Project Simplify Week Two

This week was a much slower & simpler pace than I had anticipated as I recovered from an illness that laid me low for a couple of days. As a result of being sick I was playing catch up all week with just the normal household things. I did make time on Thursday and Friday to clean out and organize some cabinets but I didn't get to as much of the kitchen as I'd wanted to.

Before: the Spice Cabinet

After:I bought a small spice rack to fit in the cabinet and organize 18 of my smaller spices. I like that this rack is small enough to fit inside a cabinet and not take up my limited counter space.

Before: Above the microwave

After: I purged a couple of things and moved some other items up there to store.

Before: Above the Refrigerator

After: This was a catch-all area that confiscated toys went to hide. We also keep the kids candy bags up there. I cleared it off and gave the area a much needed wipe down. I relocated some things back to their places and threw some other things away. This area looks SO MUCH BETTER!

Before

After: I did the least in this cabinet. I purged a few things and rearranged a few others.

Week Two is over and I'm so happy to have a simpler, more organized kitchen.

Project Simplify Week One

Tsh at Simple Mom is spring cleaning and I'm joining in for the next few weeks. Week 1 of Project: Simplify includes decluttering, cleaning and organizing the kids' stuff.

Organizing is hard for me. I love to BE organized but I find it hard to tackle problem areas and purge. Today I went for it and attacked the basement kid/toy stuff and got a lot done. I didn't get everything done but I did enough to be really proud of myself. 

We have a nice, big finished basement, so there is a lot of room for the toys to spread out down there and take over. I worked mostly in the bonus room where we store the majority of the kids toys. I let it get pretty cluttered in the last 6 months so it was a mess. 

I usually have trouble letting go of toys as I have such a wide range of kid ages: my boys are 10, 7 & 3. I've been keeping a lot of things for my youngest to enjoy...someday.  Well today I got rid of a bunch of stuff. Thankfully I've got a charity pickup scheduled later this month to benefit from all the spring cleaning I'm doing.

Main Area

These are the before shots of the biggest room in the basement. Train tracks are everywhere thanks to Luke with Legos all around to complement.

After photos- I made the boys help clean up the train tracks and legos. Of course they quickly found some other toys that I had organized and dragged those out to play with.

3 Walls of the Bonus Room

Before- The three bins on the floor were full of mismatched toys, small pieces and Legos. It took a LONG time to go through them.

 After

Before- the boys pushed the toys all together against the wall to have room for two square.

After- I purged a lot stuff in this area.

Before- not too bad here

After- It's not readily apparent in the photo but the colored bins are now decluttered and organized. I spent a lot of time separating and matching little pieces.

Week one is done! Whew, I'm tired from all I did today but also happy to be more organized!