Organising our homes, 1 day at a time!

[Mommabear20]

A thread for anyone wanting some company and motivation to get those pesky messy corners cleared and tidy!

Bring your organising hacks and let's do this!

@thisyearsuckssofar Sending support to you. I stayed in my house post-divorce but I remember the process of decluttering & the feeling of needing a new broom, in the old fashioned phrase. I hope it's not too draining & you can move on to a much brighter future 🙂

Yesterday I worked on the (very large) top shelf of our wardrobe. It's mainly full of sentimental pieces and accessories so I decluttered lots and then put everything back in neatly stacked boxes and labelled everything so I can finally see what goes where. Secondly, I organised an ornamental pot on my bedside table so it only holds earrings and not random coins too - a tiny task but one that had been bugging me for a while. And I also bought a new large plastic box with lid for the garage and organised the sentimental pieces from both my DGMs who I've lost in last 2 years. They're pieces that I can't part with but can't really 'use' either. I have allowed myself one box to go on a garage shelf so I'm pleased with that - it's labelled, I can see what's inside, and I'll revisit later down the line when things are less raw.

@thisyearsuckssofar what a challenge. Sending virtual wine and chocolate.

@Dinosauraddict that sounds ever so positive.

We have excavated right to the back of the understairs cupboard and started to paint. I've moved a few toys that we are storing long term (train tracks, Lego) into the loft in clear boxes to free up space in the wardrobes. I've pruned the kids' school books and one box of them is going into the loft.

I'm a bit worried that shoving stuff into the loft is just postponing the problem, but I am picking and choosing carefully and I've got rid of a lot.

thisyear 💐

Slow progress here but as the thread says, one day at a time!

Yesterday I managed to get rid of some papers, and filed others into our accordion folder thing - not a perfect system but it means stuff is in categories at least.

Today DH has put up some hooks on the inside of a cupboard door, and I’ve found a bag for a load of his work stuff that has been floating around for ages (he does sporadic events so stuff like branded bunting etc)

Want to make more progress today but very tired. Also need to consider how to organise my uni stuff, my OU degree starts in two weeks.

I'm in.
I so so want a label maker!

@SingToTheSky Best of luck with the OU degree. I used to lecture for the OU & it's still my best academic experience, I lectured at some top bricks & mortar universities but nothing beat the OU & its intake. Harold Wilson always said setting up the OU was his greatest achievement.

I'm joining this thread because I'm organising and declutter too. I've done nothing useful today though!

@Nordicmom a kit car sounds awesome

@thisyearsuckssofar sorry to hear about your separation.

Welcome @WildPoinsettia

I did very little organising yesterday, but only because I was decluttering frantically all day. I think today will be decluttering focused too as I'm trying to sort out the garage. However, I did order new cases to sort out all remaining dvds and games - rather excited about that as then I can get rid of all the boxes and save space as well as have them stored by category and labelled.

I've been watching but forgetting to update as most of it has felt like decluttering and although cluttered I was already pretty organised. There have been some lovely organising wins along the way though, big 1 yesterday for me was a system for ds toys, I cleared the drawer under the TV unit and it has 3 sections so now I have a group of toys in each 1 (that were all over the floor) so they are not out all of the time and I will rotate each group every week or so so he doesn't get bored of having the same stuff out all the time, he's only 7 months so most stuff is small things for his tiny hands and this works for now so they are all in 1 drawer.

I’ve decided everyone in my family is allergic to organisation and clear spaces. Got the kitchen counters clear apart from the appliances, my partner dumped a pile of papers, a box of batteries and a sealant gun there. The bathroom was clean and tidy last night, by this morning the counter is littered in bottles and hairbands and the side of the bath also covered in bottles. Cleared a space on top of ds’ kallax so he could have some of his special cars on display rather than chucked in the box, it’s now just covered in stuff…emptied a drawer in the living room, it’s stuffed full of all the random crap do “tidied” from in there that he obviously couldn’t be bothered to put in its proper place.
I’ve ordered a label machine from Aldi so I’m just going to label everything and hope that helps!!

Hello! Just jumping over from the Declutter club thread. About to take a bag of books to the charity shop after organising the Billy bookcases in DH’s office. It’s a bit of an all purpose storage area but now everything has a place so it looks so much tidier.

Ah thanks @8stone13 :) I’m looking forward to it, and started reading all the assessment info last night and I’ve booked all my tutorials etc (trying to be organised with my studies as well as my house!). I have studied with them before, mainly maths, but then got unwell and had to stop work and couldn’t study either. So the courses I did then are either irrelevant or too long past now, and I’m starting from scratch (psychology degree). I’m glad you enjoyed teaching for them, I think they score very highly on student satisfaction too. Really hoping that in a year or two they’ll return to face to face tutorials as well.

Not much house organising achieved although I did move some stuff around into better sized trofast trays, like the children’s paint bottles - will also have a tray for all the brushes and pots etc.

This morning I switched two areas around because it looks more visually pleasing that way. A quick organizing win there.

I also have some crates which were overflowing with things. I've scooped off the excess so they stack properly now and don't look like they'll topple over. I've stacked them where they are supposed to be, so now they're not blocking access to something else. Feels like a major plus. I don't like having to shift things to get to other things, it's a nuisance.

But I've got the piles of excess to put somewhere, so I'm going to buy more crates and they can be stacked on top of the others. This means a messy corner will finally be clear tomorrow.

Hello! We were moving house so started decluttering a couple of months ago. Unfortunately that’s now not happening but we’re still decluttering because I want to do a few things to the house- hardwood floors downstairs, redecorating and generally get the house to what I really want! DH is reluctantly following along 🙄
I took 20 bags of books to the library (probably between 350 & 400 books!), a man with a truck took a massive pile of crap that DH stuck up in the attic 25 years ago when we moved here, some of which I have never seen before in my life!
I put 5 black bags of yarn on Facebook and they were snapped up in 30 minutes. I have spent 2 days clearing out a big oak dresser that’s going, hopefully to auction if not Freecycle or Facebook.
There was stuff in there of absolutely no use to man or beast!
I’m getting rid of storage because I reckon I always by more storage rather than have a clear out 🙄, it’s easier isn’t it?!
I hope that when I finish I will only have things I love and need rather than lots of things of little value to us. My car has 7 boxes of things to go to the charity shop on Wednesday, I’m on a roll!
I reckon it’s going to take me another few weeks to get everything cleared out, then decorating can start🤞🏻

Sorry to hear the house move has fallen through @YanTanTetheraPetheraPimp - but great reason to get current place exactly how you want it!

I've not done much today on the organising side as it has all been about decluttering again. However, I've chased up my hotly anticipated utility room cupboards and have just ordered more storage boxes as I ran out again. Tomorrow will be back on the organisation train!

Thanks Dinosauraddict, it was disappointing but getting on top of dh’s health problems meant it was not a good time. I’m actually really looking forward to getting the house sorted!
Organising -wise I am going to be really strict on not letting clutter build up again. I was just reading the thread on clearing one’s parents house- did that last year and absolutely no way will we leave our DCs with the colossal drudge we had doing my parents house 😡
Hopefully I will achieve what I intend!
🤞🏻

@wildpoinsettia it's lovely having space in your storage isn't it? I find it much easier.

@YanTanTetheraPetheraPimp wow what a lot done, well done.

@Spinnier yes it is. I can open the drawers now. Moving a pile of stuff out of the way first wasn't at all convenient and meant the stuff in the drawers may as well not have existed. I didn't get the crates I wanted to finish the job though. I'll have to hope they're restocked next time I go to that shop in a few weeks. I'll try to focus on a bit of decluttering in the meantime instead.

My storage boxes arrived (again) - yay! Have used 3 already and had a very productive evening. I now have a box for DS' Christmas clothes, one for his Gro-bags and one for our yoga stretch bands, all appropriately folded and labelled. I also labelled some ad hoc items like my calculator. Then my big task was using my new cases that arrived today to store games and films. I ordered all the games by console (E.g. PlayStation, xbox) and then within that by category (E.g. racing games, zombie games). Very satisfying. I have ordered one more case to finish off the dvds as I didn't account for DH's James Bond box set however those are done aside from that (similar approach to games where I have ordered by genre).

I’ve just started the bathroom Organization.
We gathered together all the creams from round the house and filled a basket 😱

Organisation and recycling win today. Found a lady who collects lots of different bits of recycling for terracycle and raises money for animal charities so I have made a list of what she takes and put it on the wall in the kitchen and made a space in the cupboard to store stuff until there's enough for a trip.

Updating for yesterday - the extra DVD case arrived so I've finished organising the rest of the DVDs. I also bought some extra stackable boxes for DS' stationery and have organised and labelled his crayons, pens etc so that's done as part of his playroom storage.

well done everyone! I've ordered some shelving, hooks and handles online, ready to refit my understairs cupboard. I think I've decided on a design.

Ooh that sounds good @Spinnier - I love designing a new space.

Had an AWFUL day at work today and spent a lot of it in tears so haven't done much, but I did label all the storage boxes under the kitchen sink (things like cleaning products and first aid box) - trying to keep the momentum going.

@Dinosauraddict Hugs to you

I'm still ploughing through the filing, I thought I'd kept up to it really well but the amount of dated documents I've got to shred says something quite different!

My life is changing shortly - divorce being finalised after 6 years - so it's good to get everything prepared as I'm going to re-do my will, look at what to do with properties & investments & pensions etc. This process of organising feels like a real new broom, & is helping me feel much more in control.