Married to the Empire

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Spring Cleaning

Maybe the phrase, in my case, should be spring decluttering. Wow. We had a real mess on our hands. Our guest bedroom had become the catch-all room, which is a very nice way of saying junk room. We have a bad habit of tossing anything that needs to be given away or otherwise gotten rid of into that room.

The closet wasn't any better. Old uniforms, letter jackets, costumes that are never worn, boxes, bags, and just a whole lot of junk.

Steven set to work cleaning out his Star Wars room, and I tackled the spare bedroom. This is how much junk we cleared out (the cat is not junk; he just walked into the shot):



Ironically, all those bags are back in the guest room, but that's because they're awaiting pickup by the Leukemia Society.

I needed to organize the closet. I'd cleared out a ton of space in there (any future guests can now hang their own clothes in there!), but I needed to organize the things kept in there. I buy gifts throughout the year and stash them in this closet until it's time to give them. I cleared out some drawers in the guest-room dresser, and the Christmas cards that used to be in them are now in the closet. I didn't want to spend money on organizational stuff for this closet, so I went with what we had. I found some empty crates in the garage and master closet, so I stacked them and tied them together with zip ties for stability. They make decent enough impromptu shelves:



The laundry basket that used to hold stuffed animals now has boxes, bags, and bubble wrap. Not pretty, but functional. It's a vast improvement, as boxes used to be shoved in the corner and were nearly impossible to get out. Now everything is clearly visible and accessible.

We still have some more cleaning out to do around the house, but it felt great to get this particular room done!

3 comments:

becky s. said...

Hooray! I love decluttering and organizing!

Unknown said...

WoooooHooooo!!! That is great - but the best part is you are giving the items to a cause. (Sorry a bit anti-Goodwill lately just due to the practices of the local stores in our area:( )

And I love the look of the crates - simple and clean.

ann said...

Our basement is really bad. I just don't even want to go down there...