Emerging (Organized) part 2

This year, my Word of the Year is Emerge. The goal is to have Emerged in several areas of my life by the end of the year. One of the areas is to Emerge more organized.

As I mentioned in part 1, I hired an organizer to come to my home and help me tackle my main problem areas. This time, we tackled the laundry/storage area of my basement. This room had always been storage but after I cleared the rest of the basement to turn it into a craft room, the laundry/storage room became overflowed with stuff and I could not see the floor. Again, we did a quick sort and tidy. It may not be even close to being organized yet, but I already see progress.

Here are some Before/After photos:

I am linking this post to Laura's 29 Day Organizational Challenge.

Emerging

This year, my Word of the Year is Emerge. In the past. my words (Survive, Thrive, Courage) have been used to get through every day things. I have struggled with Emerge so far, because it seems like such an end result. I began to think I have chosen the wrong word for my year. With Survive and Thrive, I'd wake up in the morning and think "You just have to survive this minute, hour, day". Same with thrive. With Courage, if I had to do something I was nervous about, I just had to reach inside myself and find some courage.

I realized I needed to change my way of thinking with Emerge. Yes, Emerge is an end result.... but in the process, I am Emerging.

That said, one of the areas I want to Emerge is with my organization. Over the years, I have worked hard to get my home organized. A couple of months ago I was having a conversation with a friend and I told her I'm fed up with trying to get this place organized. She suggested a professional organizer and took it upon herself to get a few quotes for me. One organizer responded in such a way that I decided to invite her to come do the free consult. She agreed with my assessment that my house is mostly organized with exception of these few areas, and agreed to help me finish what I have started. (Did I mention she gave me an A+ for effort? :) )

Many parts of my house are quite organized but I still had a few problem areas. One being a room upstairs, which I have featured on my blog before. This room became a mess again after I cleared out my office/guest room for my homestay student. Most everything that was in there went into the spare room.

The other problem area is part of my basement. I recently moved my Stampin' Up supplies down to the basement, but before I could do that, I took everything out of that room and moved it to the laundry room. What a mess!

And the final problem in this house in regard to organization is paper. Paper! I sort it again and again and again and it is never ending.

On Friday, the organizer came to my house and we began to work on the spare room. She estimated it would take us about 4 hours to go through it but it only took us 2 hours. Here are some before / after photos of that room. Keep in mind it's not really done as some of these things will be moved to the basement for proper storage once I get the basement set up.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

The next day I moved those plastic drawer bins downstairs.

Will update you with more later.

I'm linking this up to Laura's 29 day challenge at I'm an Organizing Junkie. Because I used the help of a professional, I don't know if it counts towards the challenge, but I hope this post will inspire you

.

New Year Change

While I've been doing some organizing, I've slacked on taking pictures.

So with the new year (and a new iPhone!),
let me show you a little change I made in the kitchen.

(BEFORE: Oops, didn't realize the baby angel was mooning you)

I liked the holder for my utensils, but for some reason it is shorter at the back,
so everything kept falling out, and it looked like a huge mess.



Twice a year, there is a city wide "free curb giveaway".
I found this popcorn bowl and snagged it.

It's way too heavy to use for popcorn, but then I thought,
it would work well for holding my utensils.
Just turn the word "popcorn" towards the wall.


(After. Much better)

There, that's already better, isn't it??

Have you done any organizing lately?

Light Bulb Moment

Every time I went to my basement to get something from the deep freeze,
I had to walk around this yard sale pile.

So irritating!


(photo taken after I started moving stuff)

The other day as I was waiting for my washer to finish the final spin
I was looking at this pile in disgust.

I began to wonder if it could be moved somewhere out of the way.

As I looked around the basement, I thought about the club house behind my stairs.

In five years since we lived here, we have never used it. It was a small and dark space.

Then I had a light bulb moment, quite literally!


I remembered this clip on lamp and I went to get it.
When I turned it on, it was like finding another whole room in my house!
I never knew the club house was so big!
(for such a small space)



Look at all that room!


This is why we call it a club house.
It has a door and a window.
The child who lived here previously drew on the walls,
and there are stickers too.
(babybear would've loved it)



I was able to fit all the yard sale stuff in here,
with room to spare!

Where I Admit Shame: Org Junkie's 28 Day Challenge

When I heard about the Org Junkie's 28 Day Organizing Challenge, I thought it was perfect timing, as I was trying to get motivated to get my main floor tidied up before my first Stampin' Up Workshop. Between grief, chronic pain and lack of motivation, I'm ashamed to admit my house began to look like a tornado had hit it.

As participants of the challenge we are asked to answer a series of questions about our organizing efforts:

1. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and were you able to overcome it?

There were two major obstacles for me in this challenge. The first obstacle was chronic pain. I have been using it as an excuse for so long, and while it's a valid excuse, I realized that I have to ignore the pain sometimes if I am going to have my house in it's most desirable state.

My second obstacle was overcoming the "all or nothing" mind frame. What I mean by that is I have this notion that if it can not be perfect then why bother? I often have little bursts of motivation where I will have the urge to clean and organize and go into a frenzy. But in the midst of that frenzy, I end up making my place even worse because I spread out all the papers in my attempt organize things and then I get frustrated with the disorganization that came from organizing and give up mid-way. Also, the pain makes me "take a break" and then I lose my motivation to continue.

2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?

As mentioned above, I had to change my mind frame and this is very very difficult. I still fight the urge for perfection and the desire to leave it alone if it can't be perfect. I also suffer from what my husband calls "at-hand disease", where I put things down right within my reach instead of in a spot. I've still got to figure out where some things "proper spot" will be, but that will come as I become more organized and purge more.

The internet has been a real bonus in helping me get back on track. I discovered on Twitter the hashtag #oamc (once a month cooking) and after trying that and liking how much I got done, I joked that there should be one for cleaning. Someone then "tweeted" me and told me that there was one for cleaning called #speedclean. I have been using that to report how much I've done in any given day. It's motivating to know that other people are cleaning at the same time. Sometimes, I'm the only one doing it but because I'm reporting it to the general public, I am kind of obligated to do what I say I'm doing, right? It's also helpful to know that other people are going through similar issues when it comes to keeping house.

3. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?

The bulk of my purge were papers. Most of it went in the recycling bins and some of it went in boxes of paper to be shredded. I haven't done that yet, but I will. Some other items for purging are in boxes ready to be donated / given away.

4. What creative storage solutions were you able to introduce in order to create additional space as well as establish some limits and boundaries?

I have been looking for the perfect basket to put my remote controls in. I found it at Dollarama when I went there for some completely different reason. I, of course, couldn't resist walking through the whole store, and that's when I found these baskets for $2. I bought 2; one for the remotes and one for "other" things such as paper, pens, and little things I use often enough not to put away somewhere else.I like these baskets so much that I may go back and get a couple more for the bedside tables, since up til now I have not found anything I liked for that.

(LOVE these baskets!
I have been looking for larger ones like this
that I can use on the bottom shelf of my console)

5. Why do you think you should win this challenge?

I'm sure that there are many deserving people in this challenge. I think my space looks better now but I still have a long way to go before I achieve my ultimate goal. But I won't stop, and challenges like this only inspire me to keep trying. If I don't win a prize, that's okay, I already won. I can see my floor! :)

While I did also clean my kitchen and my half bath, for this challenge I'm submitting my living room. That means I must embarrass myself by posting the disgusting before photos and then redeem myself by posting the after photos.

(should have used my flash in the after photo and not the before one!)

As you saw in THIS POST I finally put the photos on the wall. Now, I need to decide what to put on that shelf above the couch.

Hopefully, I will be able to maintain this level of tidiness. Just refer me back to this post anytime I get lazy, it'll shame some motivation back into me.