Tackle It Tuesday: Clean Home Challenge: Week 1: Top of the Dresser

I am super excited to start doing these challenges again. My plan is to post the challenge as given by Katie each week in the morning with my before picture(s) and update it in the evening with the after picture(s).

For this week, I am doing the tops of both of my dressers. In my bedroom, my husband and I have two dressers. We have our regular dresser (which we refer to as our long dresser) and our chest of drawers. We both have clothes stored in both dressers.

If I have time, I will also try to do all three of the dressers that my four kids have. Cephas and Koren share a dresser in their room and then in Oralee and Jeriah's room, they each have their own dressers. I'm not sure that I will have time to get to all of them, but if I do, I will share those photos as well.

Tackle It Tuesday - Catch Up Edition

So today, I have a long list of things to get done, so that's how it's going to happen today. You get my list. I get to check it off.

• Dishes. (Two dishwasher loads done.)
• Clear off the kitchen counters. (Done.)
• Clear off the stove top. (Done.)
• Clean the kitchen sink. (Done.)
• Take trash out.
• Take recycling out.
• Sweep and mop the kitchen floor.

• Move the bunkboard out to the shed.
• Clear off the dining room table. (Done.)
• Clear off the dining room chairs. (Done.)
• Sweep and mop the dining room floor.
• Take trash out.
• Feed and water the dogs. (Done.)

• Clear off the sectional. (Done.)
• Tidy up the TV stand. (Done.)
• Tidy the toy shelf. (Done.)
• Tidy the entry. (Done.)
• Tidy my table. (Done.)
• Pick up the living room floor. (Done.)
• Take trash out.
• Vacuum the living room floor.

• Clear off the armoire. (Done.)
• Clear off Hubby's desk. (Done.)
• Pick up corner near Hubby's desk. (It's a catch-all area.) (Done.)
• Clear off cedar chest. (Done.)
• Straighten chair area in den. (Done.)
• Pick up floor in den. (Done.)
• Take trash out.
• Vacuum the den floor.

• Pick up the floor in the hallway. (Done.)
• Vacuum the hallway floor.

• Pick up the little kids' bedroom floor.
• Put away the little kids' clothes.
• Put away the little kids' toys.
• Put away the little kids' books.
• Take trash out.
• Vacuum the little kids' bedroom floor.

• Pick up the older boys' bedroom floor.
• Put away the older boys' clothes.
• Put away the older boys' toys.
• Put away the older boys' books.
• Take trash out.
• Vacuum the older boys' bedroom floor.

• Fold laundry and put away. (Running tally of loads for the day: 0)
• Wash and dry laundry. (Running tally of loads for the day: 0)
• Clean out the bathtub.
• Clean the bathtub.
• Clear off the vanity.
• Clean the vanity.
• Clean the mirrors.
• Clean the toilet.
• Sweep and mop floor.
• Take trash out.

That is the total lump sum of everything that I'd like to get done today. It won't all get done. But I like having a list to work off of. And there are many more tasks that I could include on there. But I'm not going to. This is just an idea of what I would like to get done today. No time like the present to get started! You can click on the banner image at the top of this post to head on over to 5 minutes for mom to see what other bloggers are tackling today as well.

Clean House Challenge - Week 17

Admittedly, it has been a fair amount of time since I have done a Clean Home Challenge week, but there is no time like the present to get it started. This week's challenge is to sort through and purge bed linens. However, I don't feel that we need to do that. So instead of purging bed linens, it is my goal this week to wash them, dry them and get them folded nice and neat so that they can be put away.

If I find, while doing this, that we have more than what we need or that there are some that are just worn or whatever and should be purged, then I will absolutely do so! No before pic because I lost my camera and right now, all of our sheets are folded and put away in the cedar chest (we have a practical storage issue in our home - no linen closet - so we use the storage we have, in our case, a cedar chest)

I will let you know next week what I have gotten rid of in the bed linens department if purging does happen.

In the meantime, head on over to Katie's blog to see the rest of the challenges. You can also click here to see the challenges I have participated in. Wow. I thought that I had done more than that, but I guess not. Oh well, there will be more. Lots more!

Clean Home Challenge, Week 2

If you remember from my post this past week, I took a picture of the top of my dresser. It was quite cluttered up with various things:

A basket of Christmas ornaments, a box of extra school supplies, clothes, hangers, a couple of single boots, a tote with some clothes in it, a container with some change in it...just very miscellaneous schtuffs. (That's the technical term for it, by the way!)

Well, I cleared it all off, dusted off the decorative scrollwork that is at the top of my mirror (not shown in the picture) and then removed all the cluttery items from my dresser and put it all away. Clothes went to the appropriate places - laundry room or the person's bedroom, the hangers to the closet, the box of school supplies to the closet where they are supposed to be stored, the boots to the shelf next to the front door where we keep them, the container of change got emptied into Hubby's change tray and then I was ready to clean off the top of the dresser itself.

I got it all cleaned off and dusted, then I put a picture frame with a family picture in it on the dresser along with three jars that I got from the Dollar Store. I had planned to use those jars to make homemade sugar scrub for Christmas presents but I never got around to it so I still had them. I just added water to them and put in some floating candles that I've had laying around here for the last two years. I also had three pillar holders (for candles) that were still new in box and I decided to pull them out and put them in there too. I think it adds a nice little touch to the dresser's look and I feel like I finally have a use for them. Then I added a small tray that I absolutely love. I actually have a set of three of these trays. The one on my dresser is the smallest of the bunch. The next size up (which is the same length but in a square) I have on top of my microwave to corral miscellaneous items that need to be taken out of the kitchen. I also have a large one that is rectangular that I use for a drink tray - well, to store drink mixes and such, not to serve drinks on.

And overall, I am quite pleased with the way it turned out! It only took about 15-20 minutes to clear off and straighten it up and decorate it. Oh - and don't mind the mirror. I had some clean laundry on the bed that needed to be folded and didn't want that to take away from the nice look of the dresser. Oh - and in case you hadn't guessed, I did find my camera. It wasn't on my dresser but just under the front edge of the dresser. How it got there, I don't have the slightest clue, but regardless, I found it!

Okay, now a quick side-by-side comparison so that you don't have to scroll up and down to compare the two:

And now moving on to Week 2:

This week we are supposed to head on out to our living rooms and clear off just one end table. This actually works out pretty well for me because I only have one. I did have three but I just recently got rid of two of them.

I have to confess, the picture of my end table is actually taken partially done. I was cleaning up the living room this morning and decided to clean up the area near my favorite relaxing / study spot in the living room. So, what you will see here is after I picked up two of those bottles of soda (Diet Dr Pepper - belonged to me, two yogurt cups with spoons - belonged to Jeriah and Hubby, a bowl and a spoon - belonged to Oralee, as well as various random bits and pieces. I had also decided to put the basket that was on my dresser in my before pic down here to store all of our various charging cords (my laptop, our cell phones, the boys' dsi chargers, the little kids' Leapster charger, etc. etc. etc.) which I think looks better than a jumble of those cords just laying down here. I may revamp that plan later on, but for now, I like it.

And here is the picture:

Clean Home Challenge, Week 1

Well, I think the sticky note pretty much says it all doesn't it? And honestly, my dresser could use a major overhaul. For some reason, things have been stacked up there and piled high. I have a mirror on the back of my dresser and I'm not even sure if I could see myself in it. I have a vision of what this space should look like and today is the day to make that happen! So here goes...

This is my dresser before doing anything to it. Please don't mind the crappy cell phone pic. If I knew where my camera was at the moment, I'd have used that instead. Maybe while working on my projects today, I will find it and be able to take my after pic with that instead.

I can't wait to get this done and to show you the after pic. I have plans to get a jewelry box in the future because I think it would look so nice sitting there on my dresser and it would also be nice to have a place to put my few pieces of jewelry. But for now, I would be happy to just have a cleared off dresser and maybe to even add a few decorative touches to it.

Complete Living Area Makeover

There are some HUGE changes in store for my house this month. Hubby and I were talking tonight about some options for the furniture arrangement that we have and what we would like it to look like and how we want it all to be laid out. You see, we have some very odd spaces in our home that don't seem so odd until you want to place furniture. Then it becomes a big issue. We have a number of not-functioning-as-well-as-it-could issues here at our place and we are working on fixing it.

This is the current layout of the front room and living room.


As you can see, when you first walk into our house, you are immediately bottle-necked or outright blocked from getting into the house because of Hubby's desk/chair and the cedar chest. Not to mention that when Hubby is sitting in his chair (and therefore has it out further than currently shown) there isn't much of a walkway between his chair and the train table.

What we talked about doing was getting rid of the big couch in the living room (it really is a must-do item) and then moving the loveseat to the living room to take the place of the couch. It only has two seats but we don't really watch TV all that much. The TV is generally used for Wii, which the kids stand to play and then sometimes for Hubby and I to watch TV together (and we don't mind sharing the loveseat!) or for our Saturday Night Movie Night. But even then, when there are five of us watching TV, at least three are usually on the floor with pillows and blankets anyhow. So I really don't see it as an issue of losing seating in that area.

Once the loveseat is moved, then Hubby's desk will go to where the loveseat was. Then the bookshelf that was in the living room will go to where the desk was. Then the cedar chest will be moved to where the bookshelf was. And then the little side table next to the entertainment center right now will go between the loveseat and the wall. Then to end it all, the train table will go out to the shed until later this year when the kids have bunk beds and have room in their bedroom for it.

Having a hard time picturing it? Good thing for you that I rather like Microsoft Paint. So here it is:

So, what do you think? Does that look okay? I know that the front room looks really sparse and as much as I tried to get it fairly accurate on scale, I have to admit that it isn't 100% on scale. There is quite a bit more empty space in the room, but I rather think that I like that. And if it turns out that we want to bring pieces back in or whatever, that is always an option. But I doubt that we will want to.

Plus, the last time we had the floor area of the front room all open the way it is in the second picture, the kids LOVED it. I can't remember why we changed it up and decided to put the train table there, but I think going back to the openness will be better for everyone!

So that is our project for today. Whew! What a job! But it will be so worth it when it is all done! I cannot wait!!!

I am linking this up to 5 minutes for mom. You should go check them out and see the tackles that other people are doing too!