Lent Challenge update

I did it!

I can't say that every single nook and cranny in my home is organized, but I gave it a good shot.  I go a little "intense" as my husband calls it when I'm passionate about a project. What I mean by this is, I didn't exactly throw one bag of trash away every day for 40 days.  I took a space in the house and "overhauled" it instead.  On days when I was short of time, I might do a drawer somewhere.  On days when I had a good deal of time I would tackle a closet or other big project.  Honestly, it was exhausting.  It has already been soooo worth it though!  I can now proclaim myself, "Queen of the plastic bin."  I've always been a plastic box fan, but now I seem to find them even more wonderful.  I probably bought 20 or so bins in various sizes throughout this process--and spent a few hundred dollars, this was not an inexpensive project :). Here is a SMALL sampling of what I did for lent.  Really, this is just a few of my projects (and it looks like a ton!).

I had a haphazard mixture of art supplies and drawing paper in this drawer.  I moved all of our drawing supplies in here as well as our stickers and coloring books.  I put our paint in a high drawer in the laundry room (for obvious reasons). I threw away TWENTY coloring books that had been completely used up.  Why did I keep them?

I went through all 200!!! of our DVDs and categorized them.  These are the movies, for grown-ups (alphabetized, of course!) and a few games (games used to live in this cabinet along with puzzles) that Gumdrop can play with.

These are the movies for kids.  This is not exactly a space saving solution, but I wanted to be able to see everything, and the Hubs really wanted to keep all the DVD packaging.  So, this was my solution.  Before, our DVD's were stacked on top of each other in these cabinets and I could never find what I wanted.

My desk drawer, complete with bins for cords and supplies! I also keep my address book and some stationary for jotting down notes.

I had all my big necklaces hanging on a corkboard hidden in my closet.  I decided I might wear them more if they were out where I could see them.  I put necklaces in a jar and bracelets in another jar.

A bin for everything!  This cabinet under my bathroom sink looks so much less cluttered just by putting my "extras" in a plastic container.

Bags, bags, and more bags.  I had bags everywhere.  Under beds, in the top of closets, in the laundry room, in the garage---you name it.  I took all of the bags that we don't use every day--like my traveling toiletry bag, my swim bag, an extra backpack, and a laundry bag that I use for traveling and put everything in a box in the bottom of my closet.

This one I can't take credit for but I wanted to share.  My MIL came up with this solution to store our extra legos.  Genius, huh?

I cleaned out so many toys!  A huge bag of baby toys is now in my garage ready to be donated. Very bittersweet.  This is what baby girl ended up with, which I think it plenty!

 I discovered in this process that my son is a collector.  I found no less than 20 lollipop wrappers in his bathroom.  Mind you, he has had extensive problems with his teeth and I don't allow lollipops often. I couldn't fathom where he had gotten them from, nor could I fathom why he was keeping them.  I threw them out and he freaked out when he came home from school that day and saw that they were gone.  I asked why he was keeping them and he said, "We get Dum Dums for doing good things at school.  I was collecting them to make sure I had gotten every flavor."  One of my friends said, "At least he has goals."  Hilarious.

I gave him a ziploc baggie to collect them in (although, I'm pretty sure this particular treat is going to get us another cavity).  I also gave him a baggie to collect his Skylander video game cards. Better solution for this anyone?

I did massive clean out of the girls' bathroom.  We made bins for sunglasses and jewelry.  I'm also astonished that my daughter has enough make-up (lip glosses and such) to warrant a little dish for them.  Geez.  Those stella and dot containers hold our pony tail holders and barrettes.

Books, books and more books.  I'm an avid reader and so are my kids.  We sorted through and cleaned out dozens of books.

I felt like I would leave an area only to find something else in it.  See that block under the book case in the photo above?  When I went to grab it I found this booklet and another book.  It never ends!

This is my only "before" photo (I was too embarrassed to take pics of anything else).  All this artwork was in a closet about two years ago.  I took it all out and stuck it under Lollipops bed thinking I would find a suitable place for it soon.  Well, two years went by and it was still there. I'm really ashamed at myself!  Anyway, I went through it all and parted with a bunch of it.

Now it is back in its home (under the bed) but it lives in an under bed tub.

Games Gumdrop can destroy or that cause choking hazards were put in a bin and placed in the top of My Boys closet. Bigger games and puzzles are on the opposite high shelf away from destructive little baby hands (oh how I love her!).

This is my masterpiece.  Paperwork kicks my butt.  I'm clueless.  I hate throwing it out, don't have time to spend hours shredding it, and don't really want to part with my babies' masterpieces.  I FORCED myself to go through boxes of paperwork.  I had stuff for My Boy going all the way back to his Mother's Day Out Days.  I allowed myself to keep 20 or so papers for each grade level (way more for 1st grade---we had some awesome stuff last year).  It now lives in this fantastic file box.  I know I'll have to make a new one when we start 3rd grade, but I'm cool with that. I made one for Lollipop too.  Ya'll don't understand, I was drowning in paper work.  This is a Hallelujah moment!!!!

I put away all of our winter clothes (well I kept a few things out for a cold spell) and boxed up donated items and items to sell at JBF in October.  I spent probably a total of 6 days on all three of the kids closets.

My hall closet!  Look at this find!  I used to keep my tissue paper and ribbon in a big open box.  Now I have this stackable box.  Ribbon on top, tissue on bottom.  I love it!

I spent a full day in here.  All those boxes on the two bottom shelves hold holiday decorations (I already had those before this started). When we are ready to move out I'm determined to go through each of those boxes and sell all the Christmas stuff I don't put out.  I didn't tackle that right now because I figure its contained and if I moved it out I would have to find a place for it.  My gift tub is also in this closet along with all my gift wrap stuff.

Notes, paper, and stationary.  Again, all this was scattered all over the place. My address labels and stickers were in the kitchen with the stamps.  My calling cards were with my gift wrap.  My stationary was in a closet.  I decided I wanted all paper products in one place.  I love this.  I know exactly where to go now when I need something.

We have a built in pantry that stays pretty well organized.  I'm including this because I have a little challenge.  She's 20 months old today and she gets into everything.  I can only use the top three shelves of my pantry (including the door).  Fun, huh?  I've even had to move everything out of the drawers she can reach (which is why my bread is with ziploc baggies).  I'm running out of options.....I can't wait for my new house's walk in pantry....with a door that can be baby proofed!

So, when was the last time you cleaned out your medicine cabinet?  I threw away some Benadryl from 2008.  Awesome.

And finally, under my kitchen sink.  Thankfully, the baby has broken most of the locks we put on the cabinets but these have held up.  I threw away so much stuff in here.  I had so many duplicates.  I'm hoping that by putting everything in shower caddies I can see what I have.

I hope that next year I'll do something else for lent because I'll have this awesome, new organized house. I'm determined to keep up the organization and never go back to a "I'll just stick it here for now" mentality. It takes daily maintenance but my sense of peace shows me how worth it the process is!