Making Frugal Fun!: The Challenge Begins!

Today begins the 29 Day Organizing Challenge put on by Laura over at Organizing Junkie.

I'm still finishing up some of the planning for this challenge. Here's what I have so far:

Master Bedroom: This room has too many things that don't belong in the room. I tend to pile things around my nightstand thinking I'm going to read them or work on them at night. The pile needs clearing. I will be clearing at least 1/2 of the things out of the bookshelves. I will also clear the antique secretary desk under the window. The sewing cabinet will find another place in the house. The little green dresser will be repainted and re-purposed but will stay in the room. It currently holds antique linens that can go in a chest downstairs. There might also be some rearranging of the other furniture. Sorry, but the red wallpaper (which I LOATHE) will have to stay for now.

Downstairs Sewing/Guest Room: I haven't seen the top of my sewing table in 4 years. There are a lot of different things to cull. Then I will categorize and contain only the supplies I really use. A few months ago I moved all the boxes of fabric and yarn out to another room. As you'll see in one of the pictures those boxes are still problematic. I will be sending much of the fabric out to the yard sale tables.

Computer area/Family Room: This area will require a lot of creativity. It is one of the hubs of our house. I work on many things in the computer area. And those projects are not contained and it's much harder to work on them because they aren't organized. The Family Room is an ongoing cleanup project. There are some containment solutions that could be applied in this part of the room that would help tremendously.

Dining Room/Entry Area: This is the area that people see first. It's also the first place things get dumped in. There are no systems in place to organize the things that come in.

Downstairs Hall and Cupboard: This area is where we have all the currently used homeschooling supplies. It's a mess. I organized it last year but it didn't stay that way. The problem is two part: first, too much stuff and second, no way to contain what really needs to be there. As you can see in the picture there are tubs for each year of our 4 year plan but things are everywhere.

DD's Room: She will be handling this. And she's really excited about the changes. She will be trading out the larger bed for a twin daybed we have. She will also be going through all her things and culling heavily. Her doll collection will stay but be displayed better. The boxes in the top of her closet will be moved to the storage area. They are her "future life on my own" boxes.

DS's Room: He will have some help in getting this done. He needs more tubs to contain the projects. He will be getting the larger bed in dd's room. He's a typical boy with all sorts of treasures. I am going to require that he pare down the treasures and toys.

School Room: We don't really use this room in the way I intended. It is a converted garage and right now it's too cold to utilize. Plus, it's a catchall. The heaviest culling will be going on in this room. Most of what's in there we never use in our schooling. I bought most of it thinking, "oh, this might be nice to have." It's not being used, never will be used, and can be easily replaced if I decide I really need it again. The boxes in the corner contain our book collection. We recently repainted the library and those boxes will soon be gone and the books, after culling, returned to the library shelves.

Those are the plans.

I have always had a hard time loving this house. And because of that I've had little motivation to do much with it. We are now starting to make it ours. The painting has helped. We're taking it room by room. My dh is a very creative person and is good with color so I've let him do most of the deciding on exact colors. Luckily we like the same things:-) We've also ripped out almost all the carpet. That's a huge work in progress but by the time February is over the remaining bedrooms will be rid of the 40 year old carpet.

Here are some "before" photos:

Master Bedroom