Whittle Down Wednesday

I have decided to make decluttering a part of my daily routine.

My washer really has freed up some time in my day! :o)


I thought about doing one room/day and working through all the rooms my house a few times/month. The first time I declutter a room it might be a big job, each additional visit to the room will be easier and easier. I have worked a few rooms already but even with a HE machine I just can't commit to doing a whole room every day (I'm thinking closets, dresser drawers, toy bins, bookcases, etc). I still have little people that need feeding, diapering and play time not to mention errands to run.

I've decided to give myself a challenge each day, but to be realistic as well. I have a short 2-handled laundry basket that I bring to the room where I will be working. I empy the contents of the dresser/bookshelf/cupboard/closet and anything that doesn't go in the trash that needs to be returned to another room or be donated goes in the basket. I return all necessary items creating a home for them. Then, when I've finished the particular project, it is easy to carry the basket around the house placing lost items where they belong.

My project this morning was my bed side table.

I love to read. I don't have lots of time to read, but like to have a book (or ten) nearby when I do. I like to be inspired when I read. I read a lot of spiritual, self help, mothering, homeschooling and marriage books. If I do read fiction is is usually a read aloud to my kids.

When I purchased our bedroom set, I wanted a bedside table with drawers. My idea was that I'd always have a drawer to keep my books in so my table surface wouldn't look cluttered.

Here was the surface of my bedside table thismorning. For some reason 3 drawers weren't any help at keeping the table surface clear.

And here's why. Drawer 1 before.

Drawer 2 before. Drawer 3 before.
It took about to an hour sort through papers and remove the overflow from these three drawers and put items in new homes.

Surface after. Drawer 1 after. Drawer 2 after. Drawer 3 after. Just tissues, a folder of momentos and my booties and gloves for winter skin care. I decided to keep only one book on the table. I kept journals (8 of them! I can't part with them, though.), two Bibles and a few devotional books in my drawers. The rest I moved to a book shelf in my closet. (my old coupon inserts are stored in the 3 buckets on the bottom shelf).

Whittle Down Wednesday

Just a re-cap. The purpose of our Wednesday posts are to help us not just straighten things up but to remove unnecessary clutter and live simply with less. Frugal Momma and I were both inspired by Peter Walsh's book It's All Too Much. It's a great resource to give you a realistic picture of how our things rule us.


I cleaned up this drawer just a few minutes ago.

I've been enjoying out of town family this week and hadn't planned on posting anything. Looks great and it took me less than 10 minutes including photography.

Whittle Down Wednesday

I began re-reading Peter Walsh's It's All Too Much this past week. Last Wednesday I posted here that I had gotten side-tracked into just "cleaning up" rather than "cleaning out." Keeping in mind that the items I store should serve my family rather than us serving these items, I tackled another small space in my kitchen this week.

I can remember wishing someone with "real" organizational skills would come and help me streamline the spaces in my kitchen. I had so much stuff in my kitchen I didn't know where to begin. Thinking about tackling it myself seemed overwhelming. But, I did it. I just took one cabinet at a time. I thought about what the best use for the space could be and I started small. I can't believe how uncluttered my finished spaces look and how easy it is to find just what I need. It is also easier for the kids to help me set up for a party or a meal, and to clean up without my help. My boys would just put clean dishes on the counter for me to put away because it was too dangerous for them to try to balance the dishes so high on the shelves.

This is my other 4 shelf top corner cabinet. This sits in the opposite corner from the cabinet I posted here last week, between my oven and my refrigerator.

BEFORE

Sorr, I can't find my before picture. It could have been taken with my DD's camera. Trust me, it was in bad shape. :o( I will post a photo if I find one!

The only item in this cabinet that I used regularly was my food chopper. Four shelves - what a waste!

I also kept some serving dishes, a box filled with cake decorating supplies, all my candy making molds (last used maybe 2 -3 years ago).

A waffle maker, a sandwich maker, an apple peeler-corer-slicer, and a carving set were here (they still are).

I also had some candles, a warming pot to melt scented wax discs and lots of these wax discs. (I sure do wish I'd cleaned this cupboard before my yard sale!)

I also had a number of baking spices and extracts. I moved these to my baking cupboard.

Just about anything else in here went in the garbage.

Now the cabinet holds all my serving dishes collected from various other kitchen cabinets. It still holds the waffle maker, sandwich maker, carving set, my slicing/grating tool, and apple peeler-corer-slicer. The only other item in this cupboard is a plastic Tupperware container that holds some CD's. (I have a CD player mounted under this counter). Here is the finished product!

AFTER

Whittle Down Wednesday

I'm re-reading Peter Walsh's It's All Too Much. I was getting sidetracked into just "cleaning up" rather than "streamlining my spaces" by removing clutter (items that don't serve the function of the room or space) and keeping only items that serve me!

I hosted a High School Graduation party for my oldest this weekend and I was busy all last week (too busy to post anything on the blog!) getting my house ready for guests and planning our party meals.

I did plenty of cleaning & de-cluttering last week.

Our family moved into our home 4 years ago. We were blessed by the addition of two new babies to our family since we moved in. I think when you are always in "baby-mode" (pregnant and being so tired OR, nursing a little one and being so tired) it is especially difficult to keep your head above water let alone have the clarity to try and figure out the difference between an item that serves you and an item that you serve. My "baby" is 20 months old now. Idecided now was a great time to take a look at my spaces from an un-foggy perspective.

I spent some time in my kitchen re-organizing my cupboards. Before last week I hadn't changed what went where since I unpacked all my boxes 4 years ago. I have lots of cabinet space. I think all this space caused me to keep items that just cluttered up my cabinets.

Here is an upper cabinet between my stove and my sink.

BEFORE

I was keeping vitamins, medicines, and first aid items on the first shelf. Crafts, flashlights, grilling equipment, baby soap & lotion (for sink baths), matches, candles, pens, paper, 4 broken Christmas ornaments and two broken dishes I planned to one day glue together.

I decided I already have a place for medicines upstairs and that it was silly to have more than band-aids and pain relievers here with the vitamins. So when I'd gathered up all the medicine to bring upstairs it didn't all fit in a grocery bag! I needed a bag and 1/3 - and this didn't include all the expired meds that went in the trash! I moved all the vitamins up to the third shelf from the bottom shelf. I think this is safer.

I let myself off the hook and I threw away the broken ornaments and decorative pottery. I threw away any dried up paints and glue. I choose a shoebox sized plastic container to hold all my painting supplies and glue for the kids. Other craft supplies are somewhere more accessible to the children, in this cabinet I only keep what I need to supervise. All these crafts are now on the very top shelf.

Now I have a very large decorative pasta bowl on the bottom shelf, the second shelf up stores my cut glass cake pedestal plate (this gets a lot of use April - October!), my grilling basket fork and turner & matches.

On the third shelf are all vitamins on a lazy susan and some candles.

The top shelf holds the crafts I mentioned earlier.

AFTER

I will post my other cabinets in the weeks to come.

Whittle Down Wednesday

I highly recommend Peter Walsh's book "It's All Too Much!" It gave me such a new perspective on our things. As mothers so much of our time is spent taking care of, or cleaning our things. I decided I'd really rather have fewer things and more time.

This week I tackled the TV/VCR/DVD/Media cabinet in our family room.

Our family does not have cable or satellite TV. We used to have an antenna, but it broke.
All of our TV time is spent with DVDs or VHS tapes from Netflix, the local library or our own collection. As you can see from my before shots, our home collection was getting out of control.

We store our VHS tapes below the TV and our DVDs are above it to keep the more fragile media away from the little ones.
I removed over thirty titles from our collection. I tried to keep only musicals, classics, educational, and religious films. We can always rent a title from Netflix or borrow from the library. Honestly, I’d prefer they store the films instead of me!


Here is the cabinet restored to order! There is still alot of media. But maybe I'll pare it down again inthe future.
I taped up and rubber banded the remote controls back together and stuck them in a plastic container on the top shelf. Here is a photo of it inside the cabinet. This container also fits the white DVD sleeves from Netflix and loose DVDs that don’t make their way back into their cases right away.What an improvement. Everyone happily noticed the change here! AND, no one has even noticed any missing titles! LESS IS MORE!

Whittle Down Wednesday

THE LINEN CLOSET

My linen closet is in my laundry room. I store sheets, towels, cleaning supplies, medicines, first aid, extra health & beauty supplies.


Inspired by the book "It's All Too Much" (se side bar for link to book at Amazon), I started the "clean sweep" in my home a couple of months ago and spent a little time in this room. I realized that we had towels in the linen closet, in the dirty hampers, in the washer & dryer, on hooks in the bathrooms, and occasionally on the floor in the kids' rooms. I realized that just because there are ten of us doesn't mean we need 20+ towels! I pulled all of the older thining towels (maybe 4-5) and cut them into small cleaning cloths. I stored another 4-5 towels in a hiding place that I could go to if we really did need the extra towels. I immediately noticed a difference in the laundry. Also, my fear of not having a towel when we needed one still hasn't been realized.


Yesterday, in preparation for this blog entry I tackled the linen closet once again. I decided to pull a few more towels (less is more!) and sort through my medicines again. I also pulled excess heath & beauty items I purchased for almost free at CVS and added them to my yard sale pile. Here are my before and after shots of the medicine/first aid shelf.

BEFORE

AFTER

Next, I pulled sheets that were never used because they were torn or the elastic had worn out. (Why was I keeping these?!) I organized the sheets in stacks according to bed size. We use 1 crib, 5 twin beds, 1 full and 1 queen size beds in our home. I have special linens and comfortors I use in our large bedroom for when we host another family - I keep these in that bedroom. I store the queen sheets and the crib sheets in a chest of drawers in the master bath. So, all I have in the linen closet are twin and full sheet sets. Looks pretty messy here.



I found that I have 12 sets of twin sheets and 4 sets of full, including those sheets on the beds. I removed the "Barney" sheets, but will hold them in reserve for #8 when he moves to a big boy bed. Next, I pulled two twin sets and one full set to donate. I need the remaining 2 fulls and 2 twins for when the house is filled with blow up mattresses and cousins. The extra 2 twin sets are cotton and will replace the flanel sheets currently on two beds. The flanel sheets will be packed away. They will not be stored here. Doesn't this look better?



Now I know that I don't need two sets of sheets for every bed. I don't wash all 5 sets of twin sheets on the same day. And, because we have fewer towels and less clothing I don't have such a back log of laundry. I find that when I do wash sheets, they are ready to go right back onto the bed before bedtime the same day. If I don't, the kids have a slumber party on the floor and they are back on the following night.

Now I have fewer possesions and greater peace! :o)