Hunt Family Connection

Days 5 and 6 – The Office and More

The office has been a source of stress for some time now.  Stuff just kept piling up there as I attempted to keep surfaces clean in the kitchen and dining room.  So I embarrassingly give you a couple shots of the office before I began:

 

Yikes, right?!

I did my best to clear off surfaces – though a couple of shelves on the bookshelves on the left side of the room stayed just as they were.

 

Putting things back was a bit more difficult than it had been in other rooms. Wil put up a couple of shelves so that we could get things off of the desks. I would really like to get some smaller desks – what we have now are way too large for the space and need to be replaced. Since that’s farther down our list of priorities at the moment, the old desks stay and I settle for getting them cleaned off and clutter-free.

So this is a picture of most everything emptied out of the office:

And these are a lot of the items that didn’t go back into the office:

There was also another box of goodies to take to Goodwill. Oh – and that green couch left the room too (yay!)

So one more reminder of what the office looked like BEFORE:

And my favorite part – the AFTER shots :)

Ahhhh – feels much better doesn’t it? I don’t mind sitting out there now – in fact I kind of like it! I still need to finish going through the file cabinet and throw out old and unnecessary paperwork, but the bulk of the work is done.

This was all pretty much done by lunchtime of Day 6, so I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing the downstairs by cleaning out the bathroom (emptied out the magazine/book basket, emptied out all of the drawers, tidied up under the sink, and got unnecessary things off the counter) and the entry way. I don’t have pictures of the bathroom, but I do have a before and after of the entryway:

We had some MAJOR shoe clutter that got picked up and I thinned out the coats – we won’t be needing those winter coats for awhile now.

And that pretty much finished up the downstairs! What an AMAZING feeling it is to walk around and feel like everything is in its place and most everything that is there is important and/or useful to us in some way. I find that when everything is all in order like this, I’m much more motivated to keep on top of it.  I hope I continue to feel this motivation, even when we’re busy with that new baby or are back at work.

The upstairs will be next, but I’ve decided not to start in on that until next week. The rest of the week will be spent hanging out with Graham and at some point rewarding myself with some “fun/relaxing” time like going to a movie.

Decluttering update and fun mail

I figured that the office would be a 2-day project, but I was just hoping I could get it all done today. Turns out it’s definitely a 2-day project.

Wil started teaching summer school today so I got started by emptying most everything from the office this morning. I dusted, vacuumed, and even got a few things put back before Wil got home. We had lunch together, ran a couple of errands, then came home to get back to work. Wil was a HUGE help and started by putting up a couple of shelves, then we went through his piles of stuff together, putting back just a fraction of what was there before. I put back some more of my things, put some things in my car to return or take to Goodwill, and Wil helped take some things upstairs. There are still a few piles of papers to go through and I need to go through the file cabinet – should be able to finish it up and post pictures tomorrow.  Wil was a rockstar – I couldn’t have gotten this much done without him. I know it wasn’t the most exciting of activities, but I really enjoyed spending time with him.

I also got some very fun mail today. I recently discovered a new website for turning blogs into a book – Blog2Print. I had been messing around with Blurb, but was having to reformat everything – it was just taking too long and I wasn’t getting anywhere. I experimented on Blog2Print with the blog I wrote while pregnant with Graham, and had it turned into a book in a matter of 5-10 minutes (most of that time was spent choosing a color for the cover of the book).  It was so easy and looks very nice without any extra formatting – it seemed too good to be true, but I ordered the book to see what it looked like. Well it came in the mail today and I love it!  I am so excited that I’ll be able to put my blog posts into books – there to curl up on the couch with and look at anytime I’d like…there for my kids to look back at one day :) I’ve never been really good at writing in a journal on a regular basis, but I have been able to accomplish that and more with my blog. Now I can capture most of it in a book and it feels even more like a journal – can you tell I’m sooo excited?! They have a coupon for 15% off right now - enter iwantmyb2p during checkout (expires July 31st). I’m going to start putting this blog into books – need to decide how to separate them into volumes…FUN!

Father’s Day (I know it was last week – just catching up!)

I just realized that I forgot to post about our Father’s Day and share a few pictures that I have.

Graham and I let Wil sleep in and went out to run some errands (which included getting Wil’s Father’s Day present :) We brought a coffee treat home to Wil and all had lunch together. After nap time we got ready to head over to Jim and Chery’s for a Father’s Day BBQ – it was raining when we arrived, but it managed to clear up enough for Graham to enjoy some outside time in their lovely backyard – Daddy and Pa-Paw had him flying high in the swing!

Chery and I requested a picture of the boys – it’s hard to get a good shot with Graham (too busy) and Wil (too camera shy). I stole this one from Chery – seemed to be the best of the bunch:

We had a yummy dinner of salmon and veggies and an awesome dessert of ice cream and Oreo cookies.

I also put together a scrapbook page to remember the day. I was watching Wil and Graham play in the yard and they were both laughing and having such a good time – those really are the times I love most and want to remember :)

 

Page Credits: all of the goodies used here can be found at Designer Digitals

There – all caught up! Can’t believe a whole week has gone by already. Time sure is flying by… No big plans for today, but I see the sun is already out. Might be a good morning to play at the park after breakfast…before it gets too warm out.  Hope you all have a wonderfully relaxing Sunday :)

Day 4 – The Kitchen

Luckily I had a bit of a head start on the kitchen. When mom was here in April, she helped clean out the fridge and freezer so I didn’t have to do much there (THANKS MOM!). I had also cleaned out a bunch of stuff on Day 1 that had already gone to Goodwill, so there was a little extra space to work with. And I have to say, my kitchen was fairly well organized to start with – at least the cupboards were. The biggest problem was all of the clutter on the countertop.

So my approach was a little bit different for this task – I was already happy with the contents of some of my cupboards and drawers, so I didn’t need to empty everything out. I also didn’t have room to empty everything out at the same time.  I started by emptying out some of the drawers and cupboards – mostly food/pantry items and decorative schtuff. All of that filled up the counter and dining room table.

 
 
 
I tried to then group things together in ‘like’ piles – breakfast items, sides, vegetables, baking stuff, etc. And then I just started putting things back into the cupboards in those groupings. I weeded out things that I hadn’t or wouldn’t use to donate, threw away things that were no good anymore, and recycled what I could.

After putting some things back into the cupboards I was able to put away or get rid of some things on the counter.  I moved a couple of appliances that aren’t used on a regular basis into a cupboard and moved the basket of Graham’s dishes and silverware into a cupboard and drawer. I also moved our silverware caddy into a drawer to see how that works out.

That all left me with a couple of clean surfaces – the longest part of the counter, and I also cleaned off everything that was hanging from the fridge.

As everything always is, it was more work and took longer than I had anticipated, but by 3:00pm, I was pretty much finished and very ready to sit down and relax for a bit before Graham came home from daycare.

So first let me show you a couple ‘before’ pictures of the kitchen:

 

and my favorite part – the ‘after’ pictures of the kitchen:

I’m very happy to have eliminated a lot of the counter clutter – I didn’t put everything back on the fridge either. Graham’s artwork will be displayed in the play room (though I did leave one piece on his side of the fridge along with his letter/number magnets and truck/digger magnets. The pantry is much better organized, and look – there are even a couple of empty shelves all ready and waiting for any new baby gear we might need to have a place for.

And this is most of what left the kitchen:
 
from left to right – a bag of recycling, a bag of food/items to donate, and a bag of garbage

Extra food and supplies went into the cupboards in the laundry room – works great for pantry overflow!  If I was SUPER-organized, I would put together some inventory lists of what’s in each cupboard so that I don’t overbuy (I found 4 cans of spaghetti o’s, 3 boxes of shake-n-bake, and 3 bottles of vinegar!) Perhaps a task for another day.  Another task for another day is recipe organization – would like to get them all in one organized and accessible place.

I have slowly but steadily worked my way through the downstairs this week, but there are still some things left.  The biggest project will be the office – I’m setting aside Monday and Tuesday for that. A few other areas that will need attention before I can say the downstairs is done – the laundry room, the bathroom, the cleaning closet, and the entryway. Graham was kind enough to point out our shoe clutter the other day – he pointed at the collection by the front door and said, “Look at ‘em all!”  Even my 2-year-old can see the chaos/clutter! 

BIG THANKS to anyone and everyone that has commented on my efforts this week – it has really encouraged me and kept me going. The project seems rather overwhelming at times, and I’ve been writing about this partly to document the process, but also to have some sort of accountability built into the project. Knowing that people are checking in and watching for the progress is a great motivator to keep going :) 

Haircut – finally!

I’ve been putting it off for some time now, but am happy to report that Graham finally got his haircut today :)

Graham has never screamed or hollered when getting his haircut – he’s more whiny and wiggly. Last time he had to sit in my lap in the chair to get the job done. So it could be much worse, but it is rather stressful for me as I juggle all kinds of things to keep him distracted and occupied throughout the haircut – snacks, toys, and when all else fails, my cell phone (a very special treat!)

It went far better than I thought it would – he sat in the chair by himself (yay!) and even though he was still wiggly, it was a little easier to distract him and keep him still. He got a bit impatient toward the end, but really he did a great job.  He got a treat from the hairdresser – a little lollipop.  He seemed quite happy to earn it, but doesn’t really know what it is and it never even occurred to him to try and eat it – lol.

Credit where credit is due – we have found a wonderful stylist to cut Graham’s hair. She is so sweet and incredibly patient and understanding. It really makes all the difference in the world to have someone with realistic expectations of what a toddler is capable of doing/handling and who has a few tricks up her sleeves – LOVE her!

Graham and I had a nice day together at home and I enjoyed the break away from decluttering/organizing. I did do a little work in the laundry room during nap time though – it was necessary so I could reach the washer and dryer.

I’m excited to tackle the kitchen tomorrow so stay tuned for pictures and stories about that project :)

Day 3 – The Play Room

As an extension of our living room, we’ve turned what I imagine was intended to be a formal dining room into a playroom. My intention was to keep most of the toys out of the living room, but still have a space for them nearby. I had recently done some work in the playroom, so there wasn’t a lot to remove, but as always it did end up being more work than I had anticipated and I started to lose steam by afternoon.

So here is the before picture of the playroom:
 
and here are some things that I wanted to address with my decluttering…

• I wanted to take out some of the toys to put into a rotation of sorts so that sometimes there can be something “new” and exciting to play with
• I wanted to sort through our books that remain on the shelves and make sure we have ones there that are books we plan to keep and may read over again
• I wanted to clean out the bottom part of the shelving that is in the bottom right corner of his picture – it was filled with old magazines that I wasn’t ready to throw out yet

So I set out to empty the room – here is all of the stuff on the kitchen counter and dining room table:
 
 
and here is the playroom with clean surfaces:

I started by putting back books on the top two shelves of each bookcase – mostly our “series” kinds of books like Harry Potter, Twilight, Wil’s Robert Jordan books, etc. I also included a few books that I like to regularly recommend to others or that I just can’t part with – but limited to only what would fit on those two shelves. Graham also got two shelves for his books – the bottom two on the left side of the photo. You can’t see it very well in the after picture, but something I did to make it more organized and just fit better, was to put all of the smaller board books into plastic shoebox containers. In addition to being able to get more on the shelf, it’s much easier for him to flip through and see what’s there. Finally I started putting toys back into the room, but not all of them.  I filled up a plastic bin with toys and then put what was left back into the room. Some things will always stay in the room – legos, blocks, the ride-on truck, etc. but it will also be nice to be able to rotate some items. I also gathered up Graham’s coloring supplies and put them all together in a box on a shelf he can’t reach – coloring still needs to be a well-supervised activity :) I found the supplies for the pack-n-play to turn it into a downstairs crib/changing table for the new baby so for the time being it will be in the play room too. Once we move an extra loveseat out of the office it may end up going there instead…not sure yet.

So I give you the finished product:
 
A little less cluttered and a little more organized – all ready for play!  Something I would still like to do in the room is to hang some corkboard to display art projects – I have 8 12x12 pieces ready to hang on that wall on the left. Some other things for the all would be good, but not sure what yet.

This is the stuff that didn’t make it back into the room – the blue box of toys to rotate in, a box of things for the new baby, and a box of books for storage.

Also leaving the room was a stack of books to add to the Goodwill pile in my car, a box of books that Wil wants to take to his classroom, and a bag of magazines that I need to go through before recycling (I like to pull out anything I want to keep – recipes, articles, etc. and put them in a binder for future reference)

In between all of this I had a wonderfully relaxing lunch with friends at Agate Alley Bistro – YUM! It was so relaxing and filling that it was hard to stay on track when I got back home again. I also had a hair appointment scheduled for 4pm so I got a little sloppy in the end.

Next up is the kitchen and that seems like a fairly big task. I’m feeling a bit wheezy from all the dust and think it might be a good time to take a day off from the big projects and just hang out with Graham at home :)

It’s not over though!! I’m feeling like things are getting accomplished, but it’s a lot of work. I want to keep tackling a room or section at a time until I get through the whole house. The ultimate goal is to get it all done before the baby arrives.  The plan right now is to save the kitchen for Friday when I’m feeling a little more refreshed and re-energized. In the meantime I might try to take on an organization project that’s a little less labor intensive – catching up on editing and back-up of photos. Sounds like a great nap-time project…

Day 2 – The Living Room

Ok – I’m a little worried now. I thought the living room would be a great place to start because I don’t think it’s all that cluttered – we just don’t have a lot of stuff in there.  Ummmm…I may have misjudged that!

Step 1 was to empty everything out of the room (except for furniture, rugs, etc.) and put it all in a central location.  So I emptied items out on the kitchen counter (shots of front and back of counter for full effect!):

 
and when I ran out of room on the counter, I put the rest on the dining room table:

 
So then you’re left with clean surfaces to dust and clean up a bit:

 
That’s right – Days of Our Lives is on the tv – I’m enjoying catching up on a couple of soap operas during summer vacation :) Some of those surfaces haven’t seen a dust rag in quite some time, so that felt good.

Once the cleaning is done, you start putting things back in the room – but only the things that are useful or that you find beautiful! I was AMAZED at the pile of things that I was left with after putting things back – I sorted through VHS tapes and DVDs, decks of cards, games, books, photo albums/scrapbooks, knick knacks, etc. and what’s left on the table here (along with some other items that were put somewhere else in the process) either went to the garbage, Goodwill, or another location in the house or one of our workplaces:

 
So here’s the scary part – I didn’t think I had much more stuff in that room than what is sitting on the table here, yet this is just the stuff that is leaving the room.  Eeek! If this was supposed to be the “easy room” than what is the rest of this going to be like?!

The results are worth it though and sitting in the living room last night I felt just a little bit lighter :)  So here you have it – the before and after pics of the our living room:

 
There is still work left to do – I want to hang some family photos on the wall where the couch is, and that artwork sitting on the floor next to the tv also needs to be hung, but I’ll get to that fun stuff when the hard work is all over. We are also looking into new furniture – something a little more kitty/allergy friendly. I think I will keep the same pieces (love seat and couch) but maybe on a little smaller scale to fit the size of the room.

I also want to share a more detailed shot of the bookshelf and comment on some things I’m particularly proud of…

I was able to go through two plastic containers of decks of cards and other small games – I got rid of some and found much prettier containers to return them to because I had gotten rid of everything that was in those pretty containers – yay! One is that box on top of the bookshelf (it holds small games and special decks of cards) and the other is the small basket above the tv – it used to hold the small amount of toys we kept around for when children visited and now it hold our most often used decks of cards and scoring pads. And both are well out of reach from little hands that like to throw cards everywhere!

After sorting through the games I returned the ones I thought we might actually play to the shelves in the living room as I think that’s where we are most likely to play them. I like that the photo albums and scrapbooks are on the shelves there too because I like to look through them from time to time.

I sorted through all of our DVDs and VHS tapes – we only have a VHS player upstairs, so I threw away or gave away TONS of VHS tapes and the ones I kept will be moved upstairs, closer to the tape player. The DVDs that remain are in the two baskets under the tv – there is PLENTY of room for us to add to our collection! Speaking of room to grow - notice that there is empty space on the bookshelf too - I have no real intention of adding things there, but we could.  I'm going to try and start living by that "one in, one out" rule I keep hearing about.

It felt good, but it took more time and work than I had anticipated. I got this all done in an afternoon though as I went into work in the morning. I had everything put back by the time I went to get Graham at 4pm. He noticed the games right away and wanted to play with them – we’ll be working on only getting out one game at a time (if at all) and treating them respectfully (ha!)

Next up: the play room that is an extension of the living room – I’m devoting all of Wednesday to it (except for the time out I’m taking for lunch with friends!) I’m still feeling a bit overwhelmed, but have some ideas so am excited to get started on it :)

Sprout's blog updated

Just a quick note and link to let you know - Stuff About Sprout

Day 1 – A Clean Sweep

I kid you not…after ending my post mentioning Clean Sweep (the tv show) this morning I went downstairs to have breakfast. I usually watch the Today Show while I eat, but when I turned on the tv is was still on the TLC channel from the night before, and guess what was on?!?!  CLEAN SWEEP!  How crazy is that?! So instead of watching the news, I got inspired to declutter. The task today was to go though the house quickly to eliminate all of the obvious trash and things I’m more than ready to part with. No real thinking involved – just digging in and getting rid of the things I obviously don’t need.

So I did the first run through the house with garbage bags and a recycling bin. I then went back through most of the rooms with my give-away box/bags.  I managed to make it through every room in the house (minus the “junk” room – that might be a whole other project!) by lunch time. I tried not to dig too deep into things, but I did get a little distracted with a bunch of boxes in the guest room. When it was all said and done, This is what left our home…

4 bags of trash – this doesn’t even include the bag I had to take out earlier in the morning because it ha some food garbage in it that was going to smell up the house – and 2 boxes of recycling

AND

2 bags and 1 box of household goods to donate to Goodwill – I’m just realizing now that there is another box in the guest room that I forgot to take downstairs

Not bad for a first glance/run through!

I also took “before” pictures all over the house so that I would have pictures to compare when I finish an area – I’m not quite ready to share those yet until I have the “after picture to go with it :)  I spent the rest of the afternoon doing some tidying to give the illusion of clean – it felt good to get some surfaces cleared off, dishes washed, and some paperwork taken care of.

Graham was at Pa-Paw and Grandma Chery’s house tonight, so I had a little extra time – I rewarded myself with my favorite pasta/garlic toast dinner and watched a couple episodes of House that I DVR’d.

I am rather proud of myself – I got rid of some things that I’ve been moving from house to house and never using or in some cases never even taking out of a box. I know a lot of this stuff has to go – even more than I was willing to let go of today. It really did help to continually ask if the item was something useful or something that I thought was beautiful in my home. I had to laugh a couple of times when I realized I had been hanging on to something for “sentimental” reasons (or semi-mental as I once heard on an HGTV show!) and I couldn’t even remember who gave it to me or where it came from!

I know I got a lot done today, but with so much more to do it’s hard to really feel the progress. It helps to have the picture proof that a lot of stuff was removed from the house today.  I called in to see if I would have to go in for jury tomorrow as scheduled, but the message said there would be no jury trials tomorrow – yay!  My plan is to go to work for awhile in the morning, and then do some more work around the house in the afternoon. I’ll be sure to update tomorrow before bed :)

Time to get serious about decluttering

I’ve been reading books and preparing for this for a couple of weeks now. Summer vacation has arrived and there are no more excuses about not having time to tackle some projects I’ve been putting off.

Our house is FULL of stuff – way too much stuff. So much stuff that I have actually felt suffocated by it at times in these past couple of months. So for this week Graham will continue to go to daycare every day, and I will be devoting time to decluttering and simplifying.

This feels like an overwhelming task, so as I mentioned before, I’ve been doing some research and reading to figure out where to start. Some of my favorites have been:

this book - It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff by Peter Walsh (I LOVE Peter Walsh and really miss seeing him on Clean Sweep – did you ever see that show?? I could really benefit from coming across an old episode right now for inspiration!) Oh – and I actually got the book from the library to avoid adding more stuff to my bookshelf :)

info from this online class that I took last year – Organizing 101 by Aby Garvey – Aby also has a blog that I check in on every now and again – Creative Organizing – she has lots of great and stylish ideas for organization :)

and this website that I stumbled upon while reading blogs/twitter posts – SIMPLEmom – there is a whole section on organization and I found a series on spring cleaning which includes an ebook to use as a guide

And so I begin his week with this quotation in mind…

“Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris

I have a plan of attack and my camera in hand to take before/after pics. I figure that if I am feeling accountable to someone (i.e., documenting progress on the blog) then I will be more likely to put forth the effort. So stay tuned – hopefully I will have progress to report in the very near future :)