Operation Organization: Where did all my sh*t go?

I’m 2 weeks into Operation Organization.

If you Follow the Facebook page, you may have seen the progress.

If not, here’s a recap.

So far, I’ve finished the dining room…

Before

After

The mudroom…

Before

After

The office….

Before

After

My bedroom…

Before

After

Number 6 and 7’s room….

Before

After

The stairs…

Before

After

And one side of the playroom…

Before

After

Now to answer the 3 biggest questions that have been asked on the Facebook page…

1) I’m overwhelmed… How do you decide where to start?

Start small.

If the thought of cleaning a whole room is too much to deal with, start with one side. Or one corner. Or one box.

Sometimes once you get through a box, you become a little more motivated.

Then, pick another box. Keep tackling one small thing each day. Eventually you will get the room done.

This is how I started. I wanted to get my whole house in order, but the thought of getting everything clean was completely overwhelming.

It all started with just cleaning the hutch in my dining room, and the decision to keep tackling (at least) one project a day until the house is done.

2)Where are you putting everything?

and

3) How do you decide what to keep and what to get rid of?

If stuff belonged somewhere else, I put it where it belonged.

I cleaned out cabinets and used them for their intended purpose.

They’re not perfect, but once I get every room in order, I can go back and use them more efficiently.

I took all the pictures cluttering the corner of the office

and I actually hung them up.

I went through every single piece in this pile in the playroom,

and I sorted them into baskets.

Lincoln logs…

animals…

Everything.

There are too many legos and blocks to fit in the small baskets on the shelves, so those are in larger plastic containers.

Since those are pretty ugly to look at, I put them under the table and out of the way.

The kids can pull them out to use them and then slide them back underneath.

The table is deep enough that there is still plenty of room for their legs and feet when they are sitting down at it to draw or do whatever.

A lot has gone into the garbage.

If a crayon is too small to hold, it’s garbage. Sure, I’d love to melt all that shit down into a cool crayon a la Martha Stewart, but there’s just no time for that right now.

If a book looks like this:

it’s garbage.

If a car is missing a wheel, it’s garbage.

If I have no idea what the hell it is or what it’s even for, it’s garbage.

I went through the big basket of costumes and dress up stuff.

If it was ripped, completely tattered, or hadn’t been worn by any of the kids in more than a year,

I chucked it.

Today I move to the other side of the playroom with, among other things, the games, dvd’s and puzzles.

If a game is missing a bunch of pieces or the board is broken, it’s going in the garbage.

If a puzzle is missing pieces…adios.

If a dvd is full of scratches… smell ya later.

The clothes went to three different places.

I’m sending some to a friend who could use them.

Some are going to Goodwill.

Then some were stained or had small holes in them and weren’t suitable to hand down or donate.

I let Number 5 keep a couple things for some dress up clothes for her dolls and stuffed animals.

I turned the rest into rags. I use them for cleaning, and my husband uses them for staining stuff out in his shop.

I didn’t really keep anything for a tag sale. I’ll post a couple things on the online tag sale sites on Facebook.

But for the most part, if it didn’t have a designated spot, I got rid of it.

One last piece of advice…

Start with a plan knowing that you will probably have to make some adjustments. Don’t put pressure on yourself to have everything set up perfectly.

Once you use your newly organized space, you can tweak it as necessary.

For instance, the kids love working and drawing in the newly organized office, but I didn’t think about setting up a spot for them to hang up any of their artwork. Sometime next week I will probably get to that so I don’t have 4000 papers floating around everywhere.

Hope those suggestions help.

I know it’s not easy, it’s not really fun, and it’s monotonous and boring.

But I promise you that the payoff for all the hard work and time is well worth it.

If you have your own before and after you are proud of, send it to me! I’ll share if you’d like!

Happy Organizing!