Guest posting on: Pretty Handy Girl

Today I'm over at Pretty Handy Girl organizing my household paints!  Go over there and check out her amazing blog and all of the fantastic ways she tackles "tough" DIY jobs in a way we {ladies} can figure it out easily!

Clean it up and clear it out: A summer challenge!

Our semi-annual tradition is to clear out toys in the kids' rooms!  We do it in June {for Adam's birthday} and January {for Rachel's birthday}.  

Adam's closet needed a little help, but it wasn't all that bad since getting his closet organizer!

We go through all their stuff and get rid of as much as we can! The idea is that if they don't get rid of stuff, they have no room for new stuff {you know, birthday presents?}.  But, I still make them go through it even if it's their siblings birthday - it's just every six months!

Adam surprised me by wanting to give up his magic set.

Adam is now old enough that he did virtually all of it by himself! I really was impressed - he got rid of a bunch of stuff that I didn't expect.

Rachel counting up one of her piles of books.

Rachel still needed help, but I limited my help and had her really do as much as she could alone.  I stayed in the room but out of the way, and would give her a task and then step out whenever I could.

Deciding which ones are most important to her.

For instance, she had way too many books so I had her count them.  If she had 30 books, she could keep her 15 favorites and that was it!

The magazines are great to give away for another child to use them.

I also had her sort and organize her own stuff.  It's so simple, but sometimes just teaching them basic stuff helps a lot.

Trinkets....bleh!<

Then, there is the trinkets...

Big brother helping out!

Yep, those are terrible too - I had her count the total and let her keep about 1/4 of what she had.

Her brother stepped in to help - which she was glad to have - putting all the CDs back in their cases.

Working together organizing...so sweet! This Momma is PROUD!!

In the end, they both got rid of a ton of stuff! We put it all out at Backyard Thursday that week and let them have first crack at all the kids' stuff then the leftovers went to charity.  My kids were SOOOO excited to give away all their old toys!

They did this all on their own - happily!

Here is your challenge: Before the end of THIS summer get your kids to go through ALL their toys - don't do all the work yourself - you must teach them.  It may take a short time for several days, or one really long day! Next week, I'm going to reveal how things are looking now in my kids' rooms! 

I am going to have a LINK PARTY {yes, finally} on August  12th, with a party button below, for everyone to link up their toy clean out! If you don't have a blog you can email me  pictures of YOUR kids' rooms.  I'll post a feature the following week {August 19th} of the BEST clean ups! Don't worry, if you don't have kids, there will be another challenge coming in the fall! AND, you can still clean up YOUR bedroom!

Parties:

Tater Tots and Jello
Serenity Now 
Iheart Naptime 
Don't Waste Your Homemaking
Ask Anna 
Organizing with Sandy
Heavenly Homemakers 
A Bowl Full of Lemons 
Thrifty Decor Chick
Far Above Rubies 
Women Living Well

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How my hubby organizes: Audio/Video cables!

One day, it arrived...an Ebay find that my husband was SO proud of! He bought a new-to-him Bose surround sound system!!!!






Imagine my excitement...do you sense my sarcasm?


 So, thankfully my hubby wasn't going to leave it that way.




He even bought a WHITE surround sound system so that it would "go" better with the decor.




So, he devised a plan to fit all of this stuff - including the LARGE subwoofer {yes, ladies, the big white box is a subwoofer!} and the new black receiver - into the cupboards below the TV.


The point was to make the stuff disappear back to this lovely state!




You can see I even had to write out instructions on how to turn ON the TV....it's quite complicated now.  Should I mention all the remotes we have now?



Well, at least I have a special hiding place for them!



Anyway, he managed to use velcro ties and cable ties to make everything tidy inside. He also drilled a large hole into the top of the cabinet and ran all the cords through it to help hide them.


He's so talented that he even put in an additional outlet inside the cupboards for the TV and power strip.




Then, all is well and organized again!  He's so sweet and did a fantastic job organizing all those video cables!


Don't you think?

Parties:

Organize & Decorate Everything

Women Living Well
Delightful Order 
House of Hepworth 
Tidy Mom 
Organizing Junkie

Two minutes to a less cluttered room!

Tell me, what is the BIG secret to having a less cluttered, neater room in two minutes? Well, it's MAKE your bed!  Seriously...it's not rocket science!

 It doesn't get any easier!

Right?

You can do it!

Reminiscing...projects I've done!

So, I was looking back at some of the projects I've done this last year. I thought I'd share a few with you, remind you of what has gone on. Here is one I did in May 2010 updating a pretty ugly place - looking out my window in the basement.  It is MUCH better since doing this last year:







How is it holding up? Not bad.  Some of the paint is chipping and the plant has grown a lot.  It's been quite a task to keep the spiders from taking over, though!



Or how about the cute skirt for the laundry sink I designed and my sweet Mom sewed?






Or how about tearing down our kitchen wall in July of 2010?

Oh, and my vintage oven?

That was quite a mess to clean and move in!

Then by September we were nearly finished and I painted our old buffet and turned it into a beautiful, additional counter-top area.

I planned a huge FREE Ladies' Clothing Boutique at my house in September...and I've got some ideas for this year, too!











So, hang on...there are more projects and organizing events coming, once this fun summer is over!! I will never run out of projects - and I never tire of organizing!

How YOU organize the garage

My friend, Jaclyn, told me that she organized her garage recently and I asked her to share her story and pictures!  So, here goes:

"One afternoon, I told my husband "I have an idea for tomorrow...wanna hear it?" His response..."does it involve sleeping in and being lazy all day?" HaHa! Thankfully he's a good sport and went along with my idea.

My "idea" - tackle the garage. When we remodeled the house starting last June and finishing around Christmastime, throughout the remodel, the garage became the place that things "went". We had packed up our entire house and put it in storage, minus the few things we took with us to live at my parents' house, which was supposed to be for 6-8 weeks and turned in to 5 months. So as appliances arrived, they went in the garage, as building supplies arrived, to the garage; when the old O'Keefe and Merrit stove needed to be removed from the house, yup out to the garage; and finally, when they tore apart the old kitchen, I asked the contractors so kindly to save the old kitchen cabinets to be re-purposed into our garage when the remodel was "done"...so yep, those went in the garage as well.

Upon moving back home in November, many many boxes went into the garage, which were eventually all emptied into their respective places in our "new" house; then remained the disaster of a garage with things that didn't have a home and of course those cabinets filling the center of the garage awaiting that time in which they would actually get "re-purposed".

We started by just taking everything out of the garage and making purposeful piles in the driveway. All tools in one place, things to give away in another, kids toys, yet another spot. The kids were helping with everything they could lift, right up until I removed the bounce house from the garage.

 
Once everything was out in the driveway, we swept and shop-vac'd all around then set to moving things into their new spots.

We removed the old make-shift shelves Matt's grandpa had installed many many years ago to allow for the cabinets to be hung. We still did not plan on hanging cabinets today, just making the space for them and setting them close so that could be done another day when we'd have additional help, so we moved in the pantry, set it in place, but when we put it on the floor next to the pantry we loved how it fit just perfectly down low and since it hung above our old counter-tops the "bottom" edge was finished nicely, so the now "top" could serve as a little shelf. 

So that's exactly what we did. And since it was just on the floor against the wall, that was simple enough for Matt and I to secure in place ourselves. We had several pieces of 1/2" thick boards so we slid them under the bottoms of the cabinets to get them off the floor a tiny bit in case of minor flooding or the like...basically giving the cabinets feet, then we used some 3" screws and connected the cabinets to the walls and to eachother, a simple job actually and a nice look; and you can't even tell they are "upsidedown".

Given our success with getting the cabinets on the side actually installed, I asked Matt if he might call his dad and see if maybe he was available to help us hang the one back cabinet so we could just be DONE with the project instead of waiting for another time. In a matter of about 10 minutes, the last cabinet was hung and all we had to do was return the items in the driveway to their new homes.

There is still the matter of that O'Keefe and Merritt Range hogging the middle of my garage and keeping me from getting the bowflex back to a place where it can be used again, but I did re-list it on Craigslist so hopefully that will be out of our garage and my exercise routine can include more weight work again soon!"

Jaclyn and her hubby did a SUPER job! They didn't let having little kids keep them from the task at hand, either! Isn't this great?  How motivated am I?  Wow...our garage is mostly organized and then a project or some large object comes along and changes all that!

Look at it! Have you tackled your garage yet?  I have to say, we keep "tackling" ours over and over and it's still one of those areas that has too many people using it that it doesn't stay nearly as clean as I'd like!

 

Do you have a space that you organized and would love to show OMF readers?  Please email me and send me your pictures or your blog URL and I'd love to feature YOU!

Parties:

Organize and Decorate Everything
Delightful Order