Speaking of cleaning up my house....
The office was the last official thing on my post-Christmas decluttering list. I did an initial clean up a few weeks ago, and so far, we haven't let it get dreadfully out of hand.
During December, it had gotten a little bit not-so-great in here.
Whoa.
You know how on Monday I said that my life doesn't work very well when there's a bunch of clutter around?
That desk above is a prime example. How could anyone possibly do schoolwork there?
I was still managing to put out blog posts here at my desk, but the pile of papers on the left is a dangerous thing.
Piles of papers usually = lost and/or forgotten-about important stuff. Not good.
So, I shredded many papers.
I still have a pile left to get through, but the shredder was starting to get a little overworked for one day.
My desk is looking much better.
The previously unusable school/craft desk is now functional.
The closet doors have nothing in front of them, aaaaand they shut.
I like it when closet doors are functional.
In case you forgot, here was the previous closet door scene.
To get that area cleaned up, I recycled a bunch of things, put crafting items back where they were supposed to go, and threw away some broken/unrecyclable stuff.
While I share some of the blame for the messes that occur in the office, I've realized that my kids definitely do their fair share of mess-making in here, mostly by not putting things away properly (which includes not recycling/throwing away.)
So, to keep this room from its usual quick descent into disorderliness, I'm trying to do a better job of reminding them to clean up their messes.
It's not that hard to deal with daily messes, but when I let them build up mess to this point, it's a little hard for my kids (especially Sonia and Zoe) to tackle.
Hopefully with some faithful daily tidying, we can keep the room looking more like this.
By the way, you may notice that when I declutter/organize, I never buy any organizing tools.
Why?
Usually the current storage is sufficient, but too much stuff has accumulated.
Simply 1) getting rid of unnecessary stuff and 2) putting the necessary stuff away is all I need to do.
I don't spend any money, and still, the room immediately looks and functions better. It's kind of like...magic.
(Speaking of which, my library hold copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up arrived at the library, so look for a review of it soon.)
P.S. In case you missed it and you'd like to see more messes in my house, here are the before and after pictures from:
My next project, cleaning behind fridge & stove and organizing laundry room closet. Keep up the inspiration!
I really appreciate that you post photos of your house when it is messy. It makes me feel like a normal person 🙂 because my house gets this way too, and there are only two of us! I also like that you have an industrial paper cutter! I love those! 🙂
Looks great! Gives me hope:)
I'm glad I'm not the only one that sometimes reaches Mess City. Glad you mentioned working with the kids--I need to start teaching mine better habits. My four-year-old will put his clothes in the hamper at bath time, but in the morning, he just tosses his PJs on the living room floor! Need to nip that in the bud :-).
Yes. So easy to just pick them up ourselves, isn't it? But in the long run, we're just making more work for ourselves.
Looking good over there!! Just wanted to say thank you so much for the organizing/cleaning inspiration! My office has gotten out of control too, so I need to do the very same thing (and soon!). 🙂
It's so motivating to see other people's decluttering pictures isn't it? Always lights a fire under me.
Oh the endless shredding pile. Looks like every house must have one. Once upon a time my son thought shredding was the most fun, unfortunately he has long outgrown it and the pile just grows and grows. Maybe I just need to put on a podcast and shred away.
I know, right? So much paper even in this more paperless era (although to be fair, some of what's in my pile is old documents from the more paper-ful era 12 years ago.)
I can think of a couple alternatives to the eternal shred pile:
- Burn it: fireplace in the winter, grill in the summer.
- Go to a municipal or work shred event; these usually have industrial strength shredders that go much faster. Sure beats my 3pp at a time home shredder.
Oh yes, I do burn ours in the summer when we use our fire pit. When it's this cold, though, we can't seem to get motivated to build a fire outside.
I'm the same way, I never buy organizing stuff. It makes me feel more cluttered. I try to repurpose stuff around the house instead. Looks great!
I love seeing your messes, AND the final cleaned up space. You have inspired me to clean up my office which also doubles as the junk room. :0 Do you find that once you clean up a room your kids congregate there? Mine tell me they don't mind messy spaces but they sure choose the nice neat rooms over the messy ones!
I recently unearthed my desk as well - it's a fabulous feeling, isn't it? While I was at it, I decided to go through the file cabinet and purge a bunch of documents. I ended up with a huge box so instead of trying to shred them all 2-3 at a time, I discovered that the local office supply store offers a shredding service for a dollar per pound. Totally worth it! Hopefully in the future I'll be better at keeping up on that front - maybe a dedicated shredder waste basket would help. Hmmm...
I compost my shreddings because my compost can ALWAYS use more brown material (and everything I shred is compost-friendly regular paper). So I really ought to keep up on it.
Maybe Staples will return your shreds to you?
Looking good! The after is amazing considering it is an office and a craft area. I wouldn't know this is a kid area at all!
Today I setup a folding table as a desk in the spare room. I'm leaving all the office clutter where it is now and am starting a new space. Cheating.
Thankfully, that old government issue desk has some very decent drawers in it to hold a bunch of crafting doodads. It's an ugly desk, but it's so sturdy and I don't care what manner of gluing and glittering and whatever they do on it, so I really don't want to replace it with something else!