The premise seems to be that you commit to getting rid of at least 40 bags of stuff in 40 days... Some of those will be trash bags and some will be "donation" bags, but all of them will be bags of clutter that will be gone from our home! Some areas will of course produce less then a "full" bag and others will produce a lot more... Also sometimes I may power through a bunch of locations in one day or some may require more then one day to finish... I am trying not to sweat the small stuff here... The goal is to clean out and organize!
We started this weekend by unloading EVERY box, bin and all misc stuff from the basement onto a tarp in the yard... (This is all the stuff we had when we moved here... We had a household worth of stuff in Tennessee and my mother and step-father had a VERY full house when we got here... Aghhh!) Once it was in the yard the girlies and I opened and sorted as much as we could... I got rid of four huge trash bags of stuff and we took two full loads to the Goodwill... I was also able to bless the girlies with quite a bit of useful stuff for their (current or future) homes. It was a great kickoff to my 40 day purge, but a lot of it ended up in my livingroom for further sorting... I have to succeed in this quest at this point or burn the place down...
I will be encouraging my mother to sort and purge a lot of her stuff too... We'll see if she is in the mood, but hopeful "organizing fever" will take over our household!
I will be blogging before and after pictures for most of the clean outs... I did promise Paul soon after I started blogging, not to publish our bedroom... That was the only request for privacy he had, so I try very hard to comply... But other then our bedroom I will try to do before/after pictures.
Today is August 20, 2012 and my goal is to be done by October 1. 2012...
Here goes...
1.
2. Bakers rack in Kitchen
3. Under Kitchen Sink
4. Kitchen gadgets (in crocks and drawers)
5. Upper Kitchen cabinets
6. Lower kitchen cabinets
7. Entertainment center
8. DVD collection
9. Shelves in cellar stairs
10. Pantry
11. Linen Closet
12. bathroom
13. gift wrap bins
14. Allison's Closet
15. Allison's room
16.
17. entry way
18.
19. Our Dresser
20. My nightstand
21.
22.
23. Office supply shelves
24. Christmas decor
25.
26. freezers
27.
28.
29. book shelves
30. Katy's old bedroom
31.
32. "messy corner" in my bedroom
33. basket on top of microwave (our "junk drawer")
34. bookcase in my bedroom
35.
36. Old Magazines in pile in my bedroom
37. cedar chest
38.
39.
40. My brother's childhood
Wish me luck!
Thanks for listening,
BEST WISHES!!! :) I think that is a great plan. I am trying to do somewhat of the same but in a shorter period of time. My friends and I are having a yard sale on Sept 15 so I have a "goal" to work towards. Have a great day.
ReplyDeleteSounds ambitious...good luck!
ReplyDeleteWow! That's a great idea! I'm not sure I'm up for it but I do have some stuff I need to clean up!
ReplyDeleteOh, that's exciting! The boys and I just went through their closet and toys. Now that they're 16, 13, and 11 we managed to weed out a LOT. It will fill the back of the van, for sure.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'll get 40 bags, but I'm well on my way ;D
Here's a tip for going through sentimental things, especially things like kids' artwork, double-especially for bulky craft projects : take pictures of it. Then it's easier to let go of, because you have the photo for a memory. When ours were little and would come home from a week of daycamp with huge amounts of stuff, we would do a video interview and capture their excitement as well as the pictures. Hurray for the digital age ;D
Julie
Thank you for saying hello on my blog. You seem like my type of friend. You are fun!! Yes, Lauren looks 7 or 8 but acts 5 and is stung willed. Makes for a interesting life, lol!! Keep in touch!!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Katie