Day 17- Cleaning Lists

So by now your house is looking pretty nice eh? The hard part is keeping it organized. I tried to convince my children that they wanted to live in the backyard but they didn't think the water hose sounded like a fun way to shower & I was worried the neighbor's would call CPS. So then I tried to convince them to donate ALL of their possessions but they weren't keen on that idea either. Darn! So now I'm on to plan B. Enlisting them to help! I got some great ideas this summer when I took some parenting/ organizing classes, you can find my cliff notes here. Then I found these great printable checklists on these sites:

This laminated room by room checklist is perfect for children (and maybe husbands) you can find it here at http://www.organicfamilies.blogspot.com/ She has the kids use dry erase markers to check items off as they go. My girls love checklists so maybe they would actually clean if they had one. One can dream, right? This is a simple daily plan but it's so pretty to look at and has a great color scheme. Maybe if I had a pretty list to go by everyday I'd clean too! You can print this out from this site found here at http://www.bloominghomestead.blogspot.com/

Here's another daily cleaning schedule but she takes both Saturday and Sunday off. I'm all for that! You can print your own schedule here at http://www.amygregson.blogspot.com/

So no more excuses for me- I should be an organized junkie from here on out! Tomorrow I'm tackling my second home. No it's not a beach house or a vacation home. It's a minivan......

Day 16: Clean out the Fridge

No before pictures today people. Too grody (I swear that's a word). I try to get old leftovers out of the fridge as soon as possible, but I was still appalled at the nasty spills I found in here. I cleared everything out and took out all the shelves and washed them with soap and hot water. Then I clorox wiped it for good measure. I almost hated to put everything back after it was all clean.

Doesn't that look good! Trust me on this folks, this is a MAJOR improvement.
My dairy drawer. Apparently we like cheese. I have 7 varieties in here.
My bountiful basket came today, so my mom can see everything I got. Was your basket the same, Mom?

Ok, everyone. Now go clean out your fridge. You'll feel so much better:)

Day 15: Tips for Toys

Day 15? Yay! We're halfway there!

So, you know what is so annoying about some toys? How they come in this adorable packaging that looks awesome! Seriously, what two or three (or four or five) year old is really putting away their blocks to look like this?

Not mine. This is how the blocks look when Zeke is left to clean up alone. Awesome. Actually, this would be pretty good for him. I have been dealing with this block situation for some time now, and then it hit me. Hello, Mandy! Get a different container!
So I did. Aren't I so awesome? Thanks, I thought so too.

Tomorrow I'll show you my cleaned out fridge... that thing was NASTY!

Day 14- Organizing the Master Closet

There are some amazing closets in blog land. Some with fancy chandeliers, wallpaper, rotating shoe racks and beautiful poofy chairs to lounge on. You will not be seeing this in my home. I will probably never have an amazing closet. I don't care enough about shoes and clothes and purses to justify the effort. But after I win Publisher's Clearing House I will start designing my dream closet. Until then, a more cleanly closet was definitely on my "To-Do" list. Here are some hideous before shots.

Embarrassing, I know. This is where all my stuff I don't know what to do with ends up....


And here is what an hour of elbow grease and 5 garbage bags later can look like:




See the empty space and shelf room? I guess this means I can go shop some more!

Only 7 more closets left to organize...... I'm gonna need some more chocolate. Pronto!

Can't wait til tommorow when Mandy tackles the toys!

Day 13: Tackling Master Bathroom

WARNING: These photos are graphic in nature and may not be suitable for people with weak stomachs or OCD tendancies. These photos are for a mature audience only and preferably people with hoarding genes like myself.


Hopefully, I will still have friends and followers after seeing my master bath chaos. To my credit, all 5 of us get ready in this bathroom, shower in this bathroom, brush teeth, do hair in this bathroom. We have other bathrooms but this is where we all end up and it's convenient since my kids still need my help with everything. So these pictures were taken after everyone had showered and left for the day......



Insert jaws music.....


What? You don't have a tripod in your bathroom? It's quite entertaining to a 2 yr old while you're getting yourself ready. Notice everyone's pajamas on the bathtub? Because, apparantly, the hamper 6 inches away is just too inconvenient.....
Teeth brushing station......
Hair, accessory and make-up station......

It's bad, I fully admit it. But it does get fully picked up. Every. Single. Day. It's the highlight of a stay at home mom to pick up messes right? We're the messiest so I should be ultra happy about this right? Wrong! Something about seeing my house torn apart by my children. Every. Single. Day. Makes me want to burn it all down. The women in tribal areas with dirt floors and mud homes are looking like they have the good life right about now. Plus, they don't have to worry about doing little girls hair. That alone would save me hours a week!

WHEW! Thanks for letting me vent. On to the after pics....

Insert a choir of angels singing.....



While it's no spa and the whole room is in desperate need of a makeover, it's an impressive clean-up job right? Now I'm off to lock the door and never let anyone in this room EVER AGAIN! I'll just hose everyone off in the backyard and give them hats to wear.

Next up: Master Closet

Day 12- Master bedroom

The things I do for this blog..... I take a perfectly organized room and completely mess it up so I can take better "before" pictures. That's what my husband accused me of anyway! Sorry hubs, we really are this pathetic, no additional nasty-ness was needed. Here is what my bedroom looks like after everyone rushes off to school and work- mind you, my bedroom is practically command central.


Doesn't everyone have a ladder in their bedroom? It comes in handy for the 3am low battery fire alarm beeps. Because it only goes off when everyone is asleep.....

This picture (below) with laundry baskets is actually impressive. They're EMPTY! I have EMPTY laundry baskets people!!! That means, by some massive miracle, I've kept up on laundry. I guess it's easier since I have an organized laundry room.

So after 20 minutes of vacuuming, making the bed, dusting and decluttering it looks like this.....

A clean room makes it so much easier to watch "Dance Moms, Sister Wives & Toddlers & Tiaras" while folding laundry of course..... We went years without a tv in our room. I heard all this stuff about leaving tv's out of bedrooms & we were broke so it worked out well. I can honestly say- all those tv haters are wrong. They just needed to up they're tv size and make sure it's high-def! :)
Now I'm off to tackle the Master bathroom & eventually the closets.....

Day 11: Tools

Ok, so at this point my friends are all whispering to each other, "Have you seen Mandy's blog?! Who knew she was such a slob!" But secretly they're all liking me better, right? I can't believe how many messes I'm revealing on here. And just the other day my mom said she was "proud" of the way I keep house. She may have spoke too soon.

So we have old cabinets in our laundry room from a previous kitchen remodel and they just put the old cabinets in here. They are nothing pretty to look at, but it's an awesome place to put all of our tools and junk. You get one before picture, because this pretty much sums it up.

I know, right? You're all thinking I must have rattled things up a bit to make that picture more interesting but it's a true before picture. After three hours of making a huge mess, I finally got things under control. And boy, hubby was sure happy he didn't have to do it.
I even put new contact paper in all the drawers- I know, you're dying!
I bought all these little containers at walmart for so cheap. I was so happy that I didn't even measure beforehand and they fit in perfectly.

I tried to toss these turkey injectors, but hubby fries turkeys so often, he said they had to stay.
That container of screws I finally just gave up and put all the leftover stuff in there. I don't even know what half those tiny parts are called!
This is my favorite part of this entire project. I just got these plastic shoe boxes, slapped some vinyl on there, and now we can find everything so easily. I have these boxes in cupboards, so they're pretty easy to find what we need. Aren't you so impressed, Dad?? Now next time you come visit, you'll be able to see what we've got! I'm getting that much closer to my :
Next up I have some tips for toy organization!