May 20, 2015

Project Simplify Part 2





I've been having a lot of fun finishing up the different projects from my little book I mentioned a few posts ago. It feels super nice to clear things out for REAL and pare down. I have no desire to fill every nook and cranny with 'stuff' anymore. Here is some of what I've been working through.



1. Laundry room: laundry and a few random supplies, girls' backpacks and coats, drying racks, hooks, and four colored bins, one for me, Ben, the girls, and towel/sheets. That's it.













2. Kitchen cabinets. Only have one set of stoneware dishes that can be used for all occasions. All of our dishes are in this cabinet, except for drinking glasses.




All the pots and pans. Got rid of a large one that I didn't really need so I could fit the electric griddle down there. How many pans do I really need?





All the baking dishes:





All the baking food items:





I tried to organize the spices by letter I'm that neurotic.






3. Media. These two drawers hold all of our DVDs and VHS (yeah, we still have some of those). Got rid of everything that we did not really love or want for the future:








4. This is every single 'adult' book in the house!!!! It's so easy to accumulate book after book, but when it comes down to it, there are so few books that we will end up reading or going back to. So we saved only our favorites or meaningful ones. The first shelf is mostly fiction (Narnia series, Francine Rivers) and autobiographies or biographies. Second shelf is spiritual growth and teaching. Third shelf is favorite parenting and marriage books (not every one we've ever read). Fourth shelf is random but a few practical how-to books. Last shelf is my childhood scrapbook, extra copy of our wedding album, a Spanish 101 textbook, etc.:






5. Linen closet. Just kept one set of flannel sheets and summer sheets for each bed and an extra pair for the girls' bed. Towels- don't need that many. We keep ours in our bathroom, but even then it's only a few. Then beach towels, kid bath towels, and pillowcases. Anna's nebulizer medication, bath time shampoo and stuff, and a blanket:





6. Girls' closet. Top shelf are their travel bags and beach bags with swim stuff. Kimmie's dresses, then shirts, then Anna's dresses. They can wear the same size shirts which is nice. Definitely have more clothes than we need, but almost all are used or hand me downs that we really do love. I have bins in here with diapers, more hangers, and all their clothes that are too small (to hand down or consign) or too big. I like to keep them nearby so I can occasionally see if anything new fits. I also don't like storing clothes in the attic; my goal is to have everything that we use, except Christmas decorations, sports equipment, outside toys, and suitcases/coolers in the room where they are used.






Anna gets the top drawer and Kimmie the second. I just keep short, pants, and skirts in here:




Last drawer is for underwear, underclothes, and junk clothes for outside:




PJs go in the bottom of this hall tree. We probably have way more than we need:





7. I limited little trinkets and smaller items to what you see here. A couple of pictures, the shells from the girls baptism, her crown from Disney, and some hats.






The homemade bunny house found it's home in here! The girls have some sort of obsession with taking their clothes off. And I'm the one stuck putting them back on.








8. My work desk, in the closet.





So far, so good! I think I only have a few areas left: kids' toys, attic (ugh I hate going up there so I might skip this one), coat closet, keepsakes, craft supplies, and paper. I highly recommend this little book! It's been fun.




1 comment:

Kristina said...

Oh goodness, I need to do this. We try to keep most of our stuff minimized, but our multi tasker computer desk/artsupply/kid toy shelves have gotten out of hand. And our laundry area and hall closet need some attention. At one point they were all super organized and now I don't even know what all is in there!