Thursday, November 1, 2007
30-Day Organizational Challenge
Ok, for those of you that harbor any ideas that I am Suzy Homemaker, let me shatter those illusions today. Laura, The Organizing Junkie, is hosting a 30-Day Organizational Challenge and I'm taking part.
Now, the worst part of this is that I have to bare my soul, or rather, my messiest room, to the blogosphere.
And it's bad.
Really bad.
Bad as in...I close the door whenever we have company (or whenever my OCD husband is around!). Bad as in I can't walk through the room without stepping on something and hurting my foot. Bad as in...well, see for yourself.
My shame is complete. I promise you, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of visiting my home, that the rest of my house doesn't look like this. It is slightly cluttered, but still very nice. I've managed to contain all of my, well, uncontainable-ness to this one small room.
So, (sigh), this is our playroom/library/guestroom/junk room. Basically everything goes in here that we don't know what else to do with. As you can see, there are books everywhere. School things such as globes, maps, manipulatives, etc. are everywhere. And toys. Oh, the toys. Most of them are Imaginext toys that my son has kinda, sorta outgrown, but every once in a while wants to play with.
Ok, now here are my goals for making this a beautiful, livable, workable space:
- I need to remove all the books from the room. First off, I need to identify those books which I can list on eBay and get that done. Then, whatever isn't worth listing on eBay and I don't want to keep, I just need to donate to Goodwill. I'd like to cut the number of bookshelves down from 4 to 2.
- I need to either convince my son (not likely) to get rid of the Imaginext toys or move them to the garage, or find a better system for storing them. Currently they are filling 3 under-the-bed boxes (which don't even fit under the bed) and are always in the way.
- I need to make a system which will encourage my kids to put away cds and cd-roms when they are finished with them - right now they get left out and are all over the place, not good when you are talking about $175 curriculum cds!!
- I'd like to paint the room. It's right now a shade of salmon (what was I thinking?!?!?) and I want to paint it a nice neutral sand color, matching the main living areas of the house.
- I need to get the closet door to stay on. It keeps coming off every time we put it back up. Any tips on how those things work?
- I need to figure out a better place to store the large green ottoman until we are ready to have a garage sale and sell that set. It doesn't fit in any other room and it would get ruined in the garage, but this just isn't working.
- I need to make a shelf or two to be dedicated to the school equipment (microscope, globe, etc.).
- I'd like to put a pretty tablecloth or table skirt on this ugly utility table that we are using for a computer desk right now. Ugh!!
- And finally, I need to devise a way to get it to stay nice when I'm done. It seems like every time I get this room straightened up it ends up like this again.
So there you have it. I have allowed you to see what no other humans outside my family have seen. Don't you feel special? Now I'm off to get to work!!
To see what other bloggers are working on, head on over to The Organizing Junkie to see more 30-Day Organizational Challenge participants!
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11 comments:
Oooo, good luck!! I'm so bad for posting these kinds of goals because I never stick with them. Maybe I'll secretly play along and then at the end, if I've actually accomplished something, I can jump up and yell, "SURPRISE!!" I've got three two rooms like that in my house -- the office, the front porch (which is off the living room, is heated, and is big enough that it doubles as a playroom) and the girls' bedroom. Yikes. I'll take pictures now, but I won't post them until I have after pictures to compare them with!!
Firstly I just have to say how much I love the Longfellow quote on your header. I rather like Longfellow so I must look this poem up!
Hope you achieve your goals. I wimped out and chose a small space for my challenge.
Blessings.
Wow you have goals! Right now I only have photos (and a mess). I still have to post them, lol.
I had a couple ideas while I was reading your post. Maybe they will help, or maybe not. But I thought I'd share. :)
Could the ottoman become a "coffee table" for the room? You know put one of those serving trays on it and a (insert item here) as well.
Do you have away to lift the bed a few inches? Years ago my father made wooden lifts for my bed so the under the bed boxes would actually go under the bed. They measure W 3.5" x L 4.5" x H 1", just big enough to give a lift. Plus, he made them out of scrap wood he had around the basement, so they were free.
Good luck conquering the mess. I can't wait to see how it comes out.
I have a lot of junk drawers but I've never had the luxury of having a junk ROOM. I'm very jealous!
Good luck with the organizing
the "after" is going to look soooo good-i just know it!!
i am going to pick up lisa's book-been meaning to!
what about a cute curtain instead of rehanging the door?
You have your work cut out for you. The room I'm doing is similar to yours in that we just throw everything in there if we don't know where to put it. Good luck. It's going to look great when you're finished.
My scrapbook room is just like this...everything that doesn't have a home lands in here and when we have company I just shut the door. The rest of the house is neat and tidy...I mean I even label my pantry...how pathetic is that? Just this ONE ROOM!! Well, good luck...maybe all of us together can keep each other motivated to accomplish the task!
You have some VERY specific goals... that's GREAT!! I look forward to seeing what you do with this room... I'm sure it will look AMAZING when you are finished! :)
I'm so impressed with your goals!
The way we solved the CD problem is that my girls check out CDs from me. When they're finished, they're returned to me, and voila! No more CDs and cases laying all over the place getting lost and ruined.
I also agree with the idea of using a curtain at the closet. You won't have to worry about it falling off any more, and it won't take up space in the room when you open the door.
Good luck!
Hello, thanks so much for joining in the challenge! I love Jennifer's idea about raising the bed. I saw those bed lifter things at Walmart I believe. Love your plan, the more detailed like that the more apt you are to follow it. I REALLY can't wait to see it done!!!
Laura