The Garage: A Work in Progress

We have to store the "clutter" somewhere, right? In our home, all the "stuff" that we don't use enough to keep in the house, is stored in the garage. As the title of this post suggests, this is a work in progress, and it always will be. We are continually purging our storage, and adding to it, and rotating through, and cleaning out, and reorganizing. Some days/weeks/months it looks better than others. Right now it actually looks pretty good, but that just makes it easier for me to "see" the projects I have ahead of me. :)

So, here's the tour of the most cluttered space in our house:

The view of our garage from the driveway. Obviously, our van insisted on nosing his way into the picture.

The other side of the garage. Again, the van wanted to be included.

I've mentioned our garage laundry area before, but here's a more zoomed out picture of it. On the floor in front of the machines is our laundry bucket that collects dirty socks and kitchen towels, as well as a diaper bag full of cloth diapers that need to be washed. On top of the washer is the detergent dispenser, as well as several grocery bags full of toys that were confiscated because the kids refused to pick them up, and now they have to earn them back. The dryer currently holds a stack of empty boxes because I haven't figured out where else to put them yet.

Next to the dryer is a water heater and on the floor in front of that is a tiny garbage can for dryer lint, a box of baby wipes and two boxes of disposable diapers (Costco coupons). Behind the diapers is an extra kitchen chair that currently holds a bag of potatoes and a bag of grapefruit. You can also see the step to the house, and through the open door you can glimpse our dining table and part of my fridge.

On the other side of the door to the dining area is the "mud room" shelving unit that holds adult coats & shoes. Above my shoes is another shelf that holds toys that don't fit into toy bins. I took this picture on Monday before we moved the waffle blocks to the house for this week's toy rotation. On the very top of that shelving unit is a stack of empty boxes that also contain original foam packaging for various items in our home, like my sewing machine and KitchenAid mixer. We've moved a lot in the past 10 years, and I have insisted on keeping several of these boxes.

The back wall of the garage holds the kids' coat/shoe/mud room area. The shelving above on the left is our pantry. It's more sparse than we would like at the moment, but it's functional. Canned goods and other dry goods live here. We plan to expand this farther to the right as we build up our food storage. On the right are storage boxes.

Here's a better view of the storage boxes. Four of those boxes are sewing supplies that I put back after my craft/sewing purge, at least 10 of them are homeschooling materials that I needed out of my way, and plan to seriously purge soon, and 5 of them are empty. I also have a couple boxes that hold off-season mud room items, like swim floats (since it's winter), and soccer cleats/shin guards/socks. I think there might also be one box of baby girl items, that I moved out of the house after we discovered that our anticipated addition is another boy. As we purge more of these boxes, we'll have more room for our pantry.

Under the shelves, and to the right of the mud room area is our workbench, which is currently hidden behind our giant double stroller, two umbrella strollers, and our large vacuum. The back corner of the garage has an additional water heater that is only connected to the master bathroom (probably my favorite feature in this house!).

Our back door is currently blocked by a couple saw horses that need to be returned to my parents, some wood for a current project, and a couple more empty boxes. The shelves along the far side of the garage hold more "long-term" storage, including Christmas decor, other holiday items (like Easter baskets & plastic eggs & trick-or-treating baskets), dead files (paperwork I can't get rid of for various reasons, but that I don't need to access), luggage, etc. On the floor in front of several large totes are the toy bins that are not in use this week (and a couple empty pink ones that just got dumped into the train table drawers). The totes behind and to the right of the toy bins hold things like extra winter coats & snow pants (we don't live in a climate where we need access to snow gear, but we visit family that does live in snow). There's also a tote of "sports equipment" that we are not currently accessing because it's too rainy, and there's a tote of home decor items that don't fit in our current home, but have sentimental value and I can't bring myself to get rid of them (see, I'm not completely heartless...).

The middle of the garage seems to be the catch-all. Right in the middle of the garage is a short coffee table with a white vinyl cover on it. This was meant to be the kids' art table, but it lost its place in our family room when we rearranged things not too long ago, so it's in the garage. It has actually been used for painting, while in the garage, so it's still functional. Currently, it's holding several items that I am passing on to my sisters and need to ship to them. On the floor to the right of the table are a couple boxes and bags that are donations I haven't dropped off yet. You might recognize some of those bags and boxes from my craft supply purge. There's also a red recycling bin behind the black bag that holds glass recycling.

Behind the table is a large jumble of bicycles and tricycles. Someday we will be purchasing some type of bike rack to keep these from falling on top of each other... but this is also part of having a large family... 2 adult bikes, 3 children's bikes, 2 tricycles and a scooter just take up a lot of space. :) If you look close (I-spy...) you can see an extra high-chair, and a bumbo seat. I've considered passing on the high-chair, but we've used it for guest's children, and occasionally for our 3 year olds when we have people over for dinner. I'm also pretty sure we'll use two again when our newest baby can sit up, and before our toddler outgrows hers.

To the far right in this picture are the large recycling bin and the smaller garbage can. We like to keep these in the garage so we don't have to go outside to empty indoor garbages, and so they don't get full of water when it rains, but also close to the garage door so we can drag them to the curb easier.

Also hanging on the far wall close to the garage door are two sets of golf clubs, and a large hiking backpack that is an emergency pack. Admittedly, it's a very old 72 hour kit, that was meant for 2 people and would probably last our family about 8 hours. :) Time to update.

Here's a better view from behind the garbage cans. Next to the adult bikes is the lawn mower and a collection of yard tools. On the floor under the fan and exercise ball are several wooden drawers that hold other yard equipment, but can really only be accessed when the lawn mower is pulled out.

As I said, this garage is a work in progress. It has changed a LOT in the year and a half we have lived here, and it is slowly morphing into what we want... but it will still take a lot of work. I will say that having a semi-organized storage space has made seasonal and holiday transitions much easier because we can find what we need fairly easily, and get it put away pretty quick.

And I just noticed how full our garbage can is in that last picture... that's because it's garbage night and we haven't squished the bags down yet... we usually fill the can, but rarely, if ever, overflow. :)

Our Mud Room: What Works for Us

I've always wanted a mud room. I actually had something closely resembling a laundry/mud room in one home we rented once. But we only lived there for 8 months, and only had three children back then.

The more children we have, the more I have found a need for a mud room type space to store things like coats, shoes, boots, mittens, backpacks, diaper bags, etc. Our current home has nothing resembling a mud room, and our laundry is in the garage, so no laundry room either. But we have improvised.

We have been blessed with a two-car garage, that is too small to fit either of our vehicles. The home was originally built with a very long garage, but the back half of the garage was converted into our master suite by previous owners. Our large van is too tall to even fit in the door, and even our mini-van is too long for the shortened garage.

So, since our garage is unusable to park in, we have used it to create a make-shift mud-room.

We started with shelving units that came with the house, and laid carpet scraps down to create a cozy, and semi clean floor. The bench used to be in our dining area, and we still may use it there again someday, but it's not needed now, so it functions better in the mud-room.

On the far left of this photo you can see the door into the dining area, my long winter coat hanging from the side of the shelving unit, and then the area for my husband's and my coats. There are six hooks (the same kind holding the kids' towels in their bathroom) that we use to hang our coats, jackets & sweaters. My husband lines most of his shoes up on the bottom shelf, and my shoes are lined up on the upper shelf.

On the right, you can see the spaces for our two youngest. Each child has two double hooks and three baskets in their section, plus shelf space above. In the winter, the hooks hold jackets, backpacks and snow coats. In the summer, they hold swim floats, sweaters, and backpacks.

We have the kids lined up in age order, with the youngest closest to my husband and me. The older ones don't need help getting their shoes on, so we put them farther away.

Here is our oldest daughter's section. She has a sweater, a jacket, a coat, and her backpack hung on the hooks. Her snow boots are on the bottom shelf under her hooks (and her sister's boots are also in her space...it happens). Her tennis shoes are in the red basket on the bottom shelf. In the bottom left corner you can see our second daughter's tennis shoes in her blue basket.

The kids also each have two hanging baskets. The lower basket for each of them contains socks. I've mentioned before that we tend to go barefoot in the house. My kids much prefer to be barefoot, and if they attempt to wear socks in the house, we end up with them under beds, stuffed into the couch, etc. The kids don't put socks on until they are putting shoes on to go outside, so it makes sense to store the socks with the shoes. This is also why we have a laundry bucket in the garage to collect dirty socks as they take them off when they take their shoes off to come in.

The upper basket holds seasonal or personal items. Currently my oldest has her winter gloves in the basket. I think she also has a wallet with her money in this basket too. In summer this basket holds swim goggles and in the fall it holds her shin guards and soccer socks.

The shelf space above is used for Sunday shoes and other personal items that don't fit so well in the upper basket. We have found that it is best to keep the Sunday shoes out of the way so they are not worn and lost, and so we can all easily find them when we are leaving for church. When we get home from church, or another fancy event, we make sure everyone's dress shoes are put back on the shelf, and the kids are not allowed to wear them at any other time.

Ideally, I would love to have fancy, built-in locker type spaces for each of my kids. And with doors to hide the clutter...but we do the best with what we have. As I mentioned above, these shelving units came with our house, I bought the hooks cheap at Target, and the baskets were pretty cheap at Ikea. Also, since our kids are pretty short, we can't do taller, skinnier spaces yet, so this takes up a lot of horizontal space.

While this mud room space is less than my dream space, it has functioned beautifully and mostly unchanged since we move in to our current home a year and a half ago. If it works, don't change it. :)

Tomorrow I'll share the rest of our garage.

Accommodating Individuality: What Hasn't Worked for Us

We currently have 8 individuals living in our house (soon to be 9). Each of these people has their own personality, their own desires, their own likes and dislikes. We also live in a very small home, averaging approximately 165 sq ft per person.

I've had a lot of questions recently about how we accommodate individuality in our home. What we do with "personal" items, or special trinkets for each person, and how we handle individual preferences. With such limited space, we have several general rules to help everyone live comfortably, and then we have tried to create personal space for everyone. We have not always been successful in finding solutions that work for everyone, though, so I thought I'd share several of the things that didn't work for us. Maybe they'll work for you, or maybe they'll help you find something that does work for you.

House Rules
The first rule in our house is that it is our house... Mine and my husband's. The house does not belong to the kids. They did not pay for it, they are not financially responsible for it, and they do not have rights to the house (this rule was the same in all rentals we lived in prior to purchasing our home). Our children are given stewardship over their bedrooms, but the rooms and the space still belong to Mom and Dad.

The second rule is that if you can't take care of it, you don't get it. If the kids cannot maintain an acceptable level of order and cleanliness in their room, they lose the privilege of keeping certain items there. This is one reason that our children's rooms are so barren right now. In the past, we have allowed our girls to keep a few special items in their room... but they were rarely put away where they belonged, and that privilege was lost. We have also had crayon, pen, pencil, and marker drawn on the walls and dresser, so art supplies are not allowed in the bedrooms anymore.

Communal Property
Most of the toys & supplies in our home are considered communal property. No one "owns" any of the hair accessories, they are simply available on a first come-first served basis. The Duplos and blocks are meant to be shared, or for taking turns, even though a couple Duplo sets were specifically given to the boys as Christmas presents.

When our children receive gifts of toys, they are usually allowed to play with them on their own for a period of time, then they are put with the rest of the toys of that type and are considered "share-able." There are still some toys and items that seem to retain an owner, even though they are shared toys. Everyone seems to know that the small stuffed hippo belongs to J2, and the lioness belongs to J1. The zebra is K's, and everyone knows it's name too... but the zebra, the lioness, and the hippo still end up in the large toy box with the other stuffed animals every day.

*Special note: growing up our toys always ended up as communal as well, which wasn't a big deal. But now that most of my siblings are grown, my mother wishes she had at least labeled toys with who had received them as gifts and things so that it would be easier to divide up the toys as she passes them on. We are working on labeling a lot of our toys in this way... similar to Andy from Toy Story. :)

Projects & Special Toys
Every child has toys and items they are especially possesive of: the special doll they have slept with since they were a baby, their favorite drawing of a rainbow, random craft projects from when Grandma visited, even the picture of their favorite pizza from the weekly mailer.

I understand the need to keep these special items in a special place, and away from the communal toys & projects, so we have tried a couple methods for helping our children keep their private things, but also keep them from taking over our house.

Gallery Wall
One method we tried with varying success was a "gallery wall" in the girls' room. In a previous apartment, we hung a piece of yarn and attached special projects with clothespins. We allowed the girls one clothespin for each year (so, our then 4 year old had 4 clothespins). The girls chose what to keep, and when they wanted a new picture or project hung, they had to choose which one to get rid of from the wall.

This worked for a while, but as they got older the projects got heavier and they got more clothespins. Eventually they decided to use the yarn as a swing and pulled the whole thing off the wall... it didn't go back up after that.

Then, in our new home, we allowed the girls to hang special pictures & drawings on the wall using push pins. This didn't last very long because the push pins would fall out and could be dangerous for little ones.

I liked the clothespin idea before, but needed something sturdier. I installed cup hooks on the girls' bedroom wall, and gave them binder clips to hang from the cup hooks. This was simple enough that the girls could keep up with the art replacement on their own, and sturdy enough to hold most projects, and some 3D items.

Unfortunately, the girls didn't keep things maintained very well. The younger ones ended up ripping the cup hooks right out of the wall so they could use them for a different "project" and we slowly stopped hanging things altogether. In this picture you can see our oldest still had a few things hung, but her sisters hooks below hers are empty and most of them are actually not in the wall anymore.

Cubbies
Another method we have tried to use is one we call "cubbies." We purchased an inexpensive shoe storage solution that has 6 cubby type spaces in it. Each of the girls was assigned two cubbies and allowed to keep whatever they wanted in their cubby as long as it followed two simple rules: 1) you may not keep anything in your cubby that belongs to someone else, 2) everything in your cubby must fit IN your cubby.

This method is still in use now, but we have had some problems with it as well. The first problem is that the girls can't find anything they want from the cubbies, and end up dumping the entire contents to find what they are looking for, and then don't put anything back. Also, the cubbies have been used for play as well as storage, and they have not held up as well as I would have liked.

For these reasons, the girls have lost the privilege of keeping the cubbies in their room. For now, they are kept in the school room, where they only have access to them with permission.

Why These Didn't Work
Honestly, I believe that the main reason these solutions have not worked for us is because our children are simply too young and immature. I firmly believe that if you really care about something, you will take care of it. Our children simply do not care enough about their personal items to properly care for them. But they are learning.

We will continue to offer our children opportunities to care for their own personal belongings, and if they show maturity, they will be allowed to keep more things separate from the communal items. If they do not take care of their personal items, and leave them out of place, refuse to put them away, or allow younger siblings to make a mess with them (like leaving markers on the floor in a bedroom while they are playing with ponies in a different room), they will lose those privileges.

Future Options
While some of the ideas we have tried so far have not worked, we have thought of other options to try in the future, when our children seem to show a bit more responsibility. These ideas are mostly for a defined space for our children to keep their treasures, so that they can have some control over what is in the space, but they are still required to keep things they are not actively using IN the space. Some options for this space include: plastic bins stored under a bed, a locking box stored under a bed or in a closet, a closet drawer or shelf, a nightstand with a drawer.

Someday, if we ever have more space and resources available to us... I would love to provide each of my children with a armoire to customize however they choose, and store whatever they want. (Lots of great ideas here and here or just Googling "repurposed armoires" and scrolling through the images.) But there's no way we could fit that much furniture in our current home, so we'll be working on a smaller scale for now. :)

Good Enough

I have a confession. I have a character flaw that I have been working on correcting for several years.

I am a perfectionist.

This probably comes as no surprise to those who know me, especially close family members. But I willingly admit it now, and that is the first step in correcting this flaw, right?

Now, before we go further, I would like to clarify something. Being perfect is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, we have been commanded to be perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). But there are two problems with being a perfectionist:

1. Perfectionists often procrastinate because they don't want to start a project if they aren't sure they can finish it perfectly.
2. Perfectionists get consumed in a project, and continue to try to perfect things long after the benefits of perfecting the project have past. 

Procrastination Fear
In the bible, the parable of the talents tells the story of three servants who were each given a sum of money and told to do what he could with it (Matthew 25). The servants who received 5 and 2 talents each worked hard and doubled their Lord's money. The servant who received only one talent must have been a perfectionist. He was so fearful of losing his one talent that he hid it and did nothing at all.

When the Lord returned and reckoned with the servants, the two who had doubled the money were praised: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." But the servant who had hid the money in fear was rebuked: "Thou wicked and slothful servant." Even if we can't do things perfectly, we should still make an effort to do something.

Keep Moving
The point of the childhood game of "Hot & Cold" is to find a hidden object by following the clues "hotter" and "colder." One key lesson we can learn from this game is that it is impossible to find what we are looking for by standing still. Often, when we work to downsize and organize our life, we may find ourselves further from our goals. That's okay. This feedback is essential to finding what we are actually looking for, and we will often need to move in the wrong direction first, so that we can discover that it is, in fact, the wrong direction for us.

Economics of Organization
I already admitted to being a perfectionist, and now I will also admit that I am a bit of a numbers nerd. One of my favorite classes my freshman year in college was economics. The most applicable to life lesson I learned from that course was the concept of marginal cost & marginal benefit. In simple terms this means that at some point the extra cost of more work, will be more than the extra benefit gained from that work.

In organizing, this means that at some point, the energy required to further organize, or to maintain a high level of organization is more than the energy or stress saved by organizing. In some cases, the energy required to maintain "perfect" organization actually causes more stress.

Example: girls' hair accessories. Potentially, I could buy some nice drawer organizers, and have one section for hair rubberbands, one for bows, one for headbands, one for flowers, etc. This wouldn't take me very long to actually sort and organize. However, my girls don't care. If I insisted on keeping it organized it would only add to the stress in our house, and cause more contention. And then it would be a waste of money to buy the organizers.

Organize Until it's Good Enough, Then Stop. 
Instead of stressing over keeping the hair accessories "perfectly organized," we have chosen to simply make sure they all stay in the same drawer. The same principle can be applied to our toys. We have two toy bins for "cars & trains." At one point, one of my children wanted to sort these into "cars" and "trains" and spent quite a while separating them and telling all of her siblings that one of the train table drawers was just for "trains" and the other was for "cars." The sorted toys stayed sorted for about 10 minutes.

For a more adult example. In our kitchen, we have a drawer for spatulas & large spoons & other random handheld kitchen gadgets. This particular drawer itself is not organized in any way. Everything that belongs in that drawer is simply thrown in there. Why? Because it works. As long as the drawer is following the 80% rule, there is no point stressing over placing the spatula on the left side of the drawer, and the can opener on the right side.

Also, on the minimalist side of things, purge until it's good enough, then stop. I could get rid of all but one sauce pan in my kitchen. It would be possible. But minimizing that drastically would cause more stress as I tried to only cook one-pot dishes, or pre-cooked rice and then steamed the veggies. The point of this blog, is to end up with less stress, and less work if possible. If keeping a full set of pots and pans will make cooking dinner less stressful... then I'm going to keep my full set. :)

If It Works, Don't Mess With It.
After reading through several of my past posts, and seeing pictures of how little we have of some things, I know several of you have thought that there is no way that would work in your family. That's okay! If your current method of storing, playing with, and picking up toys is working, then don't spend the energy to change it! If your current stockpile of fabric for sewing projects makes you happy, don't get rid of it! Don't change things that are working for you.

However, when you notice something is not working, when it's causing stress and frustration, that's when it's time to make a change. That's when it's time to try something different. Maybe the something different will take you in the wrong direction, and you'll feel "colder." In that case, it's time to try something else, gradually getting "warmer" until you find something that works. Then when you find something that works, use it until it doesn't work anymore, and then change it again. Don't worry about finding the "perfect" method, because it doesn't exist.

Emergency Mode: Another Benefit of Less

I would like to apologize in advance for the lack of relevant pictures in this post. The only relevant pictures I have are too private to share. But, I've been told that blog posts are boring without pictures... so I have included some random ones. :)

Allowing our "servant" to vacuum the floor while we watched football.

Nearly two weeks ago, just a couple days after my "disaster to company ready" experiment, we entered Emergency Mode. After struggling with feeling crummy for several months, and feeling especially bad for a couple of days, I took my husband to the Emergency Room late Saturday night. He ended up being diagnosed with severe anemia caused by chronic blood loss, and was admitted to the hospital for two days, where he received two blood transfusions with a total of 4 units of blood, as well as numerous tests to determine the cause of the blood loss. It was a stressful couple of days, as I'm sure anyone who has logged hospital time with a loved one can attest to, and I pretty much checked out of home life for 48 hours, everything except being a mother to my children.

Sometimes I seriously wonder why we bother buying them separate beds...

When we made the decision to go to the emergency room, I immediately called my mother and asked her to stay with our kids. They were already in bed asleep, and the house was already picked up and wiped down, because that's part of our normal routine. It was Saturday night, so we had also packed up the toys from the rotation and put everything in the garage for the weekend. My mom slept on our couch overnight and helped the kids get started on breakfast early Sunday morning. After my husband was admitted to the hospital and his blood transfusions started around 5am, I got about an hour of sleep in a hospital chair, then drove home about 7:30 to help the kids get ready for church. Thanks to our prep the night before, all the kids Sunday clothes were ready, the girls' on their dresser, the boys' hung in a group in the closet. My mom ran home to get herself ready and I quickly changed the younger kids and loaded everyone into the car. My mom returned about 8:30 and took the kids to church for us, while I went back to the hospital. Our wonderful church family helped my parents and my kids were able to keep some sense of normalcy after waking up to learn that Daddy was in the hospital.

Having fun on the "safari truck" at the zoo.

The kids spent Sunday afternoon, evening, and overnight at my parent's house. Because our house was picked up and everything was put where it belonged, with the help of my older girls, my mother had no problems packing overnight bags for my kids and taking the essentials back to her house.

Playing "restaurant"

My mom was also able to bring the kids to visit Daddy on Sunday afternoon, and I left the hospital for a couple hours Sunday evening to just be with the kids.

My birthday last year.

I spent Sunday night in the hospital, at my husband's side, and attempted to sleep as much as possible. Monday morning he was feeling much better, and told me to go be with the kids again while his second transfusion was going. So, I spent a few more hours at my parents' house, just enjoying spending time together. I arrived at the hospital in the afternoon and we were excited to learn that he would be released that evening.

Memories at the beach are always better than more toys. :)

Arriving back home was a bit surreal after being in the hospital, but it was wonderful to walk in the door and see our clean & put together home. My parents dropped off our kids and dinner, and we settled in for a movie night together as a family.

DIY facepaint at the Children's Museum

Since the hospital stay, we have had a few follow-up appointments, and will continue to have more, with the possibility of surgery in the near future. We have had wonderful family & friends continue to bring us meals, and watch our kids for us, which has also been an enormous blessing. One of the best parts of this whole adventure is that I have felt like the house has almost run itself. As long as we run through our list of dailies at least once per day, we have been able to keep the stress at bay. The toy pick-up & put away doesn't take very long when everyone is working and everyone knows where everything belongs, and when there isn't much to put away anyway. This has been especially important as my emotional health and physical energy have been recovering since the hospital stay, and I haven't had much energy to devote to household chores.

Traditional choosing/cutting of the Christmas tree.

I have spent some time recently wondering what my house would look like these days if my home looked like it did several years ago, with lots of clutter and open storage...

Creativity at it's best... I'm pretty sure Buzz Lightyear was supposed to represent an angel in this Duplo nativity scene. 

And I am grateful for less to worry about these days, and less to care for, and less to distract me from the things that REALLY MATTER.

Challenge #2 - Craft Supplies

Well, I made a decision. After pondering what I truly LOVE, I have determined that while I enjoy sewing quilts and blankets and other flat projects, but I don't enjoy sewing clothing, costumes, or other items that have more than 2 dimensions. If I have time to sew, I want to spend it sewing things I enjoy. I would rather buy or borrow a Halloween costume than spend my rare spare time sewing one.

Knowing this, it's time to purge again! This time, I can sort through my sewing & craft supplies and pass on anything that doesn't fit with my LOVE.

Step 1 - The Gathering
Due to space issues, I have been storing my craft & sewing supplies in various locations throughout the house. First step is to gather them.

I found 8 file boxes of fabric & other supplies in the garage, several plastic bins in the front hall closet (on my sewing desk), and the kids' art & craft bins from their toy rotation. Also pictured here are two empty diaper boxes I brought to collect donations, as well as some garbage bags to collect garbage and some fabric donations. After I took this picture, I remembered one more file box of yarn as well as a bag of poly-fiberfill.

Step 2 - Sorting
I went through the fabric boxes pretty quickly, pulling out the fabric I knew I wasn't going to use. A lot of it was given to me, and is not my style anyway. A good portion was fabric meant for apparel, and would not be good for blankets or quilts.

The hardest thing for me to finally decide to get rid of was a box of fleece. I ended up calling my mom for support and our thought process went something like this:
-What could fleece be used for? What kind of project might I do someday that would use the fleece?
-I could use it to make soft fleece hats, or maybe puppets, but those are more 3D projects, which I have already determined I don't enjoy.
-I could use it to make soft blankets, but since it's mostly leftovers from previous projects, there aren't large pieces... it would have to be a pretty creative patchwork project, which I'd rather not deal with.
-I might be able to piece a cute baby blanket with it, but the colors I have are not really baby colors, and frankly, the colors are not my favorites anyway... they are just the colors I needed for the particular project I used them for.
-If I decide someday that I want to make a pieced fleece blanket, I will probably go out and buy more fleece in the colors that I want/need, so keeping this particular box of fleece will not help me.
-And besides, I have WAY too many projects on my list to be creating more projects just to get some use out of the fleece.
-It's time to pass the fleece on to someone who might have a need for it, or more time than I to do something with it.

After sorting through various other craft bins I ended up with a box of give aways that included ribbon scraps I didn't even like, a scrapbook calendar that I never touched (and I would prefer to scrapbook digitally), as well as a box of patterns for costumes & other things that I don't anticipate ever having the time or desire to sew.

And, of course, I ended up with a pile of garbage. I didn't empty this garbage before I started, so not all of this is from my purge, but a lot of it is. Also, in this picture you can get a glimpse of the freshly labeled craft bins on the shelves of my sewing table.

Step 3 - Organizing What's Left
I ended up keeping 4 boxes of supplies that went back to the garage. The best part of this though, was that every box followed the 80% rule, so I didn't have to tape any of them shut!

One box of "home decor" fabrics that I actually liked, and might use to make throw pillows or something (flat projects!).
One box of yarn & knitting looms.
One box of batting (remember, I like quilting)
One box of "miscellaneous" which includes fabric for some projects that I just can't get rid of, like extra material to make more matching Christmas stockings in case we have more children.

Missing from this picture are the kids' arts & crafts bins. As I was sorting through my supplies, I gave some of the unneeded items to the kids, so they can do fun projects with them.

I also reorganized the remaining craft supplies and relabeled the plastic bins they are in. On my sewing desk are two bins labeled "velcro" and "glue." The glue bin includes tacky craft glue, school glue, and my hot glue gun. Also on the desk is a bin with extra paint supplies for when the kids' art bin runs out.

Under the desk two of the stripy boxes contain quilting fabric, and the third contains patterns. There are also 5 plastic bins labeled: Sewing machine hardware, surger thread, sewing machine thread, snaps buttons zippers hooks, and ribbons and trim.

Step 4 - Putting it All Back
I can't just leave everything out in the school room, or we'd never get any school done. :) So, it's time to move the rest. This is where I put everything as I finished with it, then I put things away after I took the pictures. :)

All these boxes are empty! I love keeping file boxes because I love the uniformity of shelves full of them. So, I moved these to the garage for when I need them again.

Here's the final donations. One large black bag of fabric, one smaller white bag full of fleece, one box of random craft supplies, and one box of patterns. I let my mother go through the box of patterns before donating it, and she took a few from the box, but also added a few of her own. These donations are still sitting in my garage, but they'll be out of the house soon!

And of course, the garbage. This bag went straight to the garbage can in the garage, and of course, I put a new bag in the basket. :)

The four boxes of supplies I'm keeping went back on the shelves in the garage, and the bins that were left on my sewing desk went back into the hall closet. I'll share pictures of those locations in later posts. :)

The School/Craft Room: A Work in Progress

As I have mentioned before, our house has four bedrooms. One girls bedroom, one boys bedroom, the master bedroom, and the school/craft room. We usually refer to it as the school room, because that's what it started out as... a place to keep school supplies & "do school." But things evolve and change and we are pretty flexible. Since we moved into our house, we have been slowly adding and removing things from this room. It now houses my office desk, sewing table, a good portion of the school supplies, most of our books, as well as puzzles, games & art supplies.

So, here it is... the school room:

The entrance to our school room. You can see that it is situated next to the boys' bedroom. My white office/teacher's desk and chair are along the first wall.

Another view of my desk area. The white things stuck on the wall are white board posters that work like a giant white board... in theory. I'm not particularly happy with these and will be finding something else in the future... it's just not high on the priority list at the moment.

The green pocket chart holds cards that show our school routine, though we haven't used it in a while. We also have a flag, of course.

The printer sits in the corner, on top of my filing drawers. I have four large drawers here. One of them contains general files, one Instructions & Warranties, one financial & other important documents, and the fourth contains extra office supplies like empty binders & sheet protectors.

Under the window is the kids' school table. Since our kids are so tiny now, they are fine with a tiny table. :) On the table, and on the wall to the right of the window are several paintings that have not yet found a final home.

The column of bookshelves on the far left contain paints (on the top shelf), and kids books. The board books are on the bottom, with short picture books on the next shelf and tall picture books on the shelf above that. The next shelf contains longer chapter books good for read alouds, and the remaining shelf contains a set of old classic books from my husband's childhood, and some children's level research materials.

The center column contains more extra school supplies on the top shelf including a stack of spiral notebooks, then adult chapter books, and finally drawing books and "for fun" workbooks, with a stack of drawers  containing spare batteries because that's where they are for now. :)

The final column of shelves contains my card making supplies on the top shelf, several bins of sewing projects I'm working on on the middle shelf, and the bottom shelf contains a set of tiny drawers with random office supplies like paper clips, and several plastic paint cans containing larger office supplies like erasers, scissors & glue, pencils, pens, chalk, white board markers, etc.

Under the shelves are the kids' cubbies for personal items, and my sewing desk.

My sewing desk, and the closet.

The top shelf in the closet contains puzzles & games, the next shelf down contains plastic tubs with Legos. The art easel sits in the closet when we are not using it.

Behind the art easel there is another shelf with a few electronic educational "toys" we were gifted, and our globe.

We keep a sheet under the easel so we can spread it out to catch paint drips & such when it's pulled out.

This room has a keyed lock on the doorknob and we usually keep it locked. With so many "fun" and messy items (crayons, markers, paint, pens, etc), it's best to keep the little ones out of here unless they are supervised.

We are still working on organizing and purging a lot of things in this room. A couple months ago we packed up 10 file boxes of "stuff" from this room, and I'm planning to go through those boxes and do a big purge in the next couple weeks. Of course, I'll share what I get rid of and why. :)

Do You Love It?

I grew up in a family of seven children, so being frugal and thrifty was always a part of life. Whenever my mom helped us go through clothing while getting ready for buying school clothes, she was always encouraging us to get rid of anything we didn't love. We each had very small wardrobes overall, a few pairs of pants, a handful of shirts, and a couple of dresses or skirts. "You only wear what you love anyway." she would tell us. Since the oldest four of us were all girls, in high school we were able to wear each others' clothes a bit, and expanded our wardrobes a little that way, though we often had different styles, and one sister is notably taller than the rest of us, so she couldn't share as easily.

My family 11 years ago, when I was in high school.
The two sisters standing in the back had borrowed their dresses
from the older two in front (I'm the one sitting on the left).

But overall, my mom was right, at least for me. I frequently found myself reaching for the same 3-4 shirts, and always searching for the same 1-2 pair of pants... frustrated when all my favorites were dirty and I had to wear something else. I still notice this in my closet now. I hang all my pants on the left of the closet, and all my shirts on the right. When I hang up my clean laundry, I always put the clean things in the middle, right between the pants & shirts. When I pick out clothes to wear, I try to start at the outsides of the closet. That would mean starting with the things that haven't been worn in a while. Yet frequently, I end up grabbing items from the middle of the closet, or frustrated that my favorite shirt hasn't made it back through the wash yet (and it's only been 3 days).

I just finished hanging up the adult darks, so this is literally my entire wardrobe... maternity and otherwise. The only things not pictured here are my pajamas, underclothes, the outfit I was wearing while taking the picture, and the shirt I had worn the day before when the laundry was being washed (I was wearing the same pants as the day before).

Unclutter
The lesson I learned from this is that we shouldn't clutter up our closets or our lives with things we don't love. As I was writing the blog post about my sister, J, I asked her a few questions about her home now. Here's an excerpt from her response:

You know I don't sew or craft at all, so I don't keep any of that in my house. I also don't keep very much in storage - mostly holiday decor, and even that wouldn't be there if I didn't love decorating.

I've stopped keeping things in my to do pile that need to be "altered" or fixed. If I can't fix it within a few minutes with the resources I have now, it's gone. Projects I've held onto for years I have just thrown out because I've realized it will cost me more stress than the completed project will bring me happiness.

While J doesn't sew, I do. I have discovered that I love quilting. I have been trying to find more time to spend on quilting. But, I don't like sewing clothing. I can, and as I mentioned in a previous post, I once sewed our entire stash of cloth diapers, but I don't enjoy it. So, I can get rid of apparel-type fabric that would not be good for quilting, and I try to only keep fabric & supplies for projects I'm in the middle of. (hmmm... I think I need to go through some boxes and purge again...)

The pile of fabric for the quilts I'm working on for my boys.

Too Many Loves
We should only surround ourselves with things we LOVE. Often this is difficult because there are lots of things that sound good, or that we believe we love. Much like my children claim that every toy or stuffed animal is their "favorite." When we have so many "loves," each one is diminished in value.

It can be difficult to identify the things and hobbies we truly love. Here are some ideas to help discover those loves.
 - Make a list of things you want to do
 - Walk around your home and write a list of projects you want to do as you see the materials you have collected for those projects.
 - As your list grows, ask yourself if you will truly enjoy the process of doing these things.
 - Ask if the finished project will enrich your life. Will you be glad you did it? Will you be glad to have it?
 - How long will these projects take. Remember, it is impossible to find the time for all of them, and you will most likely find new project ideas in the future (thank you Pinterest). Choose your absolute favorites, then let the rest go.

When we were house-hunting a couple years ago, we walked through dozens of homes. Several homes were appealing, and there were some aspects of each home that we loved, and some features that we didn't love. Obviously, in the end, we could only choose ONE house. Our real-estate agent gave us a great piece of advice: find two favorites. Every time you enter a home, as you look around, ask yourself if it is better than either of your previous two favorites. If it is better than one of them... it becomes a part of the favorites, and one of the previous homes gets kicked off the list. If it is not better than either of them, forget about it. Eventually, you'll end up with two homes to choose between, instead of 20 or more.

Our house - image courtesy of Google StreetView

This can be a difficult process, as everything seems to have its pros and cons. But, with practice, we can learn to step back from the emotions enough to make an objective decision between hobbies, projects, & STUFF, and determine our actual favorites, and our true loves.

True Cost
Remember yesterday's post on true cost? Everything we choose to do or have costs us in some way... time, space, money, or all of the above. When we are simplifying and trying to reduce our stress, we should only be keeping around the activities and "stuff" that we absolutely LOVE. We can find more happiness and joy spending time and energy on things we LOVE when we are not mentally cluttered by things we enjoy less, or don't like at all.

The Moral of the Story
-Keep what you LOVE
-Pass on what you don't love, or what does not fill you with joy.