About twice a year (sometimes more), I decide our house is too cluttered. We have too much. We need to donate and clean and de-clutter and minimize our distractions and messes. I like clean lines, organized shelves, and everything to have a place. I assure you this is a product of being married with children. At heart I believe I’m a slob who would be living among a stacks of books, unfinished crafts, and sleeping in an pile of clean, unfolded clothes straight from the dryer.

I have a very loose policy when cleaning house: We only keep things that serve a purpose or are loved.
The policy is loose for B and the girls because they can plead their case to me before I pitch it. If it’s up to me everything goes. I’m not very sentimental about ‘things’. 

This is a difficult theory for my girls because they love everything. They love having 47 stuffed animals, and dresses, and toys, and board games, and pens, and pencils and papers, and art projects and baby dolls and on, and on, and on. Annabelle is definitely my pack rat, but she is also my organizer and cleaner and has a special place for all her special things. They also have good hearts and are willing to donate their gently used clothes, books and toys.

Here are the places in my home that constantly require cleaning, purging, organizing:

• the office; otherwise known as the catch all for all our junk, mail, crafts, homework, etc.
• the basement; where toys pile up and the door gets shut and all the mess is out of sight, out of mind
• the girls’ closets: they have too many clothes. they are always out growing something. I hate doing laundry. 

My first attempt of this fall season was our office. This is our work space. There are usually piles of papers on the desk, crafts of the table, and piles of who knows what on the floor. I filed,  I organized, I trashed. It’s still a bit cluttered for my liking, but it is functional and where we spend a lot of our time.

I added this Costco craft table for the girls. We were all four huddled around the desk and it was crowded. When they craft there is glue, sharpies, markers etc so although this table isn’t the prettiest I don’t mind letting them get messy with it.

These supply buckets make the organized, crafter in me far too happy.

I have never liked this bulletin board. B wanted it to just randomly pin up menus and coupons and art work and mail and….I don’t know. It was suppose to be just random chaos and that makes my eye tick a little and a migraine start. I need order so we’ve used it to display art work and important papers and pictures and I don’t hate it so much anymore.

I wish I had a before picture, but I never think to document our messes. I’m happy with our little space and now on to the next project.