bedroom closet floor

My chore today was to tackle my bedroom floor... I forgot to take a before picture, but trust me, it was bad. I found our swimming clothes tub with lid under a pile of clean clothes. I had been looking for that tub. Sad huh? So, I moved EVERYTHING to my bed. I hung up what was clean. Made a pile for what was too large to be bagged for goodwill. Made another pile of what is too small for now and put them on a shelf neatly for later. Organized two dresser drawers in the process of finding tank tops and tee-shirts in the closet floor. ... All in all, an hour well spent. Here's my now CLEAN floor and I can shut the doors! Couldn't do that earlier today. That's how much was pouring out of there.



And here are my ten things. The black thing on the left... I don't even know what it is or what it goes to. The black shoes are too small now and going to goodwill. The leopard slippers are gross and you can't really see in the picture but the toes of the tennis shoes both have duct tape on them. Yah those two hit the trash. The orange bag smelled so it's being thrown out. The walmart sack is the contents of a purse long ago dumped out. I went through and saved two pens and a buck, the rest is being pitched as I obviously don't need it. And the bag is my "too big" pile that is going to goodwill and not staying in my house. So... lots more than ten and so glad it's done.

Next goal.... KEEP IT UP.

Top o Dresser

So this is the top of the chest of drawers/hutch in our room. It's most commonly reffered to as the "jewelry station." Even though there is a jewelry box right there, most things don't make it IN the box after wearing. It's also the "I want to save that little scrap of something but I don't know where to store it station." Anyone else have one of those? Yah... that yellow towel on the top was my great grandpa's. It's been up there for the past 3 years be/c I wasn't sure if I wanted to use it or just save it. I had a come to Jesus talk about that towel though. I decided everything on this shelf either needed to be relocated for USE or PITCHED! And I was pleased to fill a whole shopping bag nearly full of just the trash! My jewelry box is now accessible! I even found buried was my piano music box, I had forgotten I had.

Before:

After:

PS: Where is everyone?

My dresser is done!!!!

ahhhhhhhhh my dresser is done my dresser is done, ding dong the son of a bitch is done! (sorry for the cursing, let me know if it offends you, I'll do it more often, JK (sorta))
So anyway, the dresser is done!!! YEAH!! God this has been bugging me for a LONG time. If you remember, it's 6 drawers, 5 of them needed cleaning. My goal was to do one a night. Night one I started with the top drawer and got it done. I started my "I need to lose 10 pounds to fit into these" pile, my e-bay pile, my donate pile and my throw away pile. Day 2 came with the 2nd drawer aka the worst bitch in history. I didn't do before and after of every drawer because well frankly no one wants to see 10 pics of my clothes. So here is the drawer 2, the worst of them. This is the before, God help me. I have no idea what shirts are stuffed in this drawer. I feel like a 10 year old whose mother told her to put her clothes away and this is what I did. The pic doesn't do it justice on just how bad it was.
and here is the after shot of drawer #2....ahhhh nice. This drawer is mostly just fitted tee's (Go CUSE!!)

I took a pic of an after shot of drawer 3 because I like my workout clothes. I love buying them, like wearing them and think I should be hired to endorse Nike gear. p.s. see how good my reflection vest works!! I don't care how much of a dork I look like when I wear this, it works!

Here is pile #1 and #2, this is my I need to lose 10 pounds pile and my e-bay pile. This got switched around more after this pic. I gave up some of the I need to lose 10 pounds pile over to the e-bay pile because let's be honest, I need to lose more than 10 pounds for some of this stuff.

This is the donate pile and the trash pile.

I was SO happy about this project being done. I even cleaned out the 2 drawers in my nightstand so I could use them. I realized I had way too many bathing suits (who says fat girls don't like buying bathing suits??) and I didn't want to waste a whole drawer on them. I live in the northeast and am PLUMP. I don't wear them often, I don't want them in my main dresser. So they are in a drawer in my nightstand. I felt SO good when this project was done. It was weighing on me for awhile. I was so happy last night. I didn't anticipate doing this all. My goal was just drawer #2 which turned into the entire dresser, which turned into the night stand. It was a good night. One last pic because I was so happy I kept opening and closing drawers. These are some old tees I didn't want to get rid of because I still wear them around the house with my jeans. Jeans that fit me.

I can exhale. Some of the weight has been lifted off my shoulders!

Next 2 projects are also big ones. I write about it so I'll do it. First is the dreaded cabinet I've been talking about forever-the kids cabinet in my kitchen. I just need to devote 1-2 hours one night and get it done and shut up about it. This is my next project. After that is my hallway closet aka hottest mess ever in the world. It holds pictures and pictures and pictures and vases and door wreaths and easter eggs and other random crapola. Everytime I open this drawer I always kick something back in to get it shut again. AHHH. I dread when I start this project. But next up is the kids cabinet.

I also have to say that since this blog I have been really good about keeping up what I have cleaned out. It's very easy to just shove shit around again but I'm trying really hard to keep the things nice that I have cleaned out. Bye, sorry for the longest post ever!! YEAH it's clean!

My new "job"

Whether you know or you don't, I lost my job 2 weeks ago. My mom has "hired" me to help her throw things away. When I say "hired," I mean "gave me something to do so I don't feel as guilty about taking money from my parents."

Anyway, my parents live in an enormous, once-beautiful house that is overrun by stuff and disrepair. I spent Saturday and part of Sunday over there working on my first project, the bedroom that once belonged to my brother. (He's tried out 3 of the 4 bedrooms in the 12 1/2 years we've lived there.) A few summers ago, my sister was home doing a veterinary internship ... and it was the CAT'S room.

Floor coated in (unused, thank God) kitty litter. Toys and books dating back to the early 90s, and we moved into that house in 1997. Clothes and shoes that wouldn't fit anyone in the house. Years' worth of Boy Scout manuals, low-scoring school papers, crayons, colored pencils, and glue. After 10+ hours, the floor is clean and about 1/2 the closet is tackled.

I got into a big fight with my dad when he came in to see what I was doing (he is the worst hoarder I've ever met.) We got into a screaming fight over my throwing away the broken, kitty-litter-covered, empty VHS cover for Toy Story. "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU THROWING THAT AWAY? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WHEN WE FIND THE MOVIE AND THERE'S NO COVER FOR IT?!!?"

He is pathological and not supportive of my mom's desire to clean. Don't be like my dad!

Kate's Closet

Oh the shame.... But okay, here goes. If others can do this, so can I. Here's my way too cluttered, too many clothes in there closet. I have way too small clothes. Wayyyy too large (tent-like) clothes. Maternity clothes. Winter clothes... gracious.

The insides.

the floor.

the top shelf.

I started this task by pulling out everything on a hanger and deciding if it was too small, too big, fitting, in season, out or what... I made piles: Maternity, jammies, um ahem nighties, shorts, pants, shirts that fit and the mound clothes that are too small or out of date...

on the trunk are the mounds of maternity clothes that I can't (and shouldn't) wear right now.

the size of this pile is daunting... it's everything that is TOO small and can not fit and shouldn't be in my closet and WHY am I too lazy to have not done this before?! Most of this was on the floor of the closet or hanging with the rest, trying desperately to be a wearable candidate, but alas, they can not, will not fit.

This still needs to be handled but it will be left for another day... this is what's to the right of the shelf thing, behind the door.



And Ta-Da!

Here's the current status:

Only clothes that FIT on the two shelves (lower is jammies and upper is jeans and nicer pants) and only clothes that FIT hanging up in the closet.

Top shelf are all sizes that are too small still, but I things I didn't want to donate, in hopes of getting there again sometime in this lifetime and not wanting to re-buy everything. They are folded and stacked (and labeled) by sizes.

Oh and the floor is totally clean of everything but only shoes.

Stats:
-THREE trash bags full of clothes that are too small to be donated
-TWO trash bags full of maternity clothes (someone had just given me a lot of her things earlier in the year so her bag was still in there untouched) that will go up to the attic
-Two broken pair of shoes, no clue why I kept, that is now trashed
-One pair of heels that are in great condition, just too small to be donated or sold
-About 15-20 wire hangers trashed
-random tags and trash I found on the bottom of the closet trashed
-one really faded old nightie also hit the trash

Whew. I'm worn.

pictureless post

I wanted to just take a quick minute to post some goals... This weekend was a fly-by joke and I knew it would be. But here's my plan for the week.

Mon- laundry. My closet. It's on. even if I start small and don't tackle all of it.
Tues- just ten things. (or more closet, depending on where I stand at the end of Monday)
Wed-just ten things.
Thurs-desk papers
Fri-linen closet floor

So many other projects are coming to mind (more drawers in the kitchen, desk drawers, the top of the ironing board....), but I need to remember that this is about ten things every day for the long haul of making a more pleasing household, not about tackling as many big projects as we can until we pass out (THANK YOU MORGAN for the reminder Thursday).

Today's ten things included clothing tags on my dresser, trash around my side of the bed and an overflown trashcan of tissues next to the bed. (overflown so badly that I was using the empty tissue box to stuff new dirty tissues in). ugh. I didn't picture it before I went but I'm glad it's gone and maybe I can recognize the need to empty the small trash can from time to time.

There's a chair under there!

This is one of my dumping zones. I wash and fold laundry and stack it right here. Then I dig in it for clothes in the morning and it ends up looking like this:

It took me two days of 15 minutes of work here and there (I'd sort through a lot of clothes in the living room while playing with the boys), but believe it or not, there really was a chair under there!


I was able to move things to my new and improved closet, moved the bench from the window to the foot of the bed, and got rid of lots of clothing to give to CHKD thrift store that benefits the local children's hospital.

Next task: armoire.