Challenge: Rearrange 2 rooms in 4 hours Difficulty:1 percocious puppy. How Hard Could It Be?

All the boys are gone so I have been partying down at home. It is so nice not to have to worry about feeding 4 other people and all I need is a tuna salad sandwich.
When all is quiet like this I get in clean mode. This time around I under took the duty of purging/rearranging/organizing/cleaning both bedrooms. I'm used to doing one room at one time not both at the same time. I think think I did myself in. **See I'm repeating myself or there's an echo in the room.**

Challenge: Carry one baby crib broken down in pieces and some Goodwill bags all at once which obstructs your view and balance. Difficulty: The dog likes to sit right in front of my feet at every single step.

Challenge:Vaccuming a nasty floor from a puppy who has chewed up just about every stuffed animal and bean bag in sight. Difficulty: A puppy who hates the vaccuum and barks at it incessently and then begins to bite at it.

Challenge: Spray painting a toy box outside with no wind to ventilate. Difficulty: Preventing yourself from inhaling the fumes while trying to keep the nosey dog from inhaling them as well. sidenote- I blew my nose this morning and had pretty black snot. That can't be good can it?

Challenge: Rearrangeing furniture around 5 different times to get it just right. Difficulty: Moving said furniture around a puppy 5 different times during the process.

Challenge: Sort/Purge/Organize toys so they all go in their proper spot. Difficulty: Arrange toys while the puppy is in your lap licking your ears and trying to jump on your head.

Needless to say I am one pooped momma today. I got 97% of it done last night. It really helps when you don't have dogs kids in the way.
I really didn't feel like going through all the toys to organize at 10PM last night, and will do that another day. Plus I would of had enough dog kisses to last a life time-somehow his kisses are mood killers. So all I am going to do is make the beds and put the books on the book shelf. I think they will be happy with the results.
Since I am never one to let my public down, the before and after shots revealed.

WARNING SOME PICTURES MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR CLEAN FREAKS AND EVEN SOME SLOBS: Depending on your picture preference.


TA DA!

It's a little plain right now, but I will have him pick what toys and what not he wants in his room.



Messy Room 2



You see my lovely assistant Anakin? Yeah he was a great help! NOT!!!
I don't want to bore you guys with a hundred pictures of a nasty room. The clean rooms do look pretty good if I say so myself.

Organization Challenge

I'm excited to post my results for the organization challenge at orgjunie. I'm ever so greatful for all her tips and probably wouldn't have had to motivation to do this challenge (the prizes helped to). So with out further adieu heres what I did.

**Updated to add my questions**
I think I pretty much answered the questions throughout the post but I want to make sure everything is covered and Im playing by the rules.
1. What was the hardest part of the challenge and were you able to overcome?
The hardest part was just deciding where was the counter stuff going to be placed. I knew I had to make new homes for all of the stuff. I was able to overcome this very easily once everything was removed.
2. What kind of changes/habits have been put in place to maintain order?
I would definatly say just having a proper place for everything and sorting and purging paper work at the end of week will be a new habit to maintain.
3. What did you do with the stuff you were able to purge out of newly organized space? I didn't have a lot to purge, mainly just an old blender and other misc. items that were never used were pretty much thrown away.
4. What was the biggest lesson learned? That there is a proper place for everything even in a small kitchen. And that cleaning is so much easier when things are put away.
5. Do you think this will make a difference in your life. Aboslutely its cut my cleaning time in half and now I can find things so much easier and cereal is not falling on my head!

My kitchen was a organization disaster. I had appliances and dishes that were either broken or I just plain did not use anymore. All this had to go to make room in my cabints for all the stuff that needed a home. I had tons of just stuff on my counters that also needed a proper storage place. I pretty much chunked what was broken (the blender). I also just re situated items in the cabinets for stuff that was on the counters.

This is the top of the fridge, it doesn't look to bad but there were days when stuff would just fall on top of me when opening the fridge door. I removed everything from the top of the fridge and found a better home for the cereal in a lower cabinet, and snack/lunch stuff in a basket on the counter.

Now I have placed my most used appliances the crockpot and grill on top for somewhat easier access and to free up space on the counters.
Counter space was hardest issue as I thought I had very little of it. I needed to decide what was important to actually keep on the counter and what could be placed in a cabinet neatly without the cabinets being overstuffed.
Here is some pics of all the stuff on my cabinets. I didn't have any kind of set place for everything it was just pretty much thrown somewhere.
>> This counter is pretty much the first thing you see as you walk in the door, its the first and easiest place to stash the school papers and mail. I was able to transform this small little counter into a mini workstation with a basket for holding pens and keys. I also have folders in a mail divider to place the mail. At the end of the week I sort through the mail and either shred or file it to clear out the folder. I was already doing this, but it was hard to get to that area with the grill and everything else in the way. This work area now has easier access and a proper place to temporarily store school papers and the mail.
The other counter is the snack/lunch station. I was able to completely clear this area out so that all that is left is the baking goods in their containers and the snack basket in which I divied up all the snacks like the chips and crackers and placed them in zip loc bags for easy lunch packing. This area has made lunch packing much quicker as the snack items are ready to go. All I have to do is make the sandwiches.


Even though I didn't get to do anything to dramatic like stripping the horrid wallpaper or upgrading to new containers I was able to make a manageable kitchen with out spending any money thats right ZERO! I have also been able to actually clean the kitchen so much easier too. This project only took me a Friday evening and Saturday morning which allowed me to rearrange the pantry cabinets and move all dishes and plastic ware to one cabinet allowing more room for canned goods.
Here are some additional pictures of all the stuff I removed from the cabinets and counters.

Heres the cleared out corner counter.

The cereal is now stored in this bottom cabinet. Good thing is cereal no longer will be falling on my head! I have found a down side. The two year old has discovered this cabinet and now gets up before mommy and eats the cereal. I may have to get a child proof lock on this cabinet as he has gone through almost a box of cereal in one sitting.



I have one last photo which was the medicine cabinet and now the spice cabinet. I moved the spices into the medicine cabinet to make room in the other cabinets for the plastic ware. I categorized the containers for the medicine with the pain reliever/cold medicine in one container and stomach meds/first aid in another container. The other container holds the sunscreen and misc. I have tons more photos of the clean cabinets but wont over whelm anyone.
I can already say that after a couple of weeks with a better organized kitchen cleaning and meal preparation has been so much easier. I also have felt that the kitchen is not caving in on me with stuff. I really can see me keeping up with this as its just to easy not to now that everything has a place.

Taking the Challlenge

Im entering this contest at Laura the orgjunkie's blog to clean up and organize a room or space in your house. I hope I haven't out done myself on this one. I have a few rooms/spaces that really could use some help like say the garage, or the kids rooms or even scary enough my bedroom. But all those rooms I have purged through and organized before. The problem is it gets reverted back to its original condition. The one room in the house that I haven't taken head on is the kitchen. So thats the room I choose.

The problem with the kitchen is there's not a lot of major over doing I can do (were renting)- like knocking out a wall or two to make it bigger, or even better get rid of the hideous wall paper from 1972. I am up to the challenge of making the most of my small rented space.

Here are a few pics of the kitchen. I took these pics right after dinner so excuse the dishes soaking in the sink. The problem with the kitchen is its pretty much the first room we enter when coming into the house. We go straight through the laundry room and into the kitchen so EVERYTHING gets dumped on the kitchen counter. I have a counter thats supposed to be the primary the "goto" station where the kids papers and mail are placed. I would like to make it more organized and utilized.

I have very little cabinet space for all my small appliances and do not have a pantry so all the cereals and kids lunch snacks get stored on top of the fridge. When theres no room left it gets all dumped in the corner counter. I really get closterphobia in this area. I just know one day Im going to have cereal and chips dumped on top of me when opening the fridge.

I don't have an all and all concrete plan yet. I do know that I would like to get some kind of containerized thing going for the cereals and kids snacks. If I can think of some other way of maintaining my cabinet space I will do that.

When I get into my organized mode I usually convince myself that it has to be done that day no matter what and then I get overwhelmed and children get unfed and hubby gets unfed and I end up getting frusterated. I hope 30 days will help to realize that I can take a little at a time and still get the job done.


There you have it..I have now posted my ugly kitchen for all the world to see. I can't believe I'm doing this. It will be so rewarding to have atleast an organized kitchen to see, and the prize motivation helps to! I will keep everyone posted on my progress and plan.-And did you see that wallpaper? just makes you wanna hurl don't it?