One SERIOUS Tackle It Tuesday: Guest Blogger

Hey there readers, no I'm not tackling anything on vacation other than maybe a niece or nephew, but someone is! And tackle is an understatement. Heather over at Us Doing Things has some major inspiration for you. If this doesn't get you up and moving to organize, I don't know what will! Read ahead and check out her blog for more Heather goodness!

Hello, my name is Heather, and I have a serious problem. My husband and I have way too much stuff. Seriously.
While getting ready for the arrival of our sweet baby girl, Isla {pronounced Eye-luh}, I wanted nothing more than to get rid of all of our clutter. I knew that once she got here I wouldn’t have time to keep up with the mess that is our home. While nesting, I had grand visions of hosting garage sales and making trips to Goodwill, but they were just that; visions. I swear I don’t think we got rid of one thing the entire time I was pregnant. We shifted things around, organized a bit, and threw caution to the wind. Maybe I’d have time to fit in doing the daily cleaning and organizing that it takes to keep our apartment livable? It will all just work itself out. Right... I should have listened to my gut. Not only do I not have the time, but even if I did, I surely don’t want to spend it cleaning. I want to spend my little bit of free time with my baby!
Aside from being ugly and disorganized, our apartment is dangerous for Isla. There’s stuff everywhere. And now that she is almost eight months old, and thisclose to walking, it’s about time to tackle this beast once and for all! I’m on a mission to clean, organize, purge, and beautify, our apartment.
I never know where to start with our mess. It’s just so overwhelming. This time, however, it’s an easy choice.
Our dining room.

It’s one of the first rooms you see when you walk through the front door. And having just worked a ton of overtime, taken a trip to Michigan for a few days, and hosted a baby shower for a friend {then coming home and just dropping EVERYTHING in that room}, it was an absolute disaster, to say the least. It had been our dumping grounds during all of our chaos. Gross.
disclaimer : we are in the process of refinishing our dining table and chairs, and buffet, so please ignore that mess. That’s another project for a completely different day.
I started with clearing off the dining table as much as I could. I like to have a clear surface to work on when I’m in the sorting phase. In doing that, we noticed an *awesome* spot from where our fruit basket was sitting, and something leaked. I am so bummed about this because that slab of wood was absolutely perfect. Hopefully some sanding and a good cleaning will get rid of it. Anyhow, after clearing the table, I began emptying that blue bin and sorting like items.

Vases and serving pieces...

Shopping bags, stuff to put away in the kitchen, stuff to be returned to nature...

Stuff to be returned to my craft room, stuff to be returned to the store, and flip flops :)

After sorting all of that, I stayed on task and actually put away each and every thing in my little piles. This is the part where I’d normally stop and go to bed, or something. I always think that I’ll put put it away the next day, but it never actually happens. To my surprise, this only took about ten minutes. I’m never procrastinating again because it felt SO good to get that done.
I put all of my things in their proper places, then used one of my amazingly handy, good-for-everything, Ikea bags to house all of my returns. This bag is going out to my car so I can make my returns whenever the mood strikes.

While this is far from done, it is as far as I can get right now. The buffet doors are taken off, being wood-filled and sanded, and the stuff on top of the buffet either goes in Isla’s room {I’ll put it away when she’s awake tomorrow}, or literally has no other home just yet. Our apartment is obviously a work in progress, and making room for some of that stuff is actually pretty impossible right now.


I’m going to work so hard to keep this room clear of clutter because a) it’s really important to Steve and I that we sit at that table for as many family meals as possible, and b) you can see it as soon as you walk in the door. I can do this!
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Onto another impressive {to me} project.
Our Bathroom.

This is embarrassing. Let me also disclaim this photo by saying that we recently sold our 4x4 Expedit shelf that was parading itself as our dresser, so all of the stuff that was on those shelves is currently either on our bedroom floor, or on our bathroom counter top. It really, really wasn’t this bad a week ago. Promise.
As with our dining room, I started with the easiest thing : simple sorting.
Travel size stuff from our recent trip got sorted and returned to its bin, then stored under our sink.

Jewelry out of my travel pouch and into its proper place.

My jewelry box and perfume collection is going to go under the vanity until we get a new dresser for our bedroom.
Randoms

Gold? I’ll be trying to sell these. These went into a ziploc bag and right into my “returns” Ikea bag so I can stop and sell it the next time I’m out..

Stuff to get rid of. Yes, that’s an original Vidal Sassoon hair crimper, circa 1980-something. See? I save everything.

I’m not going to lie, sorting that monster took a long time. Luckily, I still had stamina! I pressed on. I put everything away, and tidied up my drawer bins. As a side note, these three drawers are three of only eight drawers in our ENTIRE apartment. I crave drawers. Maybe I’d be more organized if I had more drawers!

I wish those bins fit under our sink, because, well, they’re not pretty. But, they’re just ever-so-slightly too wide. They’ll have to stay out in the open for now.
After sorting and putting away, I deep-cleaned the sink, counter top, and mirrors, then set out the few items that are important enough to live on our counter top.

The little towel will be replaced each day and is for wiping stray drips off of the counter top when we’re done using the sink. I love having a clear, clean counter top and that little towel is the key to that.

I tidied up the area under the sink and threw in a couple of cleaning items so I easily can keep up with the daily cleaning. I don’t ever want it to get that bad again!

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Okay, you thought all of that was bad.
THIS is our bedroom. Oh. My. Goodness. I don’t think my bedroom has ever been this much of a disaster. Like, not even when I was 10. Please don’t judge.



Like I said above, we sold our Expedit “dresser” and don’t yet have a replacement. This is evidence of how much of a workhorse that thing is. Look at how much stuff it held. Well, a few of those things were not stuffed in an Expedit cubby, but the majority of it was.
Okay, onto the tackling...
To create my clean surface for organizing, I tore the top sheet and coverlet off of our bed, and used the mattress as my sorting surface. Our sheets had only been slept on like twice, so it was a relatively clean surface and I didn’t have an issue throwing our clean laundry on there. Who am I kidding, though?! Anything is better than the FLOOR!

Quick and easy sorting : clean clothes to be folded went on the bed, dirty clothes went in a pile on the floor. Shoes and bags in quick, easy piles.

After that I threw the dirty laundry in the hamper, and did the easiest things I could do to help clear the room quickly. I put all of our childhood memorabilia, books and photo albums into a basket and brought it into our office/guest bedroom. That’s where it will all live, eventually, so there’s no reason it should be in our room.

I sorted some of the other random things into two bins : stuff to get rid of {left}, and stuff(ing) to make doggie beds out of {right}. These are old pillows that I’ve been saving for this particular sewing project, and again, there’s no reason it should be in our bedroom.

The corner is looking better already!

I like to feel accomplished, so at this point I moved all of that stuff out of the corner, vacuumed really well, and moved the pack and play and my current *drawers* back. This stuff will stay here until we get a dresser. We actually kind-of like the pack and play in here because we can contain the babe while we’re getting ready for work. See how *clean* it looks?

Oh the bed :( And the nightstands are still a mess, too.

Thank goodness Steve came in at this point and did a pretty good job of cleaning up his nightstand and the floor on his side of the bed, and folded and put away most of the laundry on the bed!

{Steve in our closet}

I put all of those papers from the floor on my side of the bed into a laundry basket for later sorting. This new momma only has so much time in her day and that is another project in and of itself.


A quick swipe with the vacuum and here’s the *finished* product. After all of that work, and putting on some fresh sheets, I feel like a new woman. This seriously feels so good. Like our dining room, though, it’s far from done but so much better than it was. Until we get a dresser, and organize {GET RID OF!} the rest of the stuff in our apartment, this is as organized as it’s going to be.




{Will be tackling this nightstand and moving the bins in the coming days - for now, it’s time to enjoy clean-sheet-day and hit the hay!}

Steve and I have so many ideas about how to rescue our apartment from our college days, and make it feel like a clean, organized, and pretty HOME; we’re tired of it feeling so temporary and haphazardly thrown-together. We can’t wait get going with some of our projects, but what I’m most looking forward to is not having the mental stress that living in a place like this can bring. I can’t wait to feel I don’t have to spend my Isla-time trying to keep up with this mess. It’s going to be a long process, but it’s going to be so amazing when it’s all finished!


AMAZING work Heather! And thanks for being a guest on My Happy House!