Decluttering - Week 4 Day 1 - Magazines and newspapers

Week 4

1. Magazines and newspapers
2. Decorative items in living areas
3. Furniture - throughout the living area
4. Clothing - Kid dressers - Day 1
5. Clothing - Kid dressers - Day 2

Generally, I keep on top of this all the time.  The kids bring home the paper free from school.  We get one every day from a town near here and then four (one for each of them) from this town that we live in.  It's a little more than we need, but it's our fire starter.  So as soon as we are done with the paper, that day or the next, it goes down to the box downstairs that holds the papers for kindling

These will go downstairs when the laundry needs to be brought up.

When I was doing the bookshelves, I cleared out some magazines, but I do have a pile of magazines that need to be gone through.

So that will be done today.

Since I am in the habit, this will be easy today.  Which is super because four kids are sick on the couch and I have a pile of work.  Between loads of laundry and cleaning rooms, I am sitting down for a minute to write this post.   They are done with making the messes and are now able to tolerate water and toast, but still I am way behind.

Magazines that need a new home

24 magazines that will find a new home.

Total for the challenge is 344.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 3 Day 4 - Medicine cabinet

Some of you will think I have forgotten Day 4 - and I did forget it yesterday, but I am doing it today. :)

 This is the medicine cabinet.

All this stuff needs to go. We aren't using it or it's outdated.

And now it's organized again.  It's not too different, but what's in the boxes is what it says belongs there.  :)

Total for the challenge is 290.

Keep pressing on.
Steph

Decluttering - Week 3 Day 5 - Children's artwork

This was our area for coloring supplies and other things for crafts, but it always got away from me.  The coloring books stacked up on the shelf and the crayons underneath.  Ugh.  Always everywhere.

But the Zip-top tote really helped with that.  No more coloring books than fit in the bag or than make it too heavy for little people to carry.

Now I have a lot more space on my shelves and it looks so much better.

So many pockets for crayons and glue and scissors and paint brushes.   All you need to do is carry it to a table.

I honestly did this a week ago and it is still working out super well.

Total for the challenge is 320.

Keep pressing on.
Steph

Decluttering - Week 3 Day 3 - Books Day 2

Today we're working on the other bookshelf in my room:

 

 

And I found only a couple of things, so my total for the challenge is 271. 

 

 

Keep pressing on.

Steph

Decluttering - Week 3 Day 2 - Books Day 1

Here's the area I'm working on today;

 

 

Well, the bookshelf doesn't look much different, but I found 29 things that needed to go or be given away. 

 

 

So my total for the challenge is 269 items so far.

 

Keep pressing on,

Steph

Decluttering - Week 3 Day 1 - My desk/work area

We are on Week 3 now in this 8-week challenge.  At 10 things a day, we should be at 150 things so far.

Here's what our week looks like:

1. My desk/work area
2. Adult books - Day 1
3. Adult books - Day 2
4. Medicine/vitamin cupboard
5. Children's art work

So today, I brought down everything from my desk in my room, plus a couple of other areas that needed some cleaning up.

Now the desk in my room looks like this:

Oh, yeah, I can work with that.

But my work area during the day when I'm watching kids is the dining room table.  This is what that looks like:

Now, I have to work on sorting and filing.  I put the manuals and things into a 3-ring binder with page protectors.  Each manual goes in a page protector.  I need a bigger three-ring binder.  I found nine manuals for things we don't have. 

But my total for today is 15, because I threw away a coat, a shirt and 4 socks with holes. 

My total for the challenge is 230. 

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 2 Day 5 - Children's Books Day 2

So on Friday, I pulled all the books out of my younger four's rooms. 

I brought them down in laundry baskets, so that I could go through them while the little ones were sleeping. 

My total for the day was 30. 

Total for the challenge is 215.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 2 Day 4 - Children's Books Day 1

I'm switching things around and doing my desk on Monday.  The next two days will be Children's books.

If you read the sign on the box in the first picture, you'll know we no longer use the box for mind games and puzzles.   But it's the box/tote on the bookshelf in the living room for the little ones to look at.

Before

After

My kids books on the bookshelf in a hallway:

Before

After

Before

After

And what's on it's way out?

These are going to a good home - to someone who hasn't had a chance to read these books. 

Total for today - 45

Total for the challenge - 185

Keep pressing on
Steph

Decluttering - Week 2 Day 3 - Videos, DVDs and CDs

It's really sad to have to throw away DVDs when we loved the movie.  But the kids tend to lose the cases and then they get all scratched up and there is no reason to keep a movie that is wrecked.  I would love to put my movies into sleeves in a case, but Carpenter doesn't want to do that.  So for now, we're keeping our system as is.  

Right now, I'm on a mission to go through all of our movies.  Instead of watching TV, we put on a movie that we own.  If it glitches, after a proper cleaning, I am pitching it.  So far we are up to about 10 movies that don't work.  Sad.  But we've found some movies that we thought were bad, but they just needed to be cleaned.

A well-used movie

Before

After

Our system for the checked videos - a little label - doesn't matter what color, no markings on it shows it's been viewed and is free of glitches.
 

Our videos - personally, I'm ready to be done with videos, but we have some that we love, so maybe I'll work on weeding out some that aren't our favorites.

Before

Two boxes of weeded out movies

After
 

 I also found another thing that needed to be thrown away.  My total for the day was 70 items, so now I am up to 140 items for the challenge.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 2 Day 2 - Cookbooks etc.

Today's project was the cookbook cupboard - I was a bit harsh with myself about what cookbooks to get rid of.  If I haven't used it in a long time and it doesn't have any recipes I use, it's going out. 

 

Also I try to throw out a phone book everytime I get a new one (and yes, we're still using them in this house), but apparently I'm not so good at it.  I had three to throw away. 

 

 



Before

After

To give away or throw away or maybe sell

Total for today was 15 items.

Total for the challenge is up to 70 items.  How many items have you found so far?

Keep pressing on!

Steph

Decluttering - Week 2 Day 1 - Pantry

Week 2

1. Kitchen other or pantry
2. Kitchen cookbooks and recipes
3. Videos, CDs and DVDs
4. Your desk or work area
5. Children's books - Day 1

This week we're finishing up the kitchen!!!!  How fun!!!  Let's hit the pantry.  Mine can always use some organization, but I'm not sure I'll find much to get rid of.  We'll see.  I may have to work another area as well.



Before

After

 

As you can see not much changed.  I took the opened package of cookies and put them in snack portions in the jar, put all the onions together and the potatoes together, and rearranged some things on the higher shelves.

 

Here's what I found to get rid of, by looking on top of the pantry and above the cupboards:

Keep pressing on,
Steph



De-cluttering - Week 1 Day 5 - Kitchen Linens

If you are just joining us, start here.

Day 1 was Kitchen drawers.

Day 2 was Kitchen cupboards upper.

Day 3 was Kitchen cupboards lower

Day 4 was Junk drawer

Today is Kitchen Linens

I don't have any kitchen linens much.  And what I do have is with Christmas stuff and Thanksgiving stuff.  So today, go through your linens. 

Totals to-date are 50.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 1 Day 4 - Kitchen junk drawer

If you are just joining us, start here.

Day 1 was Kitchen drawers.

Day 2 was Kitchen cupboards upper.

Day 3 was Kitchen cupboards lower

Today is the junk drawer.  I actually just did this recently, but it will be good to do it again.

Before

After

There wasn't ten things to get rid of in the junk drawer, so I decided to go through my file box.  This sits on my counter and keeps the kids' school pages and things for studying.  There is a folder for each school, and for each child.  There are also folders for my daycare and for the lady that comes over one weekend a month, and one for Carpenter which doesn't get used, and one for bills that I'm afraid to use, lest I forget I put it there - I have a different system.

 

So I had a lot of papers to get rid of - let's just say 20 and call it good. So my total for this challenge is 55.  There were way more than 20 pages to get rid of but I can't justify counting each one.

 

Keep pressing on,

Steph

 

Tomorrow is Kitchen Linens - I don't have much of these.

Decluttering - Week 1 Day 3 - Kitchen cupboards lower

If you are just joining us, start here.

Day 1 was Kitchen drawers.

Day 2 was Kitchen cupboards upper.

Today we worked on the lower cupboards.  I say "we" because I had help.  My older boys are home from school for spring break so they each took a couple of cupboards and I claimed the easy one.

Pans:



After

Cookie sheets and pans.  No after picture but all I did was remove the bags from the cupboard.  The dividers help this one stay organized.

Under the sink: Again, it stays fairly neat as I try to keep as little under here as possible.  But a little cleaning didn't hurt.

 

Tupperware cupboard and such:  Always needs a bit of straightening up. 

Canned goods and canning jars:  Here I have put in some flat boxes and consequently all that needed to be done was to bring the rest of the canned goods to the front.

Pans, casserole dishes, etc.

So thankful for my boys' help. 

The total here is 35 things so far.

Keep pressing on,
Steph