Time for some professional help

I finally bit the bullet and accepted that I can't do it alone.  I've tried.  But I really can't do it. 

So I contacted a professional organizer and had her come in for a consult.  And it turns out I'm not that far gone!  There's still hope!

I have a list now and have already gotten started on it.  Hopefully by Christmas, the upstairs will be more manageable and I can tackle the office *shudder*. 

Time to start at the end

So in all my back and forth, I've realized that the reason why I have so much trouble keeping the house organized is because I don't know how I want it to end up.  Like I want it clean, but I don't have a designated spot for everything.  So as I go through each area and 'clean' it up, I end up having the same items in different areas of the house.

Before I can really start going through everything, I need to start with a plan.  Where do I want to store items for business one or two, where do I want art supplies, or towels, or extra blankets, etc.  I need a central SPOT for everything in the house, and once I know where everything goes, I can start clearing items out.


I guess it's time to go back to square one, by starting at the end.

40 Bags in 40 Days-Days 5, 6 and 7: Laundry room cupboards, Laundry room and Living room

The laundry room in our house has been, well, a dumping ground recently.  If we had to move stuff out of the entryway, it ended up in either the laundry room or the office.  So one task was to go through some boxes and get rid of stuff we don't need.  Or move stuff that we had out back into the storage area.  Clean the floor, etc.

But one task that's going to take longer than I thought is disposing of the stuff in the laundry room cupboards.  That's where we store most of our cleaning supplies.  So we have old laundry detergents, bleach, and more.  So I've done some research on how to safely dispose of these items.

Most of our cleaning supplies are water-soluble, which means they are mixed with water for use, and washed down the drain.  The best way to dispose of these items is to use them up, or give them away so they can be used up.  If they can't be used, our water treatment facilities can handle these items, so they can be poured down the drain.  Solid cleaning products can be safely disposed of in the garbage, as can aerosol cans that still have products in them.  Empty aerosol cans can be recycled at most facilities, be sure to check with your local recycling depots.

For more information, CLICK HERE.  If you have any questions, phone your local recycling and garbage facilities.

So now I can go through those cleaning supplies again and either use them up, give them away, or dispose of them.

My living room shouldn't be too hard, since I clean it on what feels like a daily basis.  I do have some piles of stuff on the stairs to go through, and today would be a good day to go through all the socks we leave at the bottom of the laundry baskets, but it shouldn't be too bad.

Don't forget to go through your cupboards/drawers while you work through your areas.  We have a lot of drawers that we just shove things into and it would make life so much easier if we had certain spots for certain items, and just threw our junk in the garbage/recycling.

I hope this is getting easier for everyone.  It's almost therapeutic to go through items and get rid of so much stuff that we don't need.  The house will be MUCH easier to keep tidy once we're done!

I just need the accountability

Well, I haven't posted in a bit.  And my house shows it.

I have no idea why my cleaning habits seem to correlate to how often I post on the blog, but I'm using this Monday to get myself back on track.  Especially since the hubby is home sick today so I can have {some} help with the kids.

I've also noticed that for the most part, I'm pretty good at getting the daily and weekly stuff done, but I haven't ventured into the monthly stuff.  So this week, I'm going to just focus on the normal tasks and hopefully I can start adding the bigger stuff soon.

One plan is to get up earlier.  I was up at 4am this morning to go line up for kindergarten registration, so hopefully I can start getting up before the kids, at around 6am and get a head start.  I'll see how it works!

Starting the Spring Cleaning Early

Christmas is great.  Mad rush to organize the house, lots of food, family and fun.  Lots of gifts.  And then the aftermath.  Cleaning everything up.  Finding room for all the new clothes, toys and more.  Figuring out how you got all the decorations in the boxes last year.  We decided to get some new shelves for the kids rooms, so they can have some books, toys and stuff in there, and keep the playroom less cluttered.  I also wanted to get some hooks for the entryway so the kids could hang up their own coats, instead of throwing them all over the place.

Well, today was the start of the Spring Cleaning.  Some other friends are doing mass organizing in their homes and I decided to follow suit.  I got the hooks for the entryway and tidied that up. Will have to wait for the hubs to do that though.  I don't want to risk missing a stud or damaging the drywall.

Next step is to get the shelves for the kids rooms and organize all the toys, books, puzzles, games, cars, trains, AND MORE!

Well, I should put away the laundry first.  And then the groceries.  Then the Christmas decorations.  Then.....

Re-Visiting Baskets

I was recently chatting with a good friend, and complaining about the organization (or lack thereof) of my work stuff around the house.  This consists of mostly fabrics, some half completed orders and projects, and some notions.  Scissors, pins and pinned projects found their home on higher surfaces, like the TV stand, hanging over railings, etc.  Folded piles of fabric are mostly in various bins around the house, with some stuff on chairs, the arms of the couch, etc.  In trying to explain the mess to my friend, I took some pics and was almost embarrassed.  It didn't seem so messy in person.  And a lot of it is stuff I'm working on for current orders, or a craft fair I'm attending this weekend, so I overlooked it since I was almost done it all.  *sigh*

So I decided, in looking at the messy picture of the TV stand, that I could just get a basket and throw the stuff in there, and it would look more tidy.

I even dusted the TV stand.  My bank account might not appreciate the large number of baskets and storage containers I'm about to invest in but my visitors sure will!

Fresh Start....again

All it took was a weekend.  A long weekend, in fact.  And was it ever long.  In between trying to celebrate Canada Day, we did a HUGE clean up in the whole house.  Re-organized almost the entire upstairs.  And there are still a few little areas that need to be finished up, but it looks a TON better.

Sometimes I just need to power through it, get it all done, and then the maintenance on it is much easier.  I've also set up my new app and if I can remember to check it everyday, or perhaps a few times per day, and can take a few minutes to get those tasks done, then I should be able to stay on track.

Here's hoping that I have a clutter free summer.  And some good weather.

Playing Catch Up-almost at one year!

Being sick sucks. Having sick kids sucks. Being sick and having a sick three year old and a healthy 8 month old sucks even more. And then there's a sick husband, housework, dirty laundry, dirty diapers, clean laundry, dishes, ugh. And of course, you can't keep on top of all this while you're sick, so instead of being able to enjoy feeling better, you get to deal with the house first.

So we're finally feeling better, it's safe to say we are no longer sick, but the house definitely needs some love. Clutter-EVERYWHERE. And I just remembered that the end of February marks one year since we moved. And I've always said, it takes a year to get settled into a new house. So not only does this house need a good solid cleaning, I have just under two weeks to finish up any 'move in' type of things that I had wanted to do. More artwork on the walls, just a general sense of feeling settled in the house.


So today, Day 1 of Operation Overhaul, I'm going to re-de-clutter the house. Major tidying up to do. Will go along and dust while I'm at it. I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow. I'm sure I'll figure that out as I go along cleaning today.

Time for an intervention-and some before and after pictures

Today, the kids were sleeping, I was wasting time online and I decided to do something pretty extreme for me-turn the computer off. This was at 2pm. Sometimes my computer addiction gets pretty bad and I felt like it was time for an intervention. So I flipped the switch. Well, actually I powered down safely, but I did it.

So then I wandered around the living room and did some tidying up. Picked up the last of the Christmas clutter, threw some laundry in the wash, did some dishes, and then thought, now what? So in a spur of the moment decision, I decided to re-organize my extra kitchen pantry. It's been a great place to store all our extra small appliances, kids dishes, baby bottles and food and other random stuff. But the shelves weren't organized anymore and everything was just getting shoved in there, so I fixed it all up. As I've said before, I'm horrible at taking before pictures, but here's the after. It even has more room if we need it!

While I'm sharing pictures, here's the locked cabinet in the toy room that I'm very proud of. Again, no before picture, although I should have taken one, it was brutal.

All the art supplies are organized, along with toy bins at the bottom with baby toys, puzzles, books, etc.

And finally, my ensuite. This was a huge source of stress for me in the townhouse. We lived there for five and a half years, knowing the whole time that both bathrooms would have to be redone. First came the wedding, then money and time issues, then the baby, then an injury and finally, we decided to move, and HAD to get it done. When we moved in here, and the inspection showed possible water damage behind the ensuite shower, I swore it was the first thing to get done. And it was. The tile has been done since the spring. And just in the past two months, we chose a paint color for the wall. The holidays in there kind of put a slight delay on the job, but we haven't even been here for a year and now it's done!

Bathroom before (and my preggo belly):

Close up of wall color and tile before:

After looking in from the door (with my new towels on the counter):

Looking towards the door from the shower:

Ok, that's it for pictures for now. I've said before it takes one year to really move into a house. We have about 2.5 months left, and I really feel like we're almost there. I just have to finish organizing the office, and get some wall decor/pictures put up and we'll be done.


Until we look at the rest of the renovations we want to do...new flooring, new kitchen, new roof....

Christmas Clean Up!

Now let me preface this post with saying that just because I'm thinking about the clean up, doesn't mean that I'm doing it yet.

The first thing I need to do is make a trip to Walmart to invest in some Christmas organizing gear. We have the tree box and cardboard boxes for all the decorations etc, but I really want to organize my Christmas gear. So I'm going to invest in some plastic bins, and separate the decorations based on tree, and then rooms of the house, so living room, outdoor, and then other. I'm also going to organize different budgets and ideas. So I'm going to get a cheque envelope organizer thing and separate money by category. One for cards, decorations, gifts and other. And while I'm at it, I'm going to add a section for each of the kids birthdays. Hopefully starting this year, I won't have to worry about how we're paying for each occasion as they get closer. I'm also going to get a notebook and binder and keep all my ideas organized. So any ideas I have now I'll make note of in the book, and throughout the year I'll add to it as I have more ideas. Then I'll pull it out next fall and get to work.

The other thing I need to do is organize all the toys. With a birthday and Christmas so close together, it's like our toy collection has doubled in size, if not more, now that we have two kids. So I need to invest in more boxes/bins and organize the toys, books, puzzles, etc. I'm not quite sure yet how to organize it all but I'm sure that some bins will go into storage and will get rotated every month or so. I almost feel like a toy store with the amount of things I have. It's impressive, really. And now I need to find a way to store them all that is equally as impressive! We might be donating some toys after it's all organized, since we have just that many!

I hope you all had a fantastic holiday season and aren't too overwhelmed with cleaning it all up!

The storm before the calm

There must be something in the air. I have two close friends who are moving this weekend, both have almost 3 year olds, one has twins. Good luck to both of you, I can't wait to see after pictures once you guys are all settled in. I have another friend who is rearranging her craft room and kitchen nook with an almost 3 year old and a newborn, and I decided to rearrange my playroom. I have to say that other than the pile of stuff that needs to find a home elsewhere in my house, I LOVE the new playroom. I have a reading/quiet corner, an art center, a newborn area and a play house/imagination station. Toys are organized into bins with a play house bin, a train bin and a small toy bin. My bookshelf is organized and the toy box is clean. This makes it easier to clean up, which means it's easier to clean the rest of the house.

But the process can be so discouraging. In order to do a really thorough job, you have to basically make a huge mess by pulling everything out. So as moms, with toddlers who are experts at distracting you and pulling you away from what you're doing, it's nearly impossible to finish in one sitting. Meaning that in order to actually finish the job, you have to put the mess away, or whatever of it you can, only to pull it out again when you *think* you have enough time to finish. I say *think* because with toddlers (and those of us who also have newborns) you NEVER have enough time.

So to anyone who is thinking about rearranging a room, and to my good friends who are in the middle of moving, and probably in the middle of a pile of boxes, don't get discouraged. It's all a part of the process. And the end result is MORE than worth it. And when you're done with the boxes, I'm sure your kids will LOVE making forts and playhouses!