Decluttering - Week 8 Day 2 - Kids' toys Day One

Today's job is working on the kids' toys.  I'm going to take two days for this because I just didn't finish today.  The kids' bedroom toys were already decluttered when I did their closets. 

But the toys for the little ones downstairs, those still are waiting to be sorted.  Some of them will go home with them when they have their last day, which is sad.  It's nearer for some than others. 

I'd like them to have a few things from their time here. 

So we sorted today...

First we pulled out the toy box and we put only the animals back first and then the people and then the letters and numbers and slowly only the things that didn't belong in the box were left. 

Then I went and got the Mega Bloks out and we put all the yellow ones in, and then all the blue, etc.  until all that was left were things that didn't belong.  We found some things that did belong in the first box, so I took those and put them away. 

Then I dumped out the blocks and they played while I got some other work done.  When I went to put them away, I could tell I needed to de-cluttering.  It doesn't fit in the container and I only want one container of blocks.  I pulled out Jenga and the bigger letter blocks - if the kids parents' don't want them (the big letter blocks) then I will pass them on somewhere else.

 

 

So my total came to 91 (and yes I counted each block). 

 

Total for the challenge is 959.  Maybe it's cheating to count each block, but it wasn't only blocks and it makes me happy to think that more things are heading out.  Less to clean-up, but in a house with nine there is still plenty to keep us occupied.

 

Keep pressing on,

Steph

Decluttering - Week 8 Day One - Holiday Supplies

Today is Holiday Supplies, so if you don't do that after your holiday is over, you should do that today.  But if you do, like I do and when I pack up, I sort out what we don't want anymore, then you should pick another area.

So I had to clean up the kids' rooms again.  I had been doing well keeping up but then we had Awana store and now there are more things in their rooms.  During this time, I found quite a few things that should go.  An ironing board with no legs went this weekend as well, since we used to use it as a gate, but no longer need it anymore.

I cleaned out under beds again and found lots of things that just don't get used and don't have a home.  It's not about just getting to 1,000 things, which seems impossible at this point but more about having things where they should be and knowing how to find them.

I cleaned out my Resurrection Sunday stuff.  I guess that's holiday and got 60 things today for getting rid of.  Most of it was to be tossed.

Total for the challenges is now up to 868.  Have a great day!!!!

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 7 Day 5 - Kids' school supplies and backpacks

I will be homeschooling - at least my younger ones this next school year so I've been evaluating the school books we have.  Answer keys without the text books are useless - by now they have upgraded the materials and it won't match the answer key that I have.  I now have through 6th grade organized and ready.  I still have to do grades 7 through 12.

The total for this day was 48.

Total so far - 808.

Keep pressing on and have a great weekend!!!
Steph

Decluttering - Week 7 Day 4 - Games and Puzzles

Today the project is games and puzzles for me.  If you are paying close attention to the list, you will see that it should have been the shed, but it's pouring and I have appointments today, so the shed will have to wait.

I've been doing some puzzles to see if we have enough of the pieces to save them and give them away or if we need to throw them away.

So far I have found 3 puzzles to give away, and 1 game we tried playing with Grandma this week, ugh it was way hard.  I didn't find it fun at all.

I have a box for collecting all the pieces to puzzles and games that I find around the house.  I will go through that today and sort and figure out which games don't have enough pieces to make it worth it to save it.  I found a puzzle the other day with 30 pieces missing out of 500.  Too many to keep it or even give it away, it had to go in the trash.  Hopefully it was a lesson learned to my daughter who loved that horse puzzle.  Keep your things neat and picked up and don't leave puzzles on the floor to be trampled.

I also have some toys I've passed on.  We're past the baby years.  So that's another 15 toys.   With more prepared to be given away as well.

Well after going through our games and puzzles, I found 19 things total, plus the 15 toys I've given away, equals 34 things.

Total for the challenge is 760.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 7 Day 3 - Linen closet

Linen closet

 Moved all the towels to this cabinet, whatever doesn't fit belongs in the basement

This side is for supplies for bathrooms etc.

Total for this day is 0.  But one puzzle thrown away.  Can I count each piece????  It was a 500 piece puzzle, missing 30 pieces.

Total for the challenge is 727.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 7 Day 2 - Laundry room

The laundry room

Cleaned up it looks much better.

Total for this day is 6.  Plus 15 magazines I found to throw away.

Total for the challenge is 726.
Keep pressing on
Steph

Decluttering - Week 7 Day 1 - Craft supplies

Craft supplies sorted and I was able to get rid of 90 things!

Total for the challenge is 705.

Keep pressing on.  Just two more weeks to go.
Steph

Decluttering - Week 6 Day 5 - Garage Day Two

Carpenter is building a cabinet.

Total for the day is 15.

Total for the challenge is 615.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 6 Day 4 - Garage Day One

Not too bad

Total for the day is 12

Total for the challenge is 600.

Keep pressing on
Steph

Decluttering - Week 6 Day 2 and 3 - entryway and shoes

Today is another combo-day.  With eye doctor appointments, I didn't get my stuff done yesterday.

Yesterday was the entryway/mud room.

 The farm coats that never get used because they are in the basement.  Ideally everyone would go through the basement to do their chores.  Even I don't like to do that, but I should.

The entryway/hallway is filled with coats from 12 people during the day.  But spring is coming I  hope, so I'm taking a chance and washing most of the coats.

 Now the hallway looks like this.  Still some coats hanging up.

The basement looks like this, with just a light jacket for chores these  days.

Total cleared out for this day is yet uncounted.  It's all in the wash.  But so far the total is 45.  I took down the gloves, hats and scarves and sorted them.  A couple of each for each kid, plus some of the nicer ones for sledding parties and friends coming over.  And there was still a lot left to get rid of.

Shoes

With all the shoes around this place, I am SO ready to say two pair of tennis shoes and one pair of church shoes.  With a pair of flip flops thrown in.  But it is with fear and trepidation that I say this.  Because then it will be my fault when they can't find their shoes.

It ended up coming down to a couple of black pairs that don't fit either of the girls right now, and then two tennis shoes and one pair of black and one pair of white dress shoes.  For the boys, just a pair of black dress shoes in their size.  I do save the ones that they'll grow into.  Just don't need to save as many as I have been.
Total for this day is 34.

Total is 509 + 45  + 34 = 588

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 6 Day 1 - Bathroom #2

Week 6

1. Bathroom #2
2. Entry hall/mudroom closet
3. Shoes
4. Garage - Day 1
5. Garage - Day 2

Bathroom #2

 Basically down here in the basement, I did have to throw away empty bottles and such, but mostly I had to restock our supplies down here.  I use a shoe organizer to keep supplies handy without a huge cabinet in an otherwise small bathroom.

And make sure that towels are well-stocked.  

So I threw away four things, bringing our total to 509.  Still inching!!!

Keep pressing on,

Steph

Decluttering - Week 5 - Day 4 and 5 - Master dresser and Bathroom #1

Are you noticing a pattern here?  It's spring - so I just want to be outside!  I'm loving the weather and hubby has big plans for a huge garden - the laborer would be me!!!  But I love working out there, so it will be fun.

Today, one of mine is sick, so in an effort to keep their kids healthy, moms made the decision to keep theirs home.  Tank has a fever and is laying on the couch, working on some homework and intermittently watching some TV, but since there aren't any other symptoms - yet, I'll be running around the house doing all the things that I never feel like I can take time to do.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to start the weekend with a clean house?!!!!!  No waking up Saturday morning to the normal routine of "Clean your room and then you can go outside. "  Yippeee!!!

But I am only working outside in half hour chunks - after all I do have a sick one who needs checking up on.  So while inside, I'm working on the whole inside thing.

Here's a picture of the 34 things I found in our dressers.  All in one pillowcase. I went through the socks and found the ones with holes in them.  For my husband and my boys - I try to find the same brand of socks, but each one of them uses their own style.  That way if one sock gets a hole in it, I don't have to throw away both socks.  I like different colors, so I don't do the same for my own.

For our main bathroom - it needs a good cleaning but it doesn't have anywhere to store things, except the little medicine cabinet.  The big cupboard with all of our things in it, was done earlier in the challenge.

So I cleaned out the tiny medicine cabinet and made sure that there was only one toothbrush on each shelf.  Just recently did this job, right before I started this challenge. So I only had one toothbrush to throw away.

But that was nice because it brought my total for Days 4 and 5 up to 35, which is easier to add.

Total for the challenge is 505.  Inching my way closer to that 1000 mark!!!

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 5 Day 3 - Master closet

Today is the master closet -

I stash the things I'm planning to give away in my closet.  So what I need to do is set up a system that instead of a tote, I'll use a box.  Then fold everything neatly and put it in there.

I also found an empty drawer in my dresser, so the single sets of sheets are going there.

The blankets were folded and put back in the tote they were in.

It feels awesome to have a neat closet.

Total of things disposed of were 15.  Total for the challenge is 470!  I would love to see 1000 up there for the last day.  :)

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 5 Day 2 - Kids' closet Day 2

Today I worked on the oldest's room.  He doesn't really have a closet, so I worked on the stuff that would be in his closet if he had one.  

I ended up pulling out 15 things to get rid of.

So my total is up to 455.  

Find a place that needs to be worked on if you don't need a second day in the closet.

Keep pressing on,

Steph

Decluttering - Week 5 Day 1 - Kids' closet - Day 1

We're starting on the second half of our journey!  It's all down hill from here.

Week 5

1. Clothing - Kid closet - Day 1
2. Clothing - Kid closet - Day 2
3. Clothing - Master closet
4. Clothing - Master bedroom dressers
5. Bathroom #1

Today is a bit of a fun day for me.  It shouldn't be too hard.  I spent last Tuesday working on the older boys closet.   So today is the little boys' closet and tomorrow will be the girls' closet.

I used my new bag that I got from my meeting to bring down all the girls' stuff from their closet.  Actually it was all the things that I needed to go through.

So I sorted their things and came up with 30 things that needed to go.

The total for the challenge now is 440!

Keep pressing on!
Steph

Decluttering - Week 4 Day 5 - Kids Dressers Day 2

This was done on Friday.  We did the same thing that we did the day before and we found 24 more things to give away or throw away.

The kids' dressers are done!  Woohoo!  But now I need to pull down their totes and find their summer clothes.  So we'll be doing more sorting.

The total for Friday is 19.

The total for the challenge is now up to 410 .  And today I will take 2 big boxes and one big garbage bag to the donation center.

Keep pressing on
Steph

Decluttering - Week 4 Day 4 - Kid's Dressers Day 1

 

So I threw the kids clothes into their laundry baskets and brought them down to sort during naptime. It doesn't work super well to try to sort with the little one's running around

I just dumped one person's clothes onto the living room floor.  Then sorted according to kind.  Wow, it's amazing to see how much they have of one type of thing - i.e. camisoles for my daughter.  I know what I've seen come through the wash and what never shows up.  What never shows up goes into a bag for someone else who might need it.

Total for today is 24
Total for the challenge is 391

Keep pressing on
Steph

Tomorrow is another day of dressers.  I did 4 of my kids today and tomorrow I'll do the other 3.

Decluttering - Week 4 Day 3 - Furniture in the living room

Here is another bonus day for me.  We don't have excess furniture in the living room, so I am cleaning out another tote of the boys. 

I have totes of clothes for each child that they will need in the spring or fall.  So today, I found this pile on the way up to the attic.  They always need to be sorted.   

8 things to add to my total.

Total for the challenge is 367.  If you have furniture in your living room that is just extra today is the day to work on that, but if you don't find a corner that you DO need to work on and do a little bit.  I must say I think this sorting job only took 5 minutes.

Keep pressing on
Steph

Decluttering - Week 4 Day 2 - Decorative items in the living room.

Quite obviously this is not the living room.  In my living room, I have my teacups from my Grandma and my collection of  bears from family members.  Neither of them are things I am willing to give up.  So I'm satisfied that my living room has the decorative items that I want.

 



 This is the pile of shoes I pulled out of the bigger boys' closet, but that's not all the shoes they have. 
See the picture below:  those are the shoes that I found pairs to, and that looked decent enough to wear, and that weren't too small.  No wonder I haven't been able to get into that closet - EVER!!!!

Here's some paper stuff that just needs to go. 

Total for today is well over 15, but we'll just call it that.

Total for the challenge is 359.

Keep pressing on,
Steph