

Actually, it usually looked like a pit of despair. The floor was always covered with fake snow, ornaments, fall leaves and Easter basket filler. :)

Both walls were filled with storage bins, and eventually I realized it was a waste of great space. After MUCH purging, I moved them to the end of the basement instead:

I’m hoping to get some fantabulous shelving to organize these even more. It is ridiculous that shelving makes me so giddy. :)

Now that former bin-filled space is hubby’s office:

It’s actually a really cozy space! As cozy as cement walls and floors can be anyway. I like to think of it as loft-like. ;) Hubs writes music, so he LOVES this spot. It’s far enough away so that he doesn’t bother us with the music and we don’t bother him.

When I said I went through every little thing in this space, I’m not kidding. I can’t even believe how many paint cans we had:

Insanity!!

Even though I had purged the holiday stuff last Christmas, I still had a pile of STUFF that I hadn’t organized:

My tower of junk had fallen, so it gives a little extra drama to the madness. ;)

And I even went through each and every CD and floppy disk from up to ten years ago:

I spent hours at the computer going through files. I was determined to get it ALL done.

I took the last of the purge upstairs over the weekend and I was SO HAPPY when I saw the amount of storage stuff I didn’t need anymore:

Over the past year, I kept count of the large storage bins I’ve sold or given away. It was right at 17. Seventeen big bins – and I didn’t keep ONE. That doesn’t even count all of the baskets, small bins, shelves…whatever. All of them are gone!

I didn’t want the temptation.

From now on, if I can’t fit an item the storage we have, then something has to go. My hope is to never buy another storage bin again…forever and ever AMEN.

:)

I snapped that picture above and texted my girlfriends to come and get free storage stuff…and even after one showed up and took a bunch of them, I still ended up finding more to add to the pile:

And then more:

I was on a roll. :) I gave a bunch to friends, and the rest was donated or taken to consignment.

Obviously, we still have lots of things. I like things. Pretty things, shiny things, thrifty things. I’m just not going to let them take over our home anymore.

So now, our foyer looks like this again:

It’s the first time in months I haven’t had a Goodwill pile by the front door. It feels good. :)

And our problem area, the spot where STUFF went to die…is now organized and ready for the (hopefully this year, crossing my fingers, pretty pretty please!) finished basement:

Whew. Just…WHEW. It nearly beat me people. But I overcame the clutter. :) Now…if I can just keep it in check!

So that’s the tale of my biggest decrapification yet. It didn’t happen over a weekend. Or a month…or even a few months. But it happened. And that’s all that mattered.

WHOO!! :)

Now…onto more decorating and DIY! (Double whoo!)