"SPRING CLEANING" IN THE FALL
Nov. 19, 2012
With the changes that have happened in our family and with our 4 kids coming home from BYU for Thanksgiving and with our issue with pantry moths, it was time to clean out, throw out and organize!
I really didn't ever completely move in and organize when we moved to Arkansas 7 years ago, so it was long overdue.
I first called Vernon and asked his support to do a drastic "gutting out" of our junk and stuff that was weighing us down. He said, "Go!" Later, he did admit that he didn't expect such a drastic overhaul, but in the end he is happy!
I started with the pantry, moved to the basement food storage room, then hit my office upstairs and then went floor by floor to put things in place. It took about 10 days of constant hard work, but oh it feels so good to be more organized and free of clutter!
My mother requested pictures of my piles of garbage and "give aways." I filled and hauled at least 20 garbage bags of stuff out of the house!
I feel so good!
This picture gives you an idea of how every shelf and every room in my house looked -- stacked and stuffed and a disaster.
This was our poor dining room for several days
Rebecca, Rachel and Michael helped me clear out the food storage room and we found our shelves! Our shelves were a big wimpy, so we used "Girl Power" and we reinforced them and made them tough enough for food storage for a big family!
Rachel learns to use the power tools!
Mason is a big helper and keeps us smiling --
he likes the maze of the packed basement!
More pictures of all our stuff piled everywhere!
Michael, our friend, helped me move the food storage buckets!
They were heavy!! Then after the room was finished, he helped us
go through every bucket to check for bug damage and we reorganized them in the pantry. He counted over 200 buckets that were moved, sorted and moved again! That was a lot of work!
Dad comes to inspect our work!!!!
Rebecca was the diligent painter!! She did at least half the painting!!
Rachel liked playing "Bunking Bronco" on the ladder!
She was a hard worker, too!
Mason had fun trying on costumes that we found!
This was the fun part!!! Filling the shelves in an organized pattern!
Strategy -- put in the most important things first and then when it is full, you are done. Throw the rest away. :)
Next came my upstairs office!
It took me 3+ hours to haul everything out of there! Our bedroom
was packed.
Our bathroom was packed.
The hallway was packed.
It was a good thing Vernon was out of town to spare him the pain!
Here are pictures at my mother's request .....
First, the "give away" pile that Vernon is taking to Goodwill for me this afternoon!
Second, is the garbage pile that is patiently awaiting garbage day on Wednesday! It will be quite a surprise for the garbage folks!
Come back to my next post and see the results!!!
Wow, you have been busy!! I feel inspired to start some sort and eliminate myself. It looks really great!
ReplyDeleteAlso, thanks for your sweet and funny comments on my blog. I will have to invest in some wool socks.