Cleaning up & Cleaning out

In my last post I'd talked about the shelving and what not that we were going to put up in our laundry room.  For those of you who missed it, here is the original layout...

When I couldn't find that perfect shelf I was a bit frustrated but none the less I found one that we both liked.  At first I analyzed the original design... the cabinet (which would hold detergent, etc.) was over the dryer.  And the hanging rack was over the washing machine, so I flipped them.  Then came the next problem.  We put the cabinet against the back wall in the corner and low an behold our walls are anything but squared, leaving a half inch gap between the wall and the front of the cabinet.  The first thought that ran through my head was "who licensed these people to build our house?".  We have found multiple things that are not up to code or not done properly and it's just a bit frustrating.  Back to the drawing board I went.  This time I changed it up a little, what if we put the cabinet in the middle and a rod on each side?  Well I have to say, after making a few exchanges I am so happy with the way it turned out.  Here is a picture of the finished product...

Sorry that the picture isn't the best, I snagged it off my phone since my camera battery has died and I need to charge it.  I love not having to run out into the ice cold garage late at night for a roll of toilet paper when we run out (it happens way more than it should).  I will probably be getting rid of all the extra bottles for detergent and fabric softener when I get some good dispenser bottles but for now, they store all my extra up on top.  I am using the conditioner bottles that I had left over after making the fabric softener as the containers which hold the detergent & fabric softener, they are small but hold enough to last me about a week.  The tubs of white 'stuff' is the washing soda & borax needed to make the laundry detergent, along with the Felz Naptha bar.  I'm so grateful for the space I now have on the top of my washer & dryer.  I'm able to fold/hang up clothes before they leave the laundry room, rather than ending up in piles everywhere. 

My second project was my message board to go by the front door.  Here is a picture of the final product but if you'd like to read more go to It's not what you have, it's what you make of what you have.

I had almost all the materials for this project, some was even stuff I was going to toss because it was remnants from previous projects.  The white area has a piece of glass over it so it can be used as a dry erase board.  I'm just waiting to get the hangers to hang it up by the front door. 

My most recent project isn't like any other. This project includes getting my house back.  When we got married I had pretty much thrown my stuff (crafts, junk, etc.) in boxes and drawers.  I started unpacking but never really got it all unpacked.  About halfway through my pregnancy with Luke we found me a smaller desk that could fit in the living room and so I started going through boxes and organizing stuff out here as we cleaned the room up for his arrival.  In August of 2010, we ended up building Alex an office in the garage so that we no longer had to have customers traipsing through our house to get to his 'office'.  This freed up our other room which I then had to gather all my stuff from the living room and all my stuff from my old office/Luke's room and put it all in my new office.  This started out as an organized project, if it didn't have a place, it either was assigned one or gotten rid of.  It felt good, I could sit at my desk and write or do a craft project but then six weeks prior to my due date I started having contractions which we had to stop.  Because of this I was supposed to be resting...a lot.  I was going nuts and so I did what at the time I thought was logical and started shoving those boxes/totes of unpacked junk into my new office.  My poor office has never been the same.  So now that I'm done telling you how it got messy, I'm gonna tell you how exactly I'm gonna clean it. 

I picked up a book called Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider.  I've tried countless programs and none of them have worked for me.  I started reading her book on Saturday and I was hooked.  I've taken notes on the whole thing (or at least the parts I've read) and I love the way she does things.  For once it is something I can handle.  When going through your house, there are two questions to ask yourself...1)Is it useful? 2)Is it beautiful.  If your answer to both is no, then it is definitely something that is considered clutter.  Being that I have a one year old, busy body who does NOT like to be caged, it's taking more than the 10 days to actually do the program but thats okay.  I could not believe how much stuff I got rid of just in my closet, I mean, it's not THAT big and yet there were lots of little things that have been shoved in there.  I even got rid of a few things of clothing and just that made me feel  like a burden was lifted.  I can't wait to go through the rest of the house and start getting rid of stuff that isn't useful, stuff that is just cluttering our house.  I also can't wait to just sit and scan receipts  so that we don't have to keep every single piece of paper that enters our home.   For the most part, I want our home to be a place of simplicity which is something that Tsh really emphasizes. Now I best get back to working on all my cleaning out before I don't get it done!

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things" -Robert Brault