My Dirty Little Secret

I'm kind of sort of definitely maybe an extreme minimalist. I love things to be simple, and clean, and organized, and I hate having stuff around. That's what I love, but that's so not my reality. So when someone sent me a link to a blog called Organization for Real Life, my heart leaped for joy at having a soul sister out there. This chick, Mary, is having a blog kickoff with spring cleaning, which was desperately needed at my house. I'm in the midst of the cleaning; the start date was April 2 and the finish date is April 22.

Here's the list. I added a few things to it, like projects that I've been putting off. I'm not following her order exactly, which is why I printed it off.


I started with kind of an easy area: my downstairs hallway and linen closet (that doesn't actually hold linens). Yeah, that hallway is all of about 2 feet long. But it was good to start there, because it didn't take me very long, so I felt like I accomplished something and it gave me a good-feeling jump start. It also forced me to face the closet that I just kind of throw random things into, and got me to change my burned-out hall light bulb.

So here's the before shot:


And here's the after shot. I know it doesn't look like much changed, but Mary talks about keeping zones pure, where the same types of things are all bunched together. So now this "linen" closet is my crafty closet.


And since I had some of those crafty things in my laundry room cabinets, I moved them around and all together, and purged a few things that I knew I didn't need or use.

So here is my laundry room cabinets before shot:


And here's the after shot. Again, moved some stuff, condensed others, and I ended up moving the games from the upstairs closet to down in here.


I also did my upstairs coat closet. Here's the before:


And here are the guts. It really surprised me, seeing all the stuff pulled out and into a different area. I couldn't believe that my coat closet contents filled my living room. That's one thing they do on Clean Sweep, is pull everything out onto their lawn. It helps you look at the individual items, and really see and scrutinize each item before putting it back.


And here's the coat closet after shot. It also gave me a chance to put away the snow pants, which I hope doesn't curse us with more snow. One would think that the chances of needing snow pants in April are nil, but this is Idaho, my friends. (I haven't, however, put away the snow coats. Just in case.)


I've also found projects along the way, which is a very good thing. Like changing the belt in my vacuum, which had melted onto the brush part, which will work for now but definitely needs to be replaced. Vacuums work a lot better with new belts, in case you didn't know that, or were confused by that slight rubber burning smell.


Oh, and I totally want to repaint some areas, like the closets that were badly done. Or the stairwell, after I repair all the dings from the toys that get thrown down the stairs by the kids wanting to see some physics. But that will have to wait-I still have a bunch of rooms to clean.

So even though I got started a little late (I didn't start until the 8th), it will still be so nice to get everything deep cleaned and organized. Wish me luck, and good luck to all those that are taking on the challenge as well!