Staging a Low Revenue House

Sorry I haven't been writing often. We're on the last 6 weeks of this really long move. I'm not only trying to stage this house for my parents to get it on the market, I'm also trying to make it through the final 6 weeks of school when we're a little behind.

I thought I'd stop by and share the finished den area with you. I only spent about $25 on it since I had all but the rug and mirror--and I bought those at a thrift store.



Before:

After Staging:

 





A Low Revenue House:

Some people spend thousands of dollars staging a house for market, but when the house for sale is a third of what an average house costs these days, you don't have thousands to spare. So, what do you do?

Most of the time you stage it yourself. So, here's a few goals to keep in mind.

1. Choose the best feature in the room and tie everything to it. In my parent's den it was this gorgeous stove and brick back-lay. We arranged the furniture in such a way to highlight it's beauty, and that in turn dims some of the other not-so-pretty features.

2. Use as much light as possible. My parents had a family friend come and repair the lighting in this room which made a huge difference. Then, the use of reflectives and lamps helped bounce that light around. Features that aren't your favorite, like these wood panel walls, can look a whole lot better with a little light. (My parents cleaned them spotless to make sure they didn't reflect dust!)

 

3. Choose furniture that makes the room flow nicely. This may not be your nicest furniture, either. My brand new leather couches would have overwhelmed this room, blocked the stove, and made the room look horribly dark. I chose my antique, low-lying furniture for it's lightness and square edges (that mimic the edge of the red brick).

4. Add some warmth and coziness to the space. A $10 thrift store rug and some flower arrangements I already had, brought the room to life. You don't need to hide the flaws--they're going to see them anyway. What you want is to sell home, warmth, and livability. You want them talking about the way they could fit their den furniture in here, instead of guessing that this room could be used as extra space to store stuff. You want them falling in love with the fireplace and the thoughts of Christmas's future with family around it, not the inevitability of a new floor. Sell that life can happen IN THIS house right now! You can be comfortable as soon as you move in, even if you do want to replace the floors and paint the walls.

5. Use your very best! I packed almost all of my stuff in storage for this move, but I kept out my best decor for this project. Don't make the mistake of decorating to match what "starter" families will have on hand to decorate. Don't think, 'well they're not going to have nice paintings, so I may not want to "overdo" the space'. First of all, you never know. Second of all, sure--most people looking here are looking for a starter home--but they have dreams, too. Show them the home's potential. Sure, you may not have all this starting out, but you can do this! A nice mirror here, a bouquet of flowers there, and a warm rug and you can have HOME right now. You don't have to wait until you have three kids and move to a nice suburb to have the life you want. You can make this your home.

6. It's more about a feeling than about walls and floors. It's nice when you have the money available to paint all the walls (if you do, it's really important to do this) and to re floor anything that needs it. My parents were able to paint the non-paneled walls and had new carpet put in the bedrooms. They also put a nice wood-like floor in the halls and living room. This went a long way, but then the budget money ran out. Any more, and they weren't making what they needed.
But, remember when this happens, that a home is not about walls and floors. It's about family! Think about what every family needs to feel at home. A clean kitchen, an uncluttered space, a comfy and clean place to sit around and chat, a kitchen table to eat around, a clean and crisp bathroom that smells nice, and a cozy bed to climb into at the end of the day. Focus your attention on these and you have it made! Create these spaces to the best of your ability. Tell a story through your furniture.

What do I mean by tell a story? I mean, show them how they could live while they're here. Look here in the den. See, that hutch fits nicely by the stove and we can all sit around relaxing together in any weather. In the mornings the kids could eat their cereal and still see the cartoons before heading off to school. In the evenings I could cook and still be able to chat with the family as they sit at the table with homework. Oh, and this little bedroom would be the perfect office space and later we could use it as a nursery. Show them through furniture and decor placement how they could use this house to their advantage. Help them see it as a home, with life and food and help them hear the chatter around the fireplace and the smells of a nice candle going in the master bedroom. Help them to FEEL at home here.

7. Ignore what you can't change. Oh yes, you change what you can, but then let it go. Don't try and find a way to camouflage the air unit sticking through the wall. Just ignore it and likely they will too. My dad reminded me when I tried to hide the window unit in the master that everyone in this neighborhood was likely to have one.

Well, that's it. That's what I did with this room. And I'll try and have more pictures up of other spaces soon.

Linking Up to some wonderful blogs:



A Bowl Full of Lemons

Yard Before and After, yr2012

It doesn't seem like it's only been 3 1/2 years since we moved in, but it has! And we're just about to move out. It didn't turn out to be our permanent home like we thought, but we're really going to miss this house.

Here's the front yard when we first moved here:

 

And now it looks like this:

 

 

I just love it so much more. I'm going to really miss the light Texas Sandstone exterior. That was my favorite feature of this home. Farewell, beautiful house!

 

 

Before and After: Front Yard 2012

As you all know, our house is on the market and we've been feverishly working to fix it up for the sale. The front yard was one of our proudest accomplishments even though we didn't have the money to finish it off. (We decided to only get out a signature loan for $10K to do any and all upgrades that we had to do to make it ready. The yard was the last of what we spent it on.)

So, here is when we moved in:

We actually had more grass then! This was about the time the drought started and a lot of our grass died. I don't know if I have a pic, I'll see. Nope--no dead grass pics, but trust me, it was brown city.

Okay, and now for the afters (I know I have more than one of those):

 So, here's what we did. First, we painted the outside of the house a much lighter beige. It brightened up everything! We also put one of my green stars in the middle of the eave (is that what they call it?) just to give it a touch of character.

 Josh and Seth got up in those trees and trimmed the Dickens out of them! That also brightened things as they were shading the majority of the yard and covering up part of the house.

 We removed all of the dead or scraggly bushes and plants and trimmed the ones we wanted to keep.

 We would have loved to put siding on the house, but that alone would have taken the majority of our renovation budget. We hired professional painters and had them put on about 4 coats of paint! Even the edges of the windows and doors are the lighter color now.

 You may not be able to tell the difference, but the grass is much greener from watering it regularly. We also uprooted all the plants that were around that left-hand side tree and put a hardy helping of mulch around the bottom of both. It looked so much better!

 I mentioned the drought before. We had to put down new grass on the back half of the left-hand side of the yard. You can actually see where the new grass ends. That was also the end of our money and why we didn't put matching grass everywhere in the front yard.

 Oh, and did you notice our door? Not chocolate brown anymore, but a much brighter lovely green. We tried orange the first try to match the pillows. Ha! It was a joke. Even the painters were laughing (after they knew I also thought it was extremely bright). I'm talking, sherbet orange!! Anyway, I went to an old hole in the wall used renovation supply store and bought a gallon of Benjamin Moore in this green for $10. I have most of it left over for a future project. Yay! Anyhow, my hubby did the painting on that door. Looks good, huh?

 We also put dirt in all around the house. That's a little bit of a story, actually. The drought had the entire foundation edges exposed! I was horrified and called a few people to give me estimates on repairing the foundation. All but one said the foundation was still stable from all the previous work (see old photos of hallway and you'll notice the big square plywood patches), but it just needed a little tweaking. It would've cost about $5K. So we had some choices to make. We found out that our plumbing was fine but very old--the iron pipes they used to do back in the '50s. Well, they said insurance would usually cover the pipes being replaced for modern PVC, but it would take longer than what we had. However, if we did the foundation work, we couldn't go back and do the pipe replacement, because they were going to pump a dirt/concrete mixture under the house. Huh! So...we decided we'd rather take $5K off the value of the house and leave it up to the next home owner to decide whether they wanted their plumbing changed out before repairing the foundation. So, we just filled back in all the dirt around the edges and disclosed the problem.

 Here's a better picture of our new door color. And see the new baby bushes? We uprooted the old and put in new. It tidied up everything with dark rich mulch and new plants.

 I love how the new grass makes the whole front of the house look newer! I also created a little seating area and we bordered around the concrete patio. It was a really awkward place, so I wanted to display it as a useful space.

I just love the way the seating area turned out! I did this myself for about $15. The chairs were thrift store finds for $6 a piece and I spray painted them in Heirloom White (if I remember correctly). Then I put out the Iron skillet Wenzel box we got at Sam's years ago. You can find that in some of my really old pictures. Then I bought that little blue box--another thrift store find, and filled it with a fake plant and garden tools that I already owned. I threw a couple of outdoor pillows on the chairs to give it some color, and wha la.

Okay, let's take one more look of before and after.

Before:

And After:

So, how do you like my front yard now? I LOVE it!!

Making Space Mondays, Link Party #9

My sister and her son are HERE--yay! The guest bedroom was such a dungeon before and I really wanted to clean it out and make it feel welcoming for her. She'll be buying a bookstore near us and is staying here until all the paper work is finished and the little apartment attached is cleaned out.

The challenge was in keeping myself from spending any money at all since we'll be moving soon and I'm not making in purchases for the house until we get there. I pulled things from different rooms and mainly just cleared the room of all the mounds of clutter. Judging by that room people could've guessed we had lived here forever!

Here are the results. It could've been a lot better if we could've painted first, but the whole back of the house is going to be done soon so it would've been wasted effort.

Like it? So what have y'all been working on? I would love to see your guest bedrooms along with any other spaces you've been working on.

Gathering Moving Supplies

 It's only been two and a half years since we moved into what I thought was going to be my forever home, and just look at how dusty that lid is!! Well, looks like there's one more move to find forever on this side of heaven, so I'm glad I kept my supply box. It was a little on the messy side, so it needed a bit of revamping.

 So, here's what's in my Moving Kit:

• Big Trash or Recycling Bags
• Zip lock bags, various sizes
• Spiral Notebook
• Twist-Tie bags, large and small
• Extra grocery bags (for other people's stuff as I find it)
• Clorox Wipes
• Shower Head(s) to replace my expensive ones
• Sticky Notes
• Index Cards, 3x5
• Pens
• Fragile stickers
• Medal rings to hold index cards together
• Twist-Ties
• Scissors
• Tape Dispenser, Heavy Duty (WORTH every penny!!!)
• Extra packing tape
• Floor Plans to New Home (if available)
• Packing Paper (I don't like newspaper)
• Permanent Markers

 Also, I take along a my cleaning basket, with Scrubbing Bubbles, Windex, Endust, lots of cleaning rags, and Magic Erasers. I deep clean as I go, so I'll only have to do what's left and upkeep after packing.

 Oh, and my laptop. That's a must! I type out a basic inventory of what's in each box so that I can find it easily. I detail things like book titles, but most of the time the inventory looks more like Abby's dress-up clothes and accessories, plus my wedding veil. I'm talking very basic.

 I load it all in my freshly cleaned tub and I'm ready to start. The white drawer bin is for peices of sets found along the way or lost and found items. That way, I can add them to their proper container when I find it or at least know where all the little missing things will be after I move.


You wanna know my secret to GREAT, FABULOUS, AMAZING Boxes?????????!!!!!!

Barnes and Noble!

Yep, People, Barnes & Noble has the best FREE boxes ever!!!! Just take a look! They're all the very same size, they're pretty free of word clutter, and if they're strong enough to hold books...well, you get the idea. Oh, and really quick, too. If you are trying to get boxes from your local grocer...where every Tom, Dick, and Harry are also trying to get boxes...than you may be in for quite the wait. I call Barnes and Noble and usually pick them up either that same day or the next.

Aren't my boxes beautiful!!??? SOOOOOooooooo much room to write and absolutely NO color to distract the eye from what you want your moving buddies to be reading. And, did I mention they are the perfect size? It's like they were meant for books, lol! Oh, and I have a TON of books, too. Perfect size and weight for the normal person, too.

So, it's a packing we will go...a packing we will go...Hi ho the dairy-o, a packing we will go.

Guilt Free Decluttering

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:

² A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
³ A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
⁴ A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
⁵ A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
⁷ A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
And a time to speak;
⁸ A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.

I absolutely gain confidence to declutter from this passage of scripture!! There is just a point at which you say, "It's TIME!"

There are so many things I hold onto for when I have time to do them--a desk I might fix up, a ladder I might decorate, a kit of cross-stitch I used to be really into and haven't touched it in years, and the books I still haven't read. Even though there's a time to save those things and wait until you have a little free time to work on them, there's also a time where you give it up.

Moving triggers one of those times! There may be a couple of things that aren't quite "dead" yet. I have a brand new sewing machine that I never use, but my daughter is very interested in learing to sew and she's almost old enough. Same with my guitar. I would love to learn it someday, but I really don't have it at the top of my priority list--but Abby is very interested. So, these will carry on to my next home. But there are many many things that I need to move on from. So, out goes the set of plates that sit collecting dust. Out goes that study bible that still looks brand new because I found one I really love. Out goes that nice big board that we intended to put a shelf up with. Out goes most of the clothes that I'm 5 sizes from fitting in. It's TIME!

Guilt Free! That's the key.

Seriously, I gave myself a guilt free pass. Most of the junk I've been keeping is kept because of guilt. I spent $30 here and $20 there and never made anything concrete out of it. Like that cross-stitch stuff; I probably spent about $40 collectively on books and materials. My plan--make cheap Christmas presents out of them. Reality: I spent $40 and made half a bookmark. Guilt free pass. I'm forgiven.

But, you might say, what if Abby's interested in cross-stitch someday? Well, $40 isn't a pocket full of change, but it's also not a semester in college either. We've spent that much taking the kids to the movies before. Plus, I've already kept a guitar and a sewing machine for that purpose. So, guilt free, we're passing on the cross-stitch collection. If in a few years, after sewing has been sampled and guitar lessons are no longer fun (or maybe one does catch on!), if she begs for cross-stitch stuff...well, we might just buy the same exact thing again. But the price of storing multiple projects in bins and feeling guilty because it's there and we're not using it, and feeling the push to steer her toward that rather than paint that we don't already have...well, you get the picture. So, out it goes! Guilt Free.

Here's what I dumped this past week:

This pile and one more about half the size that I failed to take a picture of, went to the side of the road right after garbage pick up. That gives the pickers a chance to drive by and grab it. The dishwasher was taken first within about the first 10 minutes!

The bagged stuff went in the van for the thrift store. This is more than it looks considering that one with the pink is only half showing and these are enormous bags.

All of this and a ton of just plain trash left my house this week!

Now, on to this week!

Linked Up to:
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Get Outta My Head Please

A Weekly Moving Schedule

I've set up my weekly schedule to prepare for the move. It may need to be changed as I get nearer the day of moving, but so far this will probably work.

Sunday--Rest and dream, no physical duties
Monday--Thrift store run and errands
Tuesday--Clothes, linens, towels, or any other cloth, plus bathroom stuff
Wednesday--Focused Decluttering in area or space, list things more complicated
Thursday--Grab and toss day, trash and thrift store items, make your way around the house twice, another quick thrift store run if needed
Friday--Kitchen and books/magazines
Saturday--Outdoors and Garage

A Word on Schedules:

A schedule is mearly a thought ahead reminder. It is not meant to tie you down to that thing. If you're in the middle of decluttering clothes on Tuesday, you've got them scattered all over the living room and you're only half done by nightfall, you don't have an obligation to stop on Wednesday. You dub Wednesday's focus to be the living room in this case. A schedule's just a reminder, so that when you're sitting around on Friday saying, I'm so overwhelmed and I have no idea what to do next, you can look and find that Kitchen or books would be a great place to tackle.

As you get deeper into the process, you will have to change out some of the catagories. Let's say in a couple of weeks you've wittled down your linens to two pairs of sheets per bed and they're all organized and containerized. Your towels are bare bones necessity with all extras that you couldn't part with packed in boxes, and you're wondering if you left enough clothes to last you two more months. It's time to change that catagory to Bathroom stuff and Medicine Cabinets, or something similar. Once you uncover one layer another will become more obvious. You start with the layers that are most obviously packed to the brim with clutter/stuff and are taking over your time to deal with and then when those things are wittled down, you'll realize that there's another waiting to be dealt with.

If you have a weekly cleaning schedule, make it as similar to that as possible. My errand and grocery shopping day is Monday so it's not that big of a deal to drop off thrift store items on that day. Typically, on Thursday, I do a trash grab and toss, looking through each room for stray trash. It's amazing how much you find when you're really looking--toys newly purchased with chore money, unwrapped and packaging laying on the floor, the chicken sandwich you intended to eat for leftovers four days ago, the mail you forgot to sort for the last week, etc. Now, I just take two trips or even three, searching in the same grab-and-toss way, anything that I wouldn't mind throwing in the thrift store. Anyway, the more similar to your regular schedule you can make it, the better. Don't copy mine unless you don't have any schedule at all. Base it on your own routine.

Series on Moving!

Okay, so today I'm starting a series on MOVING!!

The last time we moved a realtor friend of ours helped with the physical moving from our townhome to this one. He stopped me while putting boxes onto the truck and said that people would pay big money for organizing their move the way I did. I don't usually like to brag, but I could tell he was really impressed.

At the time, I couldn't find anyone with good information about how to move...and believe me I looked everywhere. Most of the advise was at best, already obvious, and at worst, really bad advise. I want to spend the time to explain how and why I move and organize to move the way I do, because the fact is, you have to keep living in the meantime.

I got rid of a lot in the last move only 3 years ago, but I have changed a lot in that time in regards to my taste and needs in life. Just because something wasn't clutter back then, doesn't mean it's not clutter now. Also, we moved into a home with stuff already here! I got rid of everything in the house that wasn't mine, but the garage is still quite full of it, no pun intended.

What my hall looks like right now:

First Stage in Moving: Daydreaming Big

So...you're thinking seriously about moving! You don't know the date yet, there's lots of work to be done and your house is a cluttered mess. Where's the boxes, right? Not quite.

Unless you're being rushed to move, take a little time...possibly two weeks or so, to daydream.

What kind of houses do you like or not like? What would your NEXT dream home look/feel like. (Not your million dollar dream, mind you. Just the reasonable to dream, dream.) What kind of backyard/storage/even neighbors? What size yard, what kind of stores would be frequented, are your friends/work close by? What kind of neighborhood feels safe to you?

[A word on neighbors: You are going to be living next to "these" people, whoever these ends up being, for a potentially long period of time. This is the one time in life where I would say to let the inner prejudice out just a little. Don't let that monster, because it IS a monster, come totally out, but let it surface just enough to find a place you and your neighbors will be happy about long term.

If you are seriously prejudice against a certain people--Black, Hispanic, Greek, Jew, Christian, Indian, Muslim...etc, etc.--do these people a favor and DON'T be their neighbor!! It will cause them much more misery than it will cause you.

But that's really not the prejudice I'm talking about here.

Are you annoyed every time you can't understand what people are saying and get agitated when you go in an ethnic resteraunt because you can't figure out what the labels say? Then, by all means, if you're not willing to learn the language well, don't move to China town or whatever.

Do you have several rambunctious children who love to swing on ropes, screeching at the top of their lungs when they run through sprinklers? Take pity on the quiet neighborhood chauk full of retirees.

Are you a certain religion and would rather only have an "open" mind on your schedule and not everytime your kids come home from visiting the neighbor kids? Then, you may want to scour the neighborhood for nearby churches to see what's prominent.

Do you like to keep three storage bins full of sporting equipment, an old crib, and a broken easy chair on the front porch? You probably don't want to move into a neighborhood with strict associations. OR are you super organized? You might not want the house four doors down from Mrs. Keepalot.

Meeting a huge variety of people and learning from them is one of the most fun and interesting parts of being a Houstonian. That said, you want to live where you can kick your feet up and keep the debates to a minimum. You want to feel at home and not like a social butterfly who just moved into a convent of mutes! Just really think about who you are and pay attention.]

Linked to A Bowl Full of Lemons

BIG NEWS!! Like 2500sq. ft kind of news!

So, come to find out...my dream home was not Josh's dream home!! And honestly, after letting go, I've got a bigger dream than I once had. The last several weeks have been a flurry of emotions for me. For one thing, we're at the end of a homeschool year, and I am still a little behind. (Not too bad, but still). For another, we are about to take a huge leap of faith. I'm talking, quickly shuffle your dinky parachute on and leap out of a plane kind of leap of faith!! Our insurance on the house just took it's third consecutive rise. Every single year, the insurance has sent us a letter stating that our insurance is going up another $200 per year. This is the third year in a row. We talked to some neighbors and some of them are having a hard time keeping their insurance without doing excessive work on the house. People that have tried to change have found that no one was excepting new policies for this area. We are already spending FOUR Xs the national average for home insurance!!!! If that's not crazy enough to make you think of moving... Here's our situation: We went into the house with about $25K-$30K in equity. That was before we did any renovating. It's now inching it's way up to $40K and with what we plan to do before selling, it'll likely hit the mark. That's just the first thing. Second, this house is so leaky (air) that in the summer if you want it cool enough for comfort, you have to fork over about $500-$600 per month in electricity. Most people in new homes are paying closer to $200. Then, about twice a month there's something that comes up and needs attention. Most of it has been very minor...we need to chaulk that crack, we need to add some dirt to these holes in the back yard, I need to get the carpets cleaned, the racoons are back and we need to trap them again...etc. Still, that's about $200 on average a month that we're spending to maintain this aging home. Now, here's the killer............ready for this......................if we can sell this house for what a realtor has told us we could likely get for it, considering the equity, the lower insurance, the to-die-for interest rates we can get (we've got to-die-for credit, too), and the really low energy bill, plus we wouldn't have to fix stuff every other week.............we could buy a brand spanking new, built the way we like it, home, for only about $250 more a month!!!! Dropping your jaw??? Yeah, me too!! Actually, it almost makes me sick to my stomach. The little things that have needed fixing have really taken their toll on Josh. He's been far busier at work these past couple of years than when we moved in and he really doesn't have the energy anymore to fix all that little stuff. He just needs to come home, play with the kids, eat dinner, watch some tv, and chill out! It's like he hasn't had a real weekend in almost three years. Anyway, all that to say...we just might be MOVING!!! Boy am I nervous!! So, what do y'all think???? We would be going down in sq. ft. a little, but we'd have more living space, if that makes any sense. We'd have a smaller back yard, but bigger than the typical for brand new houses. And, my blog would no longer be focusing on fixing up, but just on decorating and organizing. And, since we would be on an even tighter budget, well that means even more creative thinking and purse-string pulling...right? I would love to hear from y'all! Any thoughts and opinions, questions and conserns are welcome.

Making Space Mondays, Link Party #5

This Monday is all about Oops decluttering, or Out Of Place Stuff. This is the first month we'll be making our way through the whole set of acronyms, too, so I'm excited. Just a little reminder, here are the acronyms I use and what they stand for:

Oops is Out Of Place Stuff

E.T.'s CUP is Easy Trash and Clean Up Place

PITS is Pass IT Stuff

NAPs and MAPs is Needs A Place or Make A Place

and lastly

TLC is Tedious Longsuffering Care

Each Monday I focus on writing about one of these acronyms and what it means to me, and this is the first Monday of the month so my focus is OOPS or Out Of Place Stuff. This Monday I want to share a little secret with you...more like a confession.

I am a horribly messy mom!! There...I said it. The cat's out of the bag and the truth is, it's a very ugly, dingy cat who claws at people and never purrs. I am a MESS. I've always got something in my hands, whether it be my laptop or a baby on my hip. I'm setting a drink down so that I can switch hips. I'm changing a diaper and jump up to answer the phone, meaning to get back and put it in the trash. The kids are sprawled out on the floor with a half dozen pillows finishing a math lesson and Abby wants to help with lunch, so there ends up being workbooks and pencils everywhere. By the end of the day, we're all wiped out with no energy left and we leave dishes to be done later. By the end of the week things are looking bad and it's a little chaotic. That dish that keeps getting overlooked when we quickly do dishes is stinking up the whole front of the house. We're tripping over toys, weaving our way through an L-shaped hallway and crash on our unmade beds! Oh, and the toilet wasn't cleaned last week. Has it been two? No, we cleaned it when so and so came over. Oh my, that's been like a month ago! Well, at least Josh dropped in one of those Scrubbing Bubbles self-cleaning pucks.

Oh yes! This is my life and my struggle. I'm a mom who can't function in chaos and I fight it daily.

When it comes to decluttering a room or closet or drawer, there are always OOPS things involved at my house, but when I start a project like I'm about to do, I don't actually start with that room. I start with picking up my messes. I start with doing the daily grind stuff like dishes and laundry or tidying the living room. Decluttering a room is actually a bit of fun for me because I just can't wait to see the end result, but in reality it would all fall hopelessly apart if I didn't backtrack and fix the messes that I made before sinking my hands into a project.

OOPS decluttering starts with the boring. It starts with what we have hated doing since we were kids. It starts by picking up your messes. I want to introduce you to my Chaos To Calm In 1 Hour posts. These are some of my favorite posts because this is exactly how my life is. When someone like me chooses to be a homeschooling mom, they are also choosing to live with extra mess! We have more art, more books, more workbooks, more office supplies, more projects, more dress-up clothes, more pencils and erasers, more science projects, and more odd things like a huge white board, than normal moms. Add to that the many, many more hours that all of my kids are home and have the access to this stuff, and you can just imagine.

Chaos To Calm in 1 Hour, The Master Bedroom
Chaos To Calm in 1 Hour, a Child's Room
Chaos To Calm in 1 Hour, The Kitchen
Chaos To Calm in 1 Hour, The Living Room
Chaos To Calm in 2 Hours, The Whole House

OOPS in the Laundry Room, May's Project

I've decided to focus on one room a month to make it a little easier to write about. I usually hop around, doing whichever project demands my attention, but this will make it easier to find my photos and organize my thoughts while still homeschooling full-time and nursing my baby.

I wanted it to be a small room with a big impact, so I chose to start with the laundry room. OOPS decluttering is pretty obvious in this room, isn't it? Catch up on laundry. You think I have a perfect system? With matching baskets and home-made soap?

Think again! (All except the home-made soap. I do have that-surprisingly easy!)

People, all three of you that read this, I need this as much as anyone! So...are you with me? Let's dive in there and clean out those laundry rooms! It'll likely take me all week to catch up on laundry for OOPS, and I'll be back next week for E.T.'s Trash (Easy Trash and Clean Up Place). And who knows, maybe I'll chip out a little time to write more than one post this week!!

Oh, and as soon as I can, I'll be posting a link-up that will be on-going for anyone wanting to show off their laundry room.

Making Space Mondays, Linky Party #4

NAP and MAP is by far my favorite part of decluttering because I get to containerize!! I love containers. They are just the best. I could live in The Container Store, but I buy most of my containers at Dollar Tree. NAP and MAP stands for Needs A Place, Make A Place and is the final step in my decluttering cycle. We will be starting with the first of my decluttering acronyms next week and I hope you'll join me as we continue decluttering our homes.

When I'm working on this phase of decluttering I think toward one main goal--creating a vacuum. Vacuums are empty spaces that when opened up suck in the things around them. The vacuums I want to create in my home suck in a specific type of thing and hopefully when working right, continue to suck them in.

Let me explain when and how I create a vacuum with containers.

 First I identify an area that's been bugging me but that we use regularly like my son's dress-up toys above. He plays with them all the time, we've already taken them down to truly loved peices, and yet they always end up in such a mess. This is one area I want to create a "vacuum" for.

I  have to ask myself why the current system doesn't work. So, I've been watching for some time to see how they play with this set of toys and this is what I see. I see him digging in the white basket for a specific thing or set of things--like the sheild that goes with his transformer costume or the mask that goes with whatever. The smaller stuff shifts it's way to the bottom and to get to it they empty the entire basket onto the floor before finding it. So, I need to try something different and see if it works better.

I created 4 vacuums for Abram's dress up so that the smaller stuff will be easier to find and will hopefully be simple enough to put away. I emptied all of his dress-up onto the floor and assigned specific baskets the work of vacuuming specific types of stuff. (This is also how my children pick up their rooms, btw). So, a basket's empty...now I just pick up all the stuff that goes there from on the floor. I have the big laundry basket for dress up clothes and swords, a small basket for hats, one for masks, and one for other accessories. I only get as detailed as can possibly work. I tried just the laundry basket, but it just wasn't enough. This is the next level vacuum.

 While I was at it, I also organized his clothes in his closet with Abram's favorite color, orange. The hanging baskets are empty for a purpose. They are their own form of "vacuum". Those clothes that end up hanging all over chairs and bed-rails go here. I figured out a few years ago that the reason they were out was because they were in-between clean and dirty. We didn't want to hang them back up because they had already been worn--like a pair of jeans--but we didn't put them in a laundry basket because we could get another wear out of them. So, they ended up not having a place (NAP). These hanging baskets are assigned this task of "vacuuming" up these clothes. When I need a little extra in a small wash, that's where I go...to the hanging baskets.

I just bought these simple little orange baskets as drawer dividers. They are awesome! I found them at Dollar Tree and they fit perfect. The ones in the drawers hold undies, swim trunks, play shorts, and socks. The ones on the shelves hold things Abram looks for regularly. One is candy that I don't want to get lost in some corner but that he likes to keep in his room. Another is his money, wallet, and coins.

 "Vacuums" are sorta like the machines that we use for our floors, they don't work unless we run them, but when we do they work fast and pick up all our messes. Here is another area that I created places and 'vacuums' for things...this one in my kitchen. This is my baking pantry. It was a horrible mess, but I didn't get before pictures.

So, what area in your home needs a vacuum? Can you clear a place, put in a container and start sucking up the stuff that now belongs there? You'd be surprised how much clutter can be taken care of from around the house by just creating a place for a specific group of things. There's a familiar saying "Everything has a place, everything in it's place", but before everything can be in it's place, you have to create that place and tell that stuff where it goes.

BTW...Next week is the beginning of a new cycle of decluttering. Whoo! This will be the first time all the way through. Do y'all want to do a specific small room all the way through or work on something you've been putting off? Maybe we can all work on something together! If you have suggestions, please let me know.

Linking Up to A Bowl Full of Lemons

Making Space Monday, Link Party #3

This Monday is TLC time! TLC stands for Tedious Longsuffering Care and is by far the toughest clutter to get rid of.

I had an entire post prepared about TLC, and then set it aside for this one. I want to journal a little today about just one of my TLC items that I’ve had trouble getting rid of. It’s 5 bottles of really great prenatal vitamins.

I had quite a number of prenatals handed down to me by a mother who had just had her baby when I found out I was expecting. They were the best, but they made her feel quite ill so she had to change. They were the same I had used with both of my previous pregnancies and I used them again…this time without having to pay the enormous price tag. I was grateful and now I have 6 leftover bottles.

I knew that it wouldn’t do any good to donate them just anywhere because they might just get thrown out if someone ignorant about these sort of things got ahold of them, so I carefully chose to donate them to my friend Michelle who works with Crisis Pregnancy Centers. But…as most TLC (Tedious Longsuffering Care) clutter goes, it is taking quite the time. First I needed to check with her about if they would even accept them since they were a consumable item and of course, she also had to check with the right people. Questions came back about if they were sealed and they were, etc. That part took about two weeks of back and forth to church conversation.

Then there’s the ‘it slips my mind’ phase, where week after week we go to church and at that very moment that I see Michelle or her family, Bam…it hits me like lightning that I have yet again left for church in a hurry and haven’t grabbed the vitamins. Two months goes by like this and it fades into the back of my mind where most other clutter does, except that I clean out the entryway furniture and find it here just waiting patiently to hitch a ride with me to church.

This morning it came to mind as I was sitting down for coffee while the kid’s got ready for church. I finally remembered and I wasn’t going to take the chance. I stuffed it in my already full bag and it made it’s way with us to church.

We don’t go to a small church, so I keep my eyes opened in every hallway and look around during service for her. Maybe I’ll snag a glimpse at her and finally pass them to another caretaker. No such luck.

But then Joshua starts getting fidgety during service and I have to leave. I only took with me the diaper-changing necessities just in case and left all other items by my husband’s feet. And, what do you know. Michelle happens by! (True story—this was just this morning). At first I was excited. I get her attention as she waves my way and let her know I have it with me but not actually with me since it’s in the sanctuary. Then she lets me know her husband will be in class so I can give it to him then. I sigh relief and stop worrying about it.

Class comes and I see him there, but I’m in the middle of a deep conversation with some ladies and keep glancing toward the bottles trying to signal Josh to pass them on to him. Wasn’t happening, but I think Oh well, I’ll just give them to him after class.

After class comes and no such luck. He left early without ever having a clue that I had anything of importance for Michelle. Ugh!! I could’ve screamed.

This is how TLC clutter goes. TLC clutter is haaaaaarrrd to get rid of. And normally the longer it takes to get rid of the more important it is. It could be small; two pages that need to be filled out for your insurance to be paid. It could be very large, like a car parked in your driveway that needs to be fixed before returning it to your parents. But it always takes the one thing we all lack—time.

The thing about TLC clutter is, you can’t just tuck it in some trash bag and haul it away.

If those two little pages don’t get filled out, I could owe big money to my doctor. So, it takes weeks on end to get rid of two pages.

If we just had the car hauled away, I’m pretty sure that would have serious relational repercussions.

And, if I decided to just donate those 5 bottles of prenatal vitamins to the easiest stop on the way to my next destination…then they might be thrown in the trash instead of being used by a brave women who chooses life for her growing baby instead of termination.

These are not things that take decisions like “keep”, “toss” or “donate”. It really can be more complicated than all that. Books about clutter can make it sound so simple as if there is something seriously wrong with you if you don’t just throw something casually into one of those boxes.

Getting rid of clutter can be a climb as hard to do as climbing up Mt. Elbert in Colorado—and I’ve done just that. It really is a climb. It really takes effort and work. Hard work. Time consuming, hard work. But every step you take, even the ones that take all of your energy, all of your resolve, and all of your Saturday off to accomplish…are in the end, worth it.


So, did I get those prenatal vitamins to Michelle?

Nope, but hopefully soon. But this TLC item was finished today!

Linking Up at these amazing blogs:
A Bowl Full of Lemons