July challenge

[kathirynne]

I participated in last month's challenge, but got overwhelmed. I felt like I was spreading my efforts too thinly, trying to de-junk all my hot spots and eliminate 500 things....:

So for the month of July, I (and anyone who cares to join me ) will focus my efforts on a single room, and try to get it exactly how I want it to be. (I started this in January, and it seemed to be effective.)

Who's in? We'll each choose one room to work on, and get rid of however many (or few) things we need to eliminate to enable the room to "meet its potential".

[kimbalicious]

This sounds like something I was going to start on my own -- perhaps having online support will make me stick to it. Now, what room?

Kitchen or dd's (since she bunks with us, we stil haven't painted her room or anything ) ?

[PeacefulSeams]

I'm in. My office needs to be finished. I can't walk in there. It is the catch-all for everything that doesn't have a spot. I have so many plastic bins in there just full of "stuff".

[MistyMommy]

My first post!

I'm game! I really want to get my office in shape. I have a lot of paper that needs to be tossed, a filing cabinet that actually needs to be filled with the stuff that is in stacks and I want to get my scrapbooking materials organized and available to be used.

[imaqtmama]

Ooooh! I think I will be easy on myself and start this in the kids' room. Over the past couple years I have been going through the kids' stuff and decluttering until I got all of their toys down to about 7 small bins with lids. When we moved to this new apartment in January we downsized their room. But we have done better with having their new bunkbeds. I have a couple boxes that need to find their places and to go through their toybox and throw away any broken, not wanted toys.


And maybe, just maybe, I will think about doing my bedroom next month. :

[Ruthiegirl]

I'm in, but I don't have a whole room I need to focus on -- just one cabinet! It is my junk cabinet in the kitchen and it is really awful. If I could just get that one space cleaned out, I would feel so much better.

So, I am committing myself to cleaning it out.

[KayleeZoo]

I'm in- the playroom is beyond horrible. I'd love to have it the way I want it by the end of the month!!

[wonderwahine]

im choosing my living room, its still really cluttered and i want it changed!

[mamato2boys]

I'm in! I'm choosing the livingroom/playroom. It's a huge area and we have three bookselves crammed with stuff, most of the kids toys, all of their books and videos and a bunch of other *stuff* all littering the room.

A lot to organize and a lot to purge

[1growingsprout]

im doing LAUNDRY.... silly as it sounds... its easier for me to sort the clothes and what to give away/sell when im folding/hanging up laundry... today i got rid of about 15 items to the donations center and i have about 10 items for the kiddie resale shoppe...

** my main focus is underwear this week** silly as it sounds my 5 yr old (boy) must have 50 prs of undewear... no kid needs that much.. and maybe start on all the kids socks...

we finished moving in last week so we are still getting settled... next week my goal is to weed out summer clothes and take what we dont like /wear/too small etc to the resale shoppe... im due anyday day with twins and i need a few things that i really dont want to pay full price for... so this way the items are "free" lol

then i will focus on jammies last...

after that my plan would be towels.. i have some nasty raggidy towels id like to replace...

[phroggies]

Okay, this is the first time I've participated in a challenge--this seems like one I can actually get my mind around. I'm going to be brave and say the kitchen. I've been so inspired by the pictures of everyone's spotless, clutter-free kitchens. Our kitchen is HUGE (relative to the rest of the house, at least), and contains a) all our "entryway" junk, like shoes, purses, bookbags, etc. b) a bookcase for library and other borrowed books as well as bill-paying material, c) a utility/laundry closet, d) another utility closet that I haven't EVER cleaned out (there's still junk there from the last owners), e) a desk with cupboards above it that are stuffed full of my unfiled papers, and f) oh, yeah, the kitchen itself. So this is going to be a definite challenge and I'm going to need lots of support. . . . .

[Thalia]

I'm in, but it's hard to choose a room. They all need help!

I think I will choose the kitchen, however. We are going to have it painted soon, including the 1950's metal cabinets (we rent) so I think I'm going to need to pull all the stuff out anyway. Might as well declutter and clean while I'm doing that.

There's a lot of old dishes and stuff I want to Freecycle, and lots of old spices and food that just need to be tossed. I opened a can of tomato paste yesterday and it exploded! It had gone bad. Yuck.

I also want to utilize the space that we have better.

Thanks to Motivated Moms, the fridge is pretty clean (even the top!), and so is the stove. I've been doing some Flylady, too, so the sink is clean. It's all the other surfaces that are nasty: the walls, the counters, the cabinets, the shelves. Lots of elbow grease needed!

[HydeParkB]

Well, I feel like a 10-time loser, because I never seem to defeat the clutter during these challenges. But I am going to TRY to focus on my closet.

Just a closet, you say? Well, my closet is so crammed with misc stuff, that I it's an embarassment. It's in the spare bedroom, and when guest come, it gets all the items that need to be put away 'somewhere.' It's go scrapbook items from our NYC, Chicago and London trips (3 to 5 years old), baby clothes and nursing clothes to sell, and gosh-knows-what-else.

I'm hoping to post the clothes on TP this month and get serious about the trip momentos.

DH is out of the house next weekend, so I will either make some good headway without him, or spend every moment keeping the baby happy. Probably the latter, but we'll hold out hope.

[hottmama]

I have decided my house needs help. This is my first ever visit to the Mindful Home Management forum, . I am going to do my living room.
I'm not brave enough to tackle the playroom yet (which contains about 20 grocery bags full of clothes in sizes 0-3 mos up through 4T, diapers that need sold, and toys that need tossed).
The living room needs a bookshelf, and I think that will pretty much fix our clutter issues. We have probably 300 books in this house and no bookshelf, just a few milkcrates stacked up and books in every chair. Also, there are papers everywhere that need an organizational system of some sort.

[sweetfeet]

I'd like to join in. I've been spending most of June simplifying and decluttering but I can't really tell yet as I haven't hit a single room. So little areas all over the apt are decluttered but it still looks, well cluttered. I'd really love to dig into our bedroom. So I will focus on that for the first 2 weeks of July.

The bedroom is the family bedroom and looks plain enough. It simply has a full and twin mattress smooshed together and a book shelf. Geez doesn't that sound all nice and simple? But our dirty laundry pile is 3 feet high by the time I do our weekly laundry. I can't fit a hamper in the closet though. The closet is the main area that needs attention. Once that is cleaned out I'll be able to put the hamper in there and it'll look much neater in the bedroom. I also need to pare down the books on the shelf. Some are never touched except for dusting and who likes to dust?

[sweetfeet]

I just got rid of 3 bags of clothes, 2 for my niece and 1 to goodwill.
A box of the good plastic hangers, but we had over 100 and well not 100 things to hang. I think I'll freecycle those.
2 bibles. I've never been religious and dh isn't any longer. No use for them.
A box of books that we'll never read again. Boy were they dusty.
Took the nice, name brand clothes and put them for sale. If they don't sell I'll give them to my niece.

The good news is that my closet is now empty. I can fit my laundry hamper in there and my dresser that was already in there is cleaned out. I'm using the dresser to store stuff for the new baby as we get it. That was really fun but now I'm exhausted.

[merrybee]

OK, I am in, again. I failed last month's challenge and only got rid of 50 things instead of 500. But, hey, that is 50 less things cluttering my small space!

Two years ago I moved into my parent's house receiving a small bedroom to share with my 2 babies. Downsizing from a 3000 sq. foot house to a small bedroom was no small feat. While most of my stuff is in storage you can imagine what my bedroom looks like. I have been given the bedroom my grandmother was in before her passing for my room. So before I can move in I have to move her things out. She has been gone over a year now and it is time. My focus will be to go through her things, distributing and donating as necessary. It will not only be a decluttering process, but also a trip down memory lane. I strive to honor her memory in this journey.

[kathirynne]

Progress!

I have chosen "the bouidoir" as my focus during this month. (My daughter and I share a room.) I started in there in January and it looks pretty good, but I want it even less cluttered than it is. (For inspiration as I tackle the rest of the house! )

I have a King-size 4-poster canopy bed, and my daughter has a twin-size loft bed, both of which are up on cinder blocks. (Not exactly Martha Stewart, but it increases the storage space...)

My daughter's clothes live in an antique steamer trunk (the kind with drawers on one side and hanging bars on the other) in the space under her loft, which shares the space with the wooden cradle that all my babies slept in (she keeps her doll and her Teddy in it) with a basket of dolly clothes and a dolly push-chair underneath. I think her space is pretty well organized, but I do have a shelf with pegs that I would like to attach to one of the cross pieces of her bed so that she has a place to hang her skipping rope and the hat she insists on constantly wearing.

Between my bed and the window, there is a "table" (made of stacked 5-gallon buckets of wheat, a board and a tablecloth) and a large-ish bureau (which I don't use, and which has been spoken for, but not yet collected. : )

The table will be eliminated as I use up the wheat, and the bureau is (I hope) on its way out the door.

[sweetfeet]

Between my bed and the window, there is a "table" (made of stacked 5-gallon buckets of wheat, a board and a tablecloth) and a large-ish bureau (which I don't use, and which has been spoken for, but not yet collected. )

That's a really great way to store some bulk food. We live in a smallish apt and things like that would work well for us. Thanks for sharing.

Today I went through the playroom. We live in a 2 br apt and one room is for sleeping and the other is a playroom/office area. The playroom was getting better because I've slowly decluttered since May. Today though I went through dd's puzzles and counted pieces to make sure they were complete. I went through the books and realized that we had a few duplicates I am done for now in the play portion of the room. It looks nice and simple. It's more inviting to play in I think.

Tomorrow is the office portion. Not thrilled.

[Thalia]

I de-cluttered three cabinet shelves today (my goal is working on my kitchen). Lots of stuff to Freecycle, and already a lot more breathing room in the kitchen. I was able to take stuff I'd been storing on the counter and put it away.

Once I've de-cluttered all the cabinets, I will clean them, and then reorganize.