The Marathon is Finished
So if anyone has noticed, I've kind of been MIA on here for about a week or so. We have had a lot going on! Life comes in waves, sometimes it's go go go, and other times it's sit back and rest. My little sister had senior night for softball and Prom this week and my girls have been busy with soccer, church, and school.
Here are some pictures from our life happenings this week:
Yesterday was the last day of tidying my house according to Marie Kondo as well as cleaning out my grandma's attic with things that haven't been moved in 30+ years. That being said, I do have one or two things to accomplish this week to wrap it completely up, but those can be done fairly quickly once I have bought the needed storage containers.
Can I just say...WOW! I mean WOW! This experience has been rather trying especially when you have to live in your home at the same time of tidying up your entire house. It was a daily struggle not to give up and say forget it, because I don't know if you know this or not but when you put an OCD person who likes everything put away nice and neat into a house that has junk strung from one side of the house to the other, it kind of makes them mentally unstable and they could basically snap at any moment. I was at this point several times this week, I thought I was never going to finish and the junk just kept piling up and piling up. But here I am on the first day of a new week with all the rooms tidied and organized and I can say, "it is well with my soul."
I want to share some of the tips I learned from this experience and I thought the easiest way to do it would to go room by room and share how each room has changed.
So let's start with the kitchen (this is not the order I followed when organizing, I followed Marie's steps but I thought this would just be easier. She suggests going by categories not rooms.)
Kitchen
The biggest complaint I had before in the kitchen was that the sink stayed full with dirty dishes, something about dirty dishes drives me crazy. However, I completely dislike washing dishes. I blame this on my grandmother, she used to make one of us wash and one of us dry after we ate at her house. It wasn't fun back then, and it isn't fun now. So when I started thinking about what we could do to make this room more tidy while at the same time functional I began with dishes. We have 5 people in our house, so we only need five plates, five spoons, five forks, and so on. The thing I realized is that the more dishes we had the more we would mess up before we decided to wash them. So instead of only using five plates we would use ten and then decide they needed to be cleaned and have a sink full of dirty dishes or a dishwasher full or dirty dishes. So downsizing was the most effective way to eliminate that issue. Because what do you do when you go to get a plate but the plate you have is the only one that is yours? You wash it right then and there so you can use it for your next meal. So far it has accomplished the purpose we wanted it to. I will not say it's been easy but it has reduced the # of dirty dishes. We completed this downsizing with everything in our kitchen and guess what? I have room for all of my kitchen items in my actual kitchen. They are no longer overflowing into my utility room storage. Unfortunately, in all my downsizing I threw away Matt's favorite spatula for cooking eggs, so I must replace that but if that's the worst thing I did, I can live with that! To be fair, the spatula did not match the rest of the kitchen utensils so it had to go.
Bedrooms
The bedrooms main focus was storing our clothes. A few weeks before this we went through all the closets and really took a look at what we wanted our clothes to be like. Matt and I both decided we needed a change. He decided to go with a "man uniform" and I decided I wanted to try to make a wardrobe capsule with mine. In case you don't know, a man uniform is where he would wear the same outfit basically everyday to make life simple and having a few other pieces for special occasions. A wardrobe capsule is where you choose a few colors that go well together and use them as your base when deciding what clothes to buy that way everything goes well together and you make a lot of outfits from fewer pieces. Both of these ideas are still a work in progress, but we are getting there. So the downsizing in this area occurred previously and I was left with how to store the pieces of clothing we have. She goes into complete detail for every article of clothing here but I will tell you folding properly was key here! What used to take up my entire closet has now been folded and stored neatly in our dresser drawers. I followed Marie Kondo's folding techniques and it was definitely a game changer. I always thought I like my clothes hanging up where I could see them at a glance, but it has been so much nicer having them folded. If you choose to do this, make sure you follow her guide on how to fold because it is not your normal way of folding and stacking. To get the maximum amount of space, you must fold and stand.
*I did this in the girls room as well and it made a huge difference in their storage space as well. However, I still have to teach them how to put away their clothes with this new folding style because they are so use to stacking instead of standing.*
Bathrooms
One thing I learned from this process is to use the storage space already built into your home and use it effectively. Our bathrooms are small and don't hold much, but after this I was able to fit everything I needed into our cabinets above and below the sink freeing up much needed space. Square/Rectangular Containers are a huge help in storing things neatly and helping maximize the space you do have.
Living Room
This room was the easiest. It was pretty much tidy already we just has to downsize on our couches. For some reason we had four couches. Somehow we always managed to end up with all of us squished onto one love seat. So I realized one living room set would suffice. We do not need the extra seating for that "one day" that we "might" need it.
Utility Room
This room houses our washer/dryer, iron/ironing board, dirty clothes/towel hampers, and other household appliances and supplies. I have probably gone through this room a dozen times cleaning and getting rid of things, but this seems to be our catch-all room. When we don't know where to put something, we put it in the utility room, and so one thing that I learned from this particular room and also from Marie Kondo is that, "everything has a home and you must put it back in it's home when you are finished with it."
Playroom
The hardest room of all because my kids think I'm heartless. Just kidding, they still love me. Now I don't want you to think I got rid of everything, because I didn't but I did definitely downsize. This room was always the worst room in the house and it was for two reasons. One is that the girls never put any toy back in it's place before moving on to the next toy (somehow they missed this OCD trait from me) and two is that they had so many toys it was pretty much impossible to keep the room clean even if they did put things back somewhat. So what did I do? I went to work while they were asleep. That's the only way to do it because otherwise that half stick of chewed bubble gum will be there most favorite possession and they can't believe you are getting rid of it! To be honest, they did notice a few things I discarded but for the most part they haven't even realized that it's gone simply because they didn't remember that had it because there was just so MUCH STUFF! Now I can confidently say there playroom is setup in zones/areas and they know where everything is and it has become a much more enjoyable space for them to play. Now we have a new rule (Emry just loves these): When one goes in, one most go out. I picked this up from a blog online and think it's a fantastic way to keep the toys from getting to the point of being overwhelming.
I hope I didn't bore you too much with the details but I wanted to give you an idea of some of the changes we made because even though they were pretty simple, I didn't realize how much of a difference some of these things would do for our family. We are determined to live simpler and more tidy lives so we can enjoy the house we live in. I can officially say now I have tidied my house up once and for all (this is what Marie says should happen and you should never go back!)
"So whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,"
Colossians 3:23
With love,
Tori
Here are some pictures from our life happenings this week:
Yesterday was the last day of tidying my house according to Marie Kondo as well as cleaning out my grandma's attic with things that haven't been moved in 30+ years. That being said, I do have one or two things to accomplish this week to wrap it completely up, but those can be done fairly quickly once I have bought the needed storage containers.
Can I just say...WOW! I mean WOW! This experience has been rather trying especially when you have to live in your home at the same time of tidying up your entire house. It was a daily struggle not to give up and say forget it, because I don't know if you know this or not but when you put an OCD person who likes everything put away nice and neat into a house that has junk strung from one side of the house to the other, it kind of makes them mentally unstable and they could basically snap at any moment. I was at this point several times this week, I thought I was never going to finish and the junk just kept piling up and piling up. But here I am on the first day of a new week with all the rooms tidied and organized and I can say, "it is well with my soul."
I want to share some of the tips I learned from this experience and I thought the easiest way to do it would to go room by room and share how each room has changed.
So let's start with the kitchen (this is not the order I followed when organizing, I followed Marie's steps but I thought this would just be easier. She suggests going by categories not rooms.)
Kitchen
The biggest complaint I had before in the kitchen was that the sink stayed full with dirty dishes, something about dirty dishes drives me crazy. However, I completely dislike washing dishes. I blame this on my grandmother, she used to make one of us wash and one of us dry after we ate at her house. It wasn't fun back then, and it isn't fun now. So when I started thinking about what we could do to make this room more tidy while at the same time functional I began with dishes. We have 5 people in our house, so we only need five plates, five spoons, five forks, and so on. The thing I realized is that the more dishes we had the more we would mess up before we decided to wash them. So instead of only using five plates we would use ten and then decide they needed to be cleaned and have a sink full of dirty dishes or a dishwasher full or dirty dishes. So downsizing was the most effective way to eliminate that issue. Because what do you do when you go to get a plate but the plate you have is the only one that is yours? You wash it right then and there so you can use it for your next meal. So far it has accomplished the purpose we wanted it to. I will not say it's been easy but it has reduced the # of dirty dishes. We completed this downsizing with everything in our kitchen and guess what? I have room for all of my kitchen items in my actual kitchen. They are no longer overflowing into my utility room storage. Unfortunately, in all my downsizing I threw away Matt's favorite spatula for cooking eggs, so I must replace that but if that's the worst thing I did, I can live with that! To be fair, the spatula did not match the rest of the kitchen utensils so it had to go.
Bedrooms
The bedrooms main focus was storing our clothes. A few weeks before this we went through all the closets and really took a look at what we wanted our clothes to be like. Matt and I both decided we needed a change. He decided to go with a "man uniform" and I decided I wanted to try to make a wardrobe capsule with mine. In case you don't know, a man uniform is where he would wear the same outfit basically everyday to make life simple and having a few other pieces for special occasions. A wardrobe capsule is where you choose a few colors that go well together and use them as your base when deciding what clothes to buy that way everything goes well together and you make a lot of outfits from fewer pieces. Both of these ideas are still a work in progress, but we are getting there. So the downsizing in this area occurred previously and I was left with how to store the pieces of clothing we have. She goes into complete detail for every article of clothing here but I will tell you folding properly was key here! What used to take up my entire closet has now been folded and stored neatly in our dresser drawers. I followed Marie Kondo's folding techniques and it was definitely a game changer. I always thought I like my clothes hanging up where I could see them at a glance, but it has been so much nicer having them folded. If you choose to do this, make sure you follow her guide on how to fold because it is not your normal way of folding and stacking. To get the maximum amount of space, you must fold and stand.
*I did this in the girls room as well and it made a huge difference in their storage space as well. However, I still have to teach them how to put away their clothes with this new folding style because they are so use to stacking instead of standing.*
Bathrooms
One thing I learned from this process is to use the storage space already built into your home and use it effectively. Our bathrooms are small and don't hold much, but after this I was able to fit everything I needed into our cabinets above and below the sink freeing up much needed space. Square/Rectangular Containers are a huge help in storing things neatly and helping maximize the space you do have.
Living Room
This room was the easiest. It was pretty much tidy already we just has to downsize on our couches. For some reason we had four couches. Somehow we always managed to end up with all of us squished onto one love seat. So I realized one living room set would suffice. We do not need the extra seating for that "one day" that we "might" need it.
Utility Room
This room houses our washer/dryer, iron/ironing board, dirty clothes/towel hampers, and other household appliances and supplies. I have probably gone through this room a dozen times cleaning and getting rid of things, but this seems to be our catch-all room. When we don't know where to put something, we put it in the utility room, and so one thing that I learned from this particular room and also from Marie Kondo is that, "everything has a home and you must put it back in it's home when you are finished with it."
Playroom
The hardest room of all because my kids think I'm heartless. Just kidding, they still love me. Now I don't want you to think I got rid of everything, because I didn't but I did definitely downsize. This room was always the worst room in the house and it was for two reasons. One is that the girls never put any toy back in it's place before moving on to the next toy (somehow they missed this OCD trait from me) and two is that they had so many toys it was pretty much impossible to keep the room clean even if they did put things back somewhat. So what did I do? I went to work while they were asleep. That's the only way to do it because otherwise that half stick of chewed bubble gum will be there most favorite possession and they can't believe you are getting rid of it! To be honest, they did notice a few things I discarded but for the most part they haven't even realized that it's gone simply because they didn't remember that had it because there was just so MUCH STUFF! Now I can confidently say there playroom is setup in zones/areas and they know where everything is and it has become a much more enjoyable space for them to play. Now we have a new rule (Emry just loves these): When one goes in, one most go out. I picked this up from a blog online and think it's a fantastic way to keep the toys from getting to the point of being overwhelming.
I hope I didn't bore you too much with the details but I wanted to give you an idea of some of the changes we made because even though they were pretty simple, I didn't realize how much of a difference some of these things would do for our family. We are determined to live simpler and more tidy lives so we can enjoy the house we live in. I can officially say now I have tidied my house up once and for all (this is what Marie says should happen and you should never go back!)
"So whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,"
Colossians 3:23
With love,
Tori
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