That Pesky Corner Cupboard

Trying to organize my cupboards can be an effort in futility.  Certain cupboards are home to so many and varied items that there is little hope of making them fit neatly together.  nonetheless, I decided to give it a go, on one such cupboard.

The tea cupboard!  Yikes!  It's a scary place that cupboard is!  Here's what it looked like before the cleaning....

And after...

Hmm, not a lot of change! At least I threw out some old items and organized some of the other stuff, but really not as satisfying as some cleaning projects I've tackled.  I think I better go find something else to clean that will actually LOOK cleaned when I finish!

It's About Time

Some things get put off.  Some things get put off a loooong time!

Today we tackled one of those projects that had been put off far too long - cleaning out the storage room!  It's been needing this since about the week after we moved in here...seven years ago.  You see, when we moved in we just started shoving whatever didn't have a home into the storage room.  Over the past seven years it had gotten more and more cluttered and more and more out of control.  It had finally reached the breaking point.  You could barely get in the door to get anything out of there, and heaven forbid if there was a tornado.  We'd never all fit in that room!  (it's the only room in the basement without windows, as we live in a split-level)

Anyway, just to prove my point, here are the before pictures...



And then, after approximately four hours of removing EVERYTHING from the storage room, sorting through some of it, and putting stuff back, here are the results....



Wasn't the most fun I've ever had, but it was well worth the time and effort!

Pick-A-Pile Revisited

Hard to believe (well, actually it's not hard to believe if you've been over to my house) that it has been a year and a half since I last did a pick-a-pile, that humiliating column where I post pictures of messy piles in my home and then (if all goes well) show you a picture of the area all tidied up.

Well, I did another pick-a-pile over the weekend and I just HAVE to share it because I am so pleased with the results.

Featured this time.....my closet..... hmmm....looks like it could use some tidying up, don't you think??






PRESTO!!!!  Taadaa!




Makes me want to run and do another pick-a-pile right away...or maybe I'll just go to bed....

Whatever Happened To...

Pick-A-Pile. Surely my long-time blog readers remember pick-a-pile, where I would humiliate myself by posting a picture of a messy surface in my house and then clean it up and show off the nice clean surface. If you missed this fun and exciting blog feature, feel free to click on the link above and relive the excitement.

Now, because of the absence of pick-a-pile posts in the last year, I am sure some of you erroneously came to the conclusion that there were no more piles at our house to pick up. Ha! Sorry to disappoint you, indeed, there are still piles around here. Actually, there are so many piles that instead of resurrecting pick-a-pile I've renamed it "Pick-A-Room".

So, here we have the very first "Pick-A Room" post. Hopefully, soon to be followed by many more, as there are many rooms that could use some picking up :-) Today's room of choice was....my bedroom.

The stuff on the bed was actually on the dresser just a few minutes before the picture, I just didn't want to put it back for the sake of the photo. That would be too much like going backwards instead of making progress.

Chris' dresser - with mostly my stuff on it.

My dresser - with mostly my stuff on it.

Now, prepare yourselves. This is going to be truly amazing...oh, just ignore that stuff on the floor, really I'll take care of it tomorrow...or the day after that...it's going to the thrift store.
Look, Mom, the drawers actually shut. I've learned a thing or two since I moved out. Apparently I am stockpiling perfume though...
Here again, don't look at the floor...things tend to collect under end tables at my house...****Disclaimer****My husband is officially mortified that I post pictures of our cluttered home on the internet. He had nothing to do with this post or the mess depicted herein. He is the neat one of the family and any items in these images that look like they belong to him are merely figments of your imagination.*****

Pick-A-Pile

I know it is only Wednesday, but this pick-a-pile is going to take awhile. It's Chris' desk. Once again, just like Chris' dresser, most of the mess does not belong to Chris. The desk is home to the computer and, therefore, is used by everyone in the house except Zoe. It is a depository for a variety of things:Evan's essays that need to be edited, random books, random papers, pictures, bills, fake food items, real food items...You get the idea. Well, dear hubby has asked that I choose this desk for my next pick-a-pile, so here it is. I'll get back to you when I am done cleaning it.Hey, look at this.  Instead of surfing the net and blogging during room time today, I cleaned of the desk!  It wasn't very fun, but dear hubby will be VERY happy when he gets home.

Pick-A-Pile

Here's a recurring pile around our house.So, because my hubby is running out of pants to wear to work, it's ironing time. I loathe ironing. Okay, maybe that's a little strong. Let's put it this way, there are usually about one hundred other things I would rather do than iron, including blogging :) Actually, I took the picture last night and then promptly spent the next hour doing all the ironing (while watching ER). The ONLY time I watch TV is when I iron, literally. The only working tv we have in our house is in our laundry room. Well, I used to watch tv when I would work out, but since that hasn't happened in, oh say, about seven months, the tv only gets turned on when I iron. And you can se by the pile that I only iron about once every two months :)

Pick-A-Pile

It's Friday, so it's time to play Pick-A-Pile.  This week is REALLY embarrassing!  These are our end tables in our living room and yes, they look like this much of the time :0

Okay, in my defense, we have six people having devotions in this room every day and so there are an abundance of Bibles and journals no the tables. This, of course, does not explain the newspapers, purse and various other papers falling off the table. And WHAT, pray-tell, is all that stuff on the floor UNDER the table??? I told you this would be embarrassing, but you just wait and see what I can do by tomorrow evening :) I'm so glad you don't love me based on my organizational skills!

Taa Daa! This is as clean as it gets :) There is just no better place to store my Bible and journal.

Pick-A-Pile

It's Friday, so it's time to play pick-a-pile! This week I have chosen a tough pile (I can' t believe I actually post my messes for the world to see!) You see, we have an island in our kitchen (think more along the lines of New Zealand than Bora Bora - it's big! Ten feet long big, literally). This island is far from deserted, it is where everyone and everything gathers. There is pretty much at least one person there for the entire day. This is where we eat breakfast and lunch and it is where 90% of all crafts, art projects and cooking projects are done. It is also where the mail gets put. Now, I know some of you reading this are neat-people - prepare yourselves so you don't have a coronary or something...


Why would I pick such a monstrous pile? Well, there are several reasons
1) I didn't do a pile last week, so this kind of counts as two.
2) It's raining and yucky outside.
3) I'm in a purging mood.
4) Evan has his book club tomorrow (not that a bunch of teenage boys would really care what my island looks like, as long as I feed them, they're good.
5) We are having some of Raelea's birth family over for dinner (not that they care either, but at least we won't have to push things out of the way to sit at the island).

Btw, Deb, that's your Chai tea in the foreground. I will get it to you soon :)


TAA DAA

Don't you think the cake on the island is a nice touch? Thanks to Daniel and family for that!

Pick-A-Pile

Considering today's quote, I'm not sure I should clean up this pile :) I actually took pictures of two separate piles - one hard to clean up and one easy. Hmmm, which one should I post.....I think I'll go with the easy one. Don't worry, the hard one will show up on a different pick-a-pile day. Here it is; the easy one, that is....
Don't you think the rose is a nice touch??

Pick-A-Pile

It's time to play pick a pile again! This time we will address my dresser :( Now, before you gasp in amazement, you should understand that my dresser is up high (by kid standards) so if something needs to be kept out of their reach it is often deposited there. Okay, here it is....



Taa Daa! One more pile vanquished! FYI, the tin on the dresser with the sand in it was a wonderfully sweet present from Molly. Last year, when we went to Gulf Shores, AL, I was sick for most of the week we were there and wasn't able to enjoy the beach at all, so my dear children brought home some of the sand and put it in this tin for me so I could enjoy the beach at home. Wasn't that so sweet!

On a totally different note, we watch the movie Luther tonight and it was great. I highly recommend it.

Let's Play Pick-A-Pile

I was out on a friend's blog the other day and she had a post called Pick-A-Pile. Here's how it's done. You take a picture of a pile of stuff in your house and post it on your blog. Then, when you have cleaned up that surface, you take an after picture to show how nice it looks. Now, on this friends post she picked a pile that had, like, five items in it. That is NOT a pile (as you will soon see). I know a pile when I see one, and I see one about everywhere I turn around here :)

It would be nice to blame all my piles on my eight kids or my husband, for that matter, but I had piles long before any of them came into my life, as my sisters and mother can attest to. This is going to be a humbling game for me - letting the whole world see my piles, but hopefully some of them will soon be gone.

The first pile we will tackle is Chris' dresser. I told Chris that I would let you all know that 90% of the stuff on his dresser is NOT his. It is just a convenient (large) flat space that is not seen by everyone that walks in our door. Okay, here it is...
Check back later today (hopefully) to see the after picture.

OOOh, bonus! You can see another pile in the reflection in the mirror (on the nightstand). Now I have to clean up two piles!

Okay, here it is, the finished product.....drum roll please....