We are "in progress"

So Wednesday and Thursday evening at our house were pretty intense as far as the organization and cleaning mode.  I walked in the house on Wednesday night and didn't even make it upstairs before the process began.  We did a TON on Wednesday night and got the storage room cleaned out and then started on the bedrooms upstairs.  I didn't post any pictures of the front bedroom, but we had a bunch of stuff in the closet of that room and then things that had collected on the floor since I had no more room in the back bedroom of doom.  We worked from 5pm to 10pm that night on the house and didn't even stop for food, although there may have been some "cleaning beers" consumed during the process. 

During the process of moving things into and from the storage room we also started putting together the basement for Spence.  We moved pictures around (for some reason he wasn't a big fan of some of the photos I've taken staying up on the wall, what man cave is complete without some English roses on the wall?)

Thursday we finished up on the back bedroom of doom and actually ate dinner! I think we may have also made progress on getting a time to start on the garage.  Fingers crossed that when this posts the garage will not look like the dumping ground it currently is!

This is the same view as as the before picture, does it even look like the same space?

The items left are a bag of candles that I need to find a closet shelf for, the backpack is actually a wedding gift, its a picnic basket!  and then the blue bag has an old computer in it.  There are still some photos on there that I want to get so I don't want to trash it just yet....but soon?

This is from the other corner that there was NO way I could have taken before!

This is a quick peek at the basement.  I'll get some more pictures of it after we finish organizing and get the last of Specers beer and Jayhawk posters up!

We haven't decided what will become of the things along this wall.  The pile of bedding in the corner will likely get trashed, or donated to goodwill.....the rolly carts we may keep as they could be useful for storage but I'm in total "purge" mode so they may go in the garage sale.....

Ahhhh, my shelves.  we have them organized by category.  The first 2 shelves are kitchen appliances (stand mixer, bread maker, deep fryer etc) the next 2 shelves are things I use when we entertain (all my B.Smith things I got for the wedding, some outdoor candle holders, extra place mats and tablecloths etc) and the bottom shelf is the misc. stuff like my great grandmas china that we probably wont use much but I need to make sure its safe!

You can also see the weight bench in the foreground, we've talked about making the back bedroom of doom into a mini home gym and putting the weight bench and a treadmill in there.  We'll need to look at the cost of the treadmill but it would mean we can cancel my gym membership.....

The Befores....part 3

Now onto the storage room.  The storage room actually has the least amount of our stuff in it, because for the last 3 years roomie used it as her closet.  I'm calling it a blessing that we don't have *nearly* as much stuff in here as I was afraid we did because I was worried for a minute that we wouldn't have enough room for all the stuff we are storing! 

A lot of the stuff that is in this room currently will probably stay.  From these pictures I can only see a few things that will get sold in the garage sale.  I will say there are some things along the front wall of this room that I didn't get photos of, but ALL of those things are garage sale bound.  They are all the kitchen stuff we cleaned out of the kitchen when we got married and started using our new things! 

My plan on Wednesday night last week was to sort through the boxes you see and start deciding what we will sell and what we will store.  I think there are some boxes of bags (duffel, backpack etc) that we may keep some and sell some, and I have a few boxes of high school/college stuff in there that need to be gone through.

This is a bigger project that I thought!

The Befores....Part 2

Today we move on to the garage.  I will preface these pictures with the statement that a LOT of the stuff in here belongs to my dad and not to us.  When I moved in I could actually get my car into the garage, and we have not added all that much stuff to it......(I may be lying just a little)

Gracing us with its presence in the garage we have a plethora of windows, trim pieces and lots of random wood that has collected (thank you dad).  We have 2 scooters that my dad brought home for us from his work, we just need to put them together so we can ride them! There is a pool table under all that mess on the side, its currently covered in "stuff" that has collected, I'm not sure who the "stuff" belongs to.  My dad has stored a riding lawnmower down there and I think I see our Christmas decor down there too....
Pretty much everything on the shelves along the back will get tossed, and the bags you see in the bottom left corner are all going to Goodwill next week.  Sigh.  The garage will be the biggest project, mainly because we need to get my dad to come over and get his stuff.

The Befores.....part 1

OK here are the "before" pictures of the rooms that are getting a reorganization makeover.  I'm posting these in the hopes that after these are all posted we will be able to post at least some "in progress" pictures and you wont be judging me for too long! 

The Back Bedroom of Doom......da da dun.....

These are from the doorway, which is frankly as far in as I've gotten in about a year.  Before we tried to move the chaise that you can kinda see in the background this room was actually a lot less OMG looking.  We tried to get it out and realized we weren't sure how we got it in!  I think the legs will need to come off.....

This room is where all the "stuff" went last year when we put in the bea-u-tiful hardwood floors.  Everything that went in did not come back out, and a lot of this stuff will hopefully find a new home this year in the garage sale!

Lets get ready to.....organize?

I came to the conclusion that I really cannot start to organize the storage room, back bedroom of doom and the garage until I have someplace to put all the things I do not plan to get rid of/sell.  *I am so smart right?*

I have another secret (I know, first the earth shattering secret that I am not a morning person and now this doozy....) I am lazy.  I really and truly am, so very lazy.  And on top of that oh so attractive personality trait I am smart enough to realize that I will not do the same work twice for no reason.  So there is no way I am going to clean out/organize all the things in the storage room and then turn around AGAIN to re-organize the same items to put them on shelves.  It just wont happen.  So with this piece of information looming in my mind I set out on Saturday to find shelves we can put in the storage room so I can get my house put back together.  I went to Target, Wal Mart, Lowe's and Home Depot to price and look at shelving units. 
*because on top of being lazy I'm also cheap, and I would be peeved at me if I found out I could have saved cash on these shelves*
And the winner is......

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=100095394&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&ci_sku=100095394&ci_src=14110944&cm_mmc=shopping-_-googlebase-_-D23X-_-100095394&locStoreNum=1002#BVRRWidgetID

You'd think they'd be prettier for as happy as I am to have decided on them......  They are 48" long, 72" high and 24" deep, plenty of room for the stuff I have to store currently.  The plan is to go back in a few months and get another set of them for the time in the future when we'll have more things to store. 
*the reason is that on top of lazy and cheap I'm also weird enough that I will need the shelves in the storage room to match in order to not twitch when I walk in there*
I think I'll go get them this week and start the process of moving things onto them once they are assembled *super obvious statement*. 

I took some "before" pictures of the garage, back bedroom of doom and the storage room as they are now.  I'll put them up closer to when the transformation has occurred, I'd hate to leave the impression of what they currently look like for too long....

Spring Cleaning.....

Since the roomie is gone (well she is and her stuff will go today) and I am in full on re-organization mode I spent a good chunk of Sunday cleaning out our hall closets.  I have no before pictures of the closets, because frankly I'm mortified that they got as bad as they did.  For 5 years I literally would just shove things in there and hope no one else opened them.  Seriously any one out there who saw them you know I'm not kidding. Same with the coat closet that got re organized a few weeks ago. So I pulled  everything out and got to work.  The final product is below, sorry for the bad cell phone quality pics, the front hall closet has no good source of light around it.

Closet at the very back, nicely stocked with our recent Sam's Club loot.  In the name of honesty I should point out that the bottom shelf still needs some work.  I have yet to figure out how to fold an electric blanket so it lays nicely.....   The top shelf has some extra sheets, and the wrapping paper/gift bag collection, its organized but not really pretty....

Looking at these (poor quality) pics you'd never know that before this you were in danger of multiple concussions from things falling on you when you opened this closet. 

We have our shelf of disposable cups, plates etc for parties along with our games (bunco and catch phrase and I'll make room for Apples to Apples when I remember to ask M for it back)

and below is our cleaning supplies shelf.  I think I threw away 5 bottles of empty cleaners that had just been hanging out for Lord knows how long.

The next shelf is our home improvement shelf, tools, flashlights, duct tape, light bulbs etc and below that is Georges shelf with some assortment of extension cords, and the "random" stuff I couldn't really categorize. 

The coat closet.  Prior to cleaning it out it was filled with some old Christmas gifts that hadn't found a home, lots and lots of random stuff that had just been thrown in and left to die etc.  I had a friend open it once and I almost died I was so embarrassed.  NO MORE!  Now it houses Spence's P90X stuff our printers (a photo printer and a regular printer) and on the floor is the vacuum.   

Now on to the back bedroom and the guest room....both of which need some serious attention.