Spring Clean Challenge Check In

Hey everyone! I hope you are doing well and that your houses are looking better!

I haven't been writing on here, because things took a little turn from the schedule I had originally posted. Instead of sticking to the area assigned to each day, my husband and I have gotten into the project, and it has touched much of the house already. However, when there are two people working on it- the schedule changes a bit.

I will post pictures again at the end, but for now I wanted to check in with you and see how you are doing? Are you feeling like there is less clutter? More open space? I know I am.

Day 5: Kitchen Counters

Whew! Kitchen counters was a bit more of a time consuming project for me than the last few days. Countertops (along with table tops... dresser tops... pretty much any surface) are HUGE clutter catchers for us. That is why although I'm more focusing on getting things cleaned right now, coming up with organizing systems is a MUST for our home to help declutter.

It also helps that I've been getting more ruthless about throwing things away.

Before...

And after!...

I'm pretty proud of how much better this looks. Things just got put back where they belonged, dishes washed and counter wiped down. I say this was more time consuming, but it still took less than an hour. That may seem like a long time to only get kitchen counters done, but that is why I've broken everything down into smaller increments. As long as the house looks a little better every day- I'm happy with the results!

Day 4: Kitchen Pantry

The next item on the list of things to get organized was the kitchen pantry. Luckily, for me, this wasn't too hard. We had gone through the pantry not too long ago and gotten it pretty well organized. I just went through and straightened it up a bit.

Before...

And after...

Since our pantry is so deep, I think it would be nice to get some sort of stacking system to better utilize how tall they are, or get some pull out drawers to make it easier to reach things in the back. That is a project for another day though. For today... just getting it straightened out makes me feel better about my space.

Day 2 and 3: Weekend Update

Saturday's challenge was working on the entryway some more and Sunday was just 15 minutes of decluttering. I'll tell you about Sunday first because I didn't take any pictures. Honestly... my lovely husband took over the task for the day. We had brought in a few bags from when we cleaned out the car and they had stayed full and nothing had gone back to where it belonged. He rectified that situation. The bags got emptied, things were placed back in their proper spots, and the house looked much better for it... end of story. Thanks Logan!

With the entryway... we have the area I showed you when we started this project. We also have a bookshelf where we put our shoes when we get in the house. However, other than getting our shoes there... it had really just collected a bunch of stuff when we moved in that no one ever bothered to move or make a home for.

Before*...

And after!

I'm so excited to have gotten this done. I mostly just cleaned it up a bit. I added another blue box that we already had so we could separate the boys' shoes better. I took off most of the junk and only put back things that made sense and that I really love to look at.

Like these boot piggy banks. They were on the mantle before, and with the red brick, they were pretty hidden. Now they can be noticed!

On the middle shelf, in the green basket are some books that we use for fine motor skills with our three year old (including the scissors that need to be up higher for them to not reach on their own). Since we have two stories, we need diaper changing accessories on both floors. The diapers haven't really had a home as of yet, and have been an eyesore just hanging around. I decided to hide them in these black boxes so they wouldn't be as noticeable. We already had these boxes. They used to be filled with things for Logan's computer desk, but since we got rid of the desk, he downsized and they got emptied when we moved. The great thing about this is that so far there has been no spending involved with the organizing.





*The gun is absolutely a toy gun. Just FYI.