How do you keep your home clean? Do you have a house cleaner come in? If so how often? Also if you have someone come into clean, do you pick up and clean before they come?
I am in search of a way to not only clean my home, but for it to be clean and stay clean for longer. I know that this is not an easy quest. I have three little ones and a hubby all home for the summer. However, I think it should be easier than it is and I am wondering am I missing something.
If you have any tips for me I would love to hear them. I just found two great posts today on Organizing Your Way. This one talks about three things you can do daily to help you feel happier when it comes to organizing. I was able to do the first two no problem. The second one is a little tricky.
Well I am off to go organize, clear some cluttered surfaces and hopefully find a chance to relax while two of the three kiddos are napping.
Today I cleaned, cleaned more and then continue to clean. I like having a clean, organized, clutter free home. Unfortunately, my home is rarely the way that I like it. I have three small children and a husband that are all home for the summer. I feel like I am a maid and if I quit no one really cares, but me. I am the only one who cares because I am the one that wants a clean, organized, clutter free home...the rest of the family just makes messes and either doesn't really care what condition our home is in or expect that it will get to me and I will break down and clean. Unfortunately, the latter is usually what happens. I have tried to let it go. I am always telling myself, "Relax, just let it go...enjoy life...this too shall pass." The problem is it I really don't enjoy life with a messy house.
So since this is my problem and right now the real thorn in my side is the laundry, today during my workout warm up I was searching for videos on organization, specifically laundry and all that goes into it when I came across Mandie's vlogs and blog called Organizing Your Way. I instantly lit up and made an important connection. After watching a few of her videos and doing a more intense workout without my phone I looked up her blog on my computer. She has an amazing blog with very helpful tips. Her home is very clean, organized and decorated in a modern functional style. I am so impressed with her blog and her home. She is doing something right. It is difficult to believe that she has four kids ages five and younger. Plus, her philosophy to organizing is that it has to work for you or you won't do it and maintain it. I have tried other organization methods that all sound great, but they have not truly stuck because they don't work for me. Recently a friend commented on FB that I am always posting on cleaning and why don’t I follow such and such online. I try, but such and such just didn’t fit my organization/cleaning style.
Here is her introduction video. She shares what she is going to create with her blog and videos. I found it to be refreshing and I love her approach on making it work for you.
Here is Mandi's laundry video. I really like her system, but unfortunately, we don't have room for a family closet in our laundry room and our laundry room is not off of our kitchen.
Things I learned from her blog today that I plan on implementing this week: 1. She does a section rags and organization. I am so excited to use her system of purchasing new rags for washing hands and faces every six months and then placing the old ones in the wipe up rag drawer. I love the little three drawer organizer as well. I am hoping to find one that will fit sideways in my pantry. We will see. Tons of great ideas from that one entry. 2. I learned several principles for streamlining laundry from a link that Mandi has on her site for The 365 Day Organizer. I am not sure I will be able to make the laundry basket work for my three kids, but I like the idea. 3. I moved an Ikea chair into my office that has been sitting in our master bedroom for quite a while. I figured it will be nice for my husband to have a place to sit in there and we won't be tempted to use the chair as a clothing organizer if it is no longer in the bedroom. I will try to post a picture soon.
I am exhausted and so this post will have to be in two segments. I am enjoying getting back into blogging though and hope that you will continue to read my blog.
So I took a little blogging hiatus after my two week stint of blogging daily. It has been nice, but I am exciting to be posting again.
Old Living Room Now an office/craft space...the doors were eventually painted. The new space as I moved all of the clutter into it with no organizational system.
A few weeks ago I posted about my office/craft space and the lack of closed storage. Well yesterday and today I re-organized, re-arranged and basically revamped my office. Check out the before and after photos below. My office used to be our old living room. We never used it and it was fairly inexpensive to convert the space to something else by adding a wall and French Doors.
The view from entering the space
Well this week my hubby picked me up this table off of Craigslist originally from Pier 1. It is an actual craft table. I love that it is pretty much counter height and that I can use it solely for scrapbooking and cardmaking. Now I won’t have to clear off my desk and move the keyboard to the side. I have plenty of space right there. My kids love that it has two stools, perfect for them to sit at and color if mommy is on the computer.
My New Craft Table
So after getting the fabulous craft table I had a dilemma of how to organize the room. I need as much storage as I can get. I used to have a sofa in here, but it was pretty cramped with the addition of the new table. I decided to take the sofa out and re-arrange the space with the bookcases all together on one wall, the desk moved to the right a little bit and the craft table against the window so I can look out as I scrap. It was difficult to figure out a layout that worked. Originally, I thought I wanted the craft table in the center. While that would be nice, it just wouldn’t work in the space that I have with the other furniture that I need. Unfortunately, I also decided to store my sewing stuff in a closet in another room. I really just don’t have the space for it.
The revamped bookcases with no closed storage, but boxes make it look neater, more orderly. It feels fabulous to be organized (as I am pregnant and very much nesting). My amazing hubby insisted that we go to Target yesterday and get some much needed closed storage for the bookcases. I didn’t really want to spend any more money than what we had spent on the craft table. Well he wouldn’t take no for an answer and insisted that I get some storage and do it right. This is the outcome. As you can see, there is a big difference from the before and after. I already had a few storage components, but nothing that was unified and not enough. Now I won’t have any excuses to be unorganized. Fortunately, Target had the brown containers on clearance, along with some of the blue cubes. They matched what I already had perfectly. I just love it when that happens.
Room view from the corner
Overall, I am thrilled with the space and I can’t wait to have some time to scrapbook and make some cards in it. It has been a while in the making and I am so thankful to my wonderful husband for making it happen. Now it is onto creating some unique artwork and a ribbon board for my revamped space. This along with a bazillion other projects I have on my plate before this third baby arrives.
So today’s post is on organization. I consider myself somewhere in the middle. In my brain I am very organized and I rehearse all of these different scenarios. I type lists, keep records, but when it comes down to it I am not as organized as I want to be or my brain thinks I should be.
For example, I really struggle in my office with organization. I have a lot of craft stuff for scrapbooking, cardmaking and some sewing stuff. The problem is I have no closed storage and I have no place to really spread out to make scrapbook pages, cards or a craft project. I love to look at how others have organized their spaces, but when it comes down to it I don’t have the extra resources to devote to new closed organization or a lot of new furniture. In a perfect would I would have built ins in my office and plenty of work space within those built ins. There would be closed storage and a little open storage. Everything would have a place. Obviously, it is not a perfect world.
My hubby was planning on getting me some sort of second desk so I could have a computer workspace and a place for my crafts. I would love this and be very grateful for it. It would solve one of my big problems with organizing my office; however, I still have the issue of no closed storage. The funny thing is I struggle with this in my work space at school as well. I have no closed storage there either and my closet of a classroom is not much bigger than my office at home. I affectionately refer to it as a trailer. I don’t mean to be condescending to anyone, but it really is not fit for a classroom of any kind. Ideally, I am hoping to be placed in a regular classroom next year, but with how things work out for me I am not too hopeful.
Being that I struggle with the same problem of lack of closed storage at both work and home I have been brainstorming ideas for how to solve the problem without spending a lot if any money. This is not easy, but I was thinking of making a curtain and hanging it with a tension rod over on the top of the shelf so that you couldn’t see what actually being stored in the shelf. This would be fairly in expensive because tension rods are only a few dollars and have fabric that I can use. I actually already have the curtains for my office and they match perfectly. Another thing I could use is some decorative tacks that I already own to hang the curtain. The negatives to this idea are: I would have to hold it up and would not be able to pull it back when looking for something the shelves. My other thought the curtain may make it look even messier than it does without the curtain because it will look like I am hiding something, which hey I am.
Has anyone had this problem before and if you have, did you find a solution? I am open to suggestions. Once I figure it out I will post pictures. The first picture below is of my open storage office, when I first moved into it. Notice how clean it isn't even organized then. The other photos are of rooms that I like. I wish I could give credit to these websites for their photos, but I have saved them in my inspiration room file and I don’t know where I got them. There are a lot of others that I just love, but they were saved on my other computer and I didn't have the energy to hunt of them. Maybe I will post those inspiration pics tomorrow. I apologize to anyone whose photo I am using. I am not trying to steal the credit for your creativity. Enjoy your weekend. Jen D.
