This was our first weekend home in I don't know how long and we spend a good chunk of it cleaning out the garage. Got lots of junk organized and tons thrown away! Love getting organized so you can actually see what you have!


This is a little storage room that is built off the side of the garage. When we moved into this house in Sept of last year this room became a dumping ground for everything that was in MO's old garage. I got MO's hunting, fishing, golf, tools, etc. into organized areas. We also installed a closet rod and lofted it so all of his hunting clothes are in one place, but out of the way since they are only used a few weeks a year. Super happy with how this turned out!













This winter we would like to work on the peg board that is already up in there to hang MO's tools for easier access and he would also like a tool bench for Christmas, so we will see about that as well. I love the high ceilings in here, lots of room to add shelves when we get to it!

All of this junk is out of the garage! Plus a load of 6 old TVs, AC Unit, and washer to the dump!

I finally got the courage to tackle the closets. I started with MO's since he has less clothes. I went through all of his drawers and closet and took every single item out and sorted them into piles (socks, t-shirts, jeans, etc.). Then I went through each pile with MO and got rid of damaged items, things that don't fit him and clothes he just doesn't wear.

Here is how we did:

Toss
Old Jerseys - 5
Sneakers - 1
Socks - 26
Shirts - 5
Shorts - 3
Pants - 1
Sweatband - 1

Donate
Shirts - 3

Sell
Jeans - 3
Hoody - 1
Shirts - 8
Shorts - 3

We also returned a pair of shoes that he had borrowed for bball. All in all down 56 items! Wow that is a lot of stuff taking up room that we didn't need!

We have already made $26 selling items he no longer wanted!

I just barely started on my closet, hoping to be able to finish it in the next few weeks.

The team that BF coaches made it to regionals, so have been very busy traveling around the state to watch their games. Exhausting, but so fun! Tonight is the Regional Championship game, hopefully they win and get to go to State!

Since we have that going on, I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked to on getting things organized for moving...but a little here and there.

I found some more items of XH's cleverly hidden in an old coffee table that we probably never touched in the almost 8 years I have been in the house. I boxed them up and he should be picking it up this weekend.

I listed the coffee table, an old TV stand (like for a box shaped TV), and a lamp on FB to get rid of them as they are in the basement where my renter would be living. The TV stand was picked up right away (I posted for give away), the coffee table is supposed to be picked up Saturday (originally posted for $10, but changed to free as I need it out and it is quite old and a little scratched), and the lamp I sold for $5, it is supposed to be picked up tomorrow. Feels good to get this old junk out!

The bedroom where my roommate will be living is empty except for some rummage sale items in one of the closets. I started posting some of those items on FB last night, and will move everything over to the other extra bedroom this weekend so nothing is in there when he moves in. I had several peanut butter boxes of books from when I was younger, Jr High/HS age books and after a ton of rummage sales they are very picked over and don't move many of them any more, so I am trying to sell them by the box rather then individually. I posted about 5-6 boxes of books on FB last night, so hopefully someone is interested, otherwise will just put them in the closet till the next rummage sale. They are moving closer to the donation pile.

I texted roommate and he isn't sure on the exact date that he will be moving in, as he is busy with work. He offered to pay all of March rent even though he can't move in completely for a few weeks. I told him that is not neccessary, we can just prorate for whenever he moves in.

So goals for this weekend:
*Buy door knobs with key locks for my bedroom and study at my house, as well as my office up at BF's house (work requires we are able to lock the room when we WAH due to HIPAA).

*Make keys for roommate, house key and mail key. Also make extra keys for my car as I don't have a spare currently.

*Finish moving anything remaining in basement out of way for roommate (it is all cleaned, just a few items need to be moved).

*Clean up garage so roommate has room to park.

*Start packing what I can that can be moved now....first goal is stockpile of toiletries as I shouldn't need those.

BF and my Mother helped me IMMENSELY this weekend and the 3 of us worked together to completely clean out and scrub down my basement on Saturday. I also found another large duffel bag worth of XH's stuff, so that should be everything now since every room has now been gone through.

Everything is lovely and clean and organized. My garbage and recycling bins are overflowing with stuff I got rid of! The only things I have down there is storage things (a few bookshelves, boxes for presents, luggage, stockpile items and rummage sale items) so if/when I find a roomate there is just a small amount of items to move upstairs, but for now I will leave them down there as no reason to make upstairs squishy right now.

So now it is all set for a renter! BF's Aunt has a possible roomate for me (which I am very interested in because she is age 30+ and a lot of the potentials are in the 20ish range which I am not super excited about). If she doesn't pan out in the next week or so then I plan on posting pics on my FB to see if any friends/family are interested. I am really not interested in having a total stranger live with me, so I am going to start with this route and see how it goes.

Continuing on with cleaning out the garage, after taking the cans to recycling, I cleaned out the chest freezer. It was a mess because it has TONS of bags of ice in it in the bottom (save ice during the year to use for snow cones at the rummage sale). I put all of the bags of ice in neat stacks now under the tray section since I won't need it at all unless it's rummage sale time. I have an ice maker in the freezer in the house, so that is what I use for daily ice use.
Before


And After

Now I can actually see what food is in there! All the bags of candy are for Halloween (NOT for me! LOL!). Got a super deal on them last year, only $1 a bag at CVS! So I stocked up since we get 300+ trick-or-treaters.
I found 3 more bags of fish from Mexico (my Mom goes there every year and brings back fish she catches) that I will cook soon. Also some deer sausage, chicken, and frozen pizzas. Now that I actually know what is in there again I can start planning some meals accordingly. Will also need to go through the pantry cupboards soon too....but I think my list is big enough for now!

Tried to stay as busy as possible this weekend...still had a lot of hard moments, today was really bad and broke down several times. Just hits me out of nowhere even when I am busy doing something.

Well anyways...I went out Fri, Sat and Sun night with a guy friend. He knows I am separated and I appreciate very much that he is trying to keep my occupied. I would be worried spending so much time with someone that they may get the wrong impression about what I am looking for, but since I am 14 inches shorter then him (!!) I think I am safely in the friend zone...lol. I had fun and have also met a new girl friend through him too, she doesn't know anything about my personal situation, but has been actively texting me and inviting me to things and invited me to go kayaking today. So that is good!

Been super active all weekend on getting things done. Got the hot tub cleaned out and refilled, lawn mowed, 3 loads of laundry, cleaned out the fridge (took out all the shelving and wiped everything down), cleaned the freezer, cleaned the microwave, washed the dishes, took out the recycling, watched 3 Netflix movies, painted my toe nails, ran 10 miles total, did 45 mins of ab workouts today, washed out some new storage bins I got and moved around some of the CVS stuff to use them most efficiently.

I think cleaning out the fridge is my favorite household chore. Something very therapeutic about it to me. Only had to throw 3 things, 2 containers of half used sour cream and 1 banana Chobani yogurt (GROSS!). Nothing to toss in the freezer, found some halibut I forgot was in there so hoping to make that soon!

I personally love seeing pics of peoples stockpiles..so here are some for you to see! This is all items for the rummage sale, however they could function as my personal stockpile should I need them. I recently got some new bins (from an online garage sale forum) so re-organized everything.

I keep everything in one closet in an extra bedroom so it isn't taking up too much room. The crates on the left have shampoo, conditioner, and bodywash. The boxes on the right are Menards items (I really need to get back into getting those too!). And then all the bins are nice and organized and labeled. Everything is marked for the sale before I put it into the bins, so when it is time for the same all I have to do is move it out to the tables. We have an entire "Health and Beauty" area at our sales!



The Razors Bin.


The Medicine Bin.


The Toothpaste Bin.


The Feminine Products Bin. (Trust me...I know it's weird to sell some of this stuff at a rummage sale...but if I can make money on it, and it isn't illegal, I will! And I have yet to find something I couldn't sell. We have previously sold a toilet seat...and a condom machine...seriously never know what people will buy! LOL)


The Oral Care Bin.


The Nailpolish Basket.


The Make-up Bin.


The Make-up Rack (I love this! Great for people to browse!)


The Nail Care and Gel Polish Bin.


The Hair Dye and Perfume Bin.


The Bar Soap and Lotion Bin.


Here are some pics from my personal stockpile (not for sale). Most of my stockpile items are kept where they are needed (toothpaste, lotion, tampons etc in the bathroom. Shampoo, Conditioner, Bodywash, Razors, in the linen closet, food in the pantry) but what doesn't fit there goes in this shelving unit (which I got for free off the curb!!)

Moving on to the kitchen with my cleaning/purging/organizing quest. Probably won't get too into it till mid September when we are done with the rummage sales for the year.

Started with an easy cupboard, the tupperware cupboard. We are BIG on leftovers and use them almost everyday. Didn't have anything to get rid of in here, but got it all tidied up.

Before


After

Before

After




My Smell Goods


I cleaned out the kitchen closet, which I hate doing since this is where we keep our garbage can and our recycling bin. I recently bought Febreze Stick and Refresh and put it in there and they work really well, so at least it smells good in there, but inevitably something misses the garbage and gets on the wall/floor, so it is always a joy to clean.....

Anyways, found 4 items to put in the rummage sale, a pack of plastic snowcone cups, a bottle of tiki torch fluid, a pack of Valentines Day cookie cutters, and some furniture floor sliders. Also threw away a few random odds and ends as well.

Now all that is left upstairs in my cleaning/purging/organizing quest is the kitchen! YEAH!

Oh you may be wondering why I have so many sunscreens and bug sprays, that is because DH is a camp director in the summer and kids always end up leaving their sunscreens and bug sprays at the end of the summer and they are never labeled so no way to return them....we also end up with about 5 mismatched socks and 2 pairs of goggles every year...lol.

I made good use of the extra day off this Memorial Day Weekend, and DH was a huge help to me as well.

I used our furniture wash and leather conditioner on our leather furniture, vacuumed in the couch, vacuumed the floor and scheduled the carpet cleaning for this week. So the living room is all done with the purging/cleaning /organizing!

DH cleaned the kitchen counters, did the dishes, and cleaned the microwave for me! YEAH! He also filled the hot tub, did countless loads of laundry and helped me crush the pop cans for recycling. Such a good one I have.

Then I cleaned the small entryway landing, got all the extra shoes that collect down there put away in my nice clean shoe closet. Got some junk put/thrown away and swept and mopped the floor. Then vacuumed the stairs so they are ready for the carpet cleaners.

All in all a very productive weekend. Very busy this week and going out of town this coming weekend, so won't be working on the purging/cleaning/organizing this week, but plan to start on the kitchen closet the week after and then move on to the kitchen. Once the kitchen is done I will have completed that whole floor of my house!

Our living room is pretty simple and not a lot of clutter in it, no wall shelving or anything to get packed with unneeded items. I do have 2 movie shelves, and a small entertainment center with our TV, some board games and gaming systems in the cabinets of it.

So not too much to do in this room. I started today with the movie shelves. I just went through all of the movies a few weeks ago and got rid of 18 of them. So I didn't need to go through them again, they just needed to be dusted and have the shelves dusted. I took care of that and also found 2 more movies to get rid of.

Hoping to find time this week to dust and clean out the entertainment system. I will also be getting out the furniture cleaner for our leather chairs and couch, and hiring a carpet cleaning company to clean the carpets. They have not been professionally cleaned since we moved in 5 1/2 years ago.

Alright, so alllll done with the hall closet! YIPEE!
In total I got rid of 32 items in there!

Here are the before, during and after pics...

Before - Whole Closet:


After - Whole Closet:


Before - Shoes


During - Shoes



After - Shoes! Can fit a lot in that shoe holder!!

Last two sections of the hall closet

Coats (also DH keeps his hoodies and vests in there)
DH Keep - 17 Tossed - 1
Me Keep - 13 Sell - 5

Shoes....ooooohhh shoes. I love my shoes. I know I have way way too many. But I did my best. I haven't actually bought any shoes other then running shoes to replace worn out ones in at least 3 years. But I hace accumulated a lot over the years. I know I have at least a few prs from jr high and high school still. But when you find ones you like you gotta keep em!

Here is pics of them all out of the closet, before I picked out the ones to get rid of:




Please don't bother telling me that is a ridiculous amount of shoes...I know...LOL.
I had 57 to start with and got rid of 16! DH had 12 and got rid of 1. I put them all in a box for now to go through and clean them up, decide if they are worth selling, I know there were at least a few that were going to garbage. I will prob do that tonight or tomorrow and get them all cleaned up and boxed for the rummage sale.

Cleaned out the purse bin and baseball cap bin. DH has lots more baseball caps downstairs, but I will get to those when I get done with the whole upstairs. I found a few items to get rid of (see lists below) but still have a lot. I haven't bought a new purse in over 3 years. I just like to keep my things nice and have them for a long time rather then get rid of them and then buy new ones. I was happy I found a few I could part with.

Purse bin - all done

10 Purses
4 Wallets
4 Slingbags (love these for trips, especially Vegas)
5 Coin Purses

Put in rummage sale - 4 Purses and 1 Slingbag


Baseball cap bin - all done

10 Hats
2 Visors

Put in rummage sale - 1 Hat, 1 Visor

The Coats


And Shoes


I started cleaning out the hall closet today. This is where we keep all of our coats, shoes, purses, hats and winter gloves, scarves etc.
I have waaaay to many of everything...hoping to get rid of at least a few items.
Today I went through the winter bin. Here is the inventory:
1 ear band
4 scarves
6 winter hats
10 pairs gloves/mittens

I found a few things to get rid of:
1 winter hat
1 golf glove (?)
1 pr gardening gloves - not selling these, just moving them to the correct closet

So I marked those items up and put them in the rummage sale box. Will try to do the purses and hats bin this week and then the coats and shoes next weekend.

Winter bin all done

I am so happy I finally finished Extra Room #1! That was by far the worst/craziest room in the house, so I am so excited! Got rid of countless items, some to garbage, some to rummage sale, including a vacuum, 3 printers (Yes, 3?!), tons of old papers, books, binders, notebooks, college textbooks, and numerous trinkets, random junk and bobbles. It is amazing how big that room feels now! Check out my before and after photos!

Whole Room Before


Whole Room After



Bookshelf Before


Bookshelf After


Desk Before


Desk After


Storage Shelf Before


Storage Shelf After


Printer Area

I have been really bad at avoiding the extra room the last 2 months or so....finally got in there and got some work done. I got my bookshelf cleaned off and dusted. Got rid of 13 books for the rummage sale. Also got all my CDs together so I can get them put on my MP3 player. I boxed up a bunch of my college books that I still want to keep and will be putting those in the attic for now.
Now the desk, closet, bookshelf and stockpile shelf are all organized and everything is gone through. All that is left is the junk on the floor. Progress!!

Wow ten days without a post...that may be a record for me! Well today I went through our movies (I'm still working in that dumb extra room, but it is slow...and not steady). I took out 15 VHS (yes we still have some of those) and 3 DVDs for the rummage sale. We have been trying to transition our VHS to DVDs so we check out the $5 bin at Walmart and get them from there when we see them. Today we found 2, Indepence Day and The Sandlot. Still probably have close to 45 movies to move over. Saves a ton of room on the movie shelf.

Getting back to normal after the holidays. All the Christmas stuff is down and packed away. I went through it while I was packing it up and got rid of a few things, pulled out 3 to sell.

Finally got back in to the extra room to work on it some more. I am making it a New Years goal to work in that room for 15 min a day. I got the stockpile shelf all organized.


Here is the inventory:
96 double rolls of tp
10 Deoderant - DH
7 Deoderant - Me
17 Bottles Dishsoap
9 Shave Foams
1 Cream Shave
4 Shampoo (Most of these are in the toiletry closet)
4 Conditione(Most of there are in the toiletry closet)
2 Boxes Pur Absorb
18 Bottles 24oz Mountain Dew
2 (2) Liter Bottles of Pop
40 Gatorades/Powerades
5 Bottles Juice
10 Boxes Hamburger Helper
5 Jars Spaghetti Sauce
6 Cans Mandarin Oranges
3 Souper Meals
6 Ramen Noodles
6 Boxes Cereal
5 Jars Planters Peanut Butter
7 Chow Mein Meals

Items for rummage sale
6 Bottles Water (5 more cases in the basement)
9 Cases Pop
2 Boxes Capri Sun
4 Koolaid Juices

I cleaned out the closet in the extra room today. There wasn't much to do in there as I keep it organized with the rummage sale stuff in there. But there were several old binders that I went through, took out the dividers, wiped down and marked for the rummage sale. DH and I seem to have accumulated a lot of binders when we were in college....I kept a few, and marked 11 for the rummage sale....jeez that's a lot! I will organize all the dividers and decide if I want to keep or sell those. Also found a box with 4 energy efficient light bulbs, 1 bathroom vanity lightbulb and 2 car headlight lightbulbs. Apparently at some point in time I was collecting all the lightbulbs in one spot. I will decide if I want to continue to keep those in that closet or move them, for now that may be the best spot.

Thanks to a LOT of help from the hubby, got all the Christmas stuff up including the tree! All that is left is the outside (have a few little lighted trees and a penguin guy to stick in the front yard). Plus got the 2 presents that I have on hand wrapped and under the tree, and organized all of the Christmas wrap scraps and bags again. While I was going through the Christmas wrap I found a pile of BD, wedding and baby cards in one of the Christmas bags, so moved those to the rest of the card pile.

I have been working slowly on the "study". Can't see a ton of progress yet, but I have cleaned out several binders of old checking statements, got those all shredded and disposed of. Also filled a whole garbage bag already with misc junk and papers. Hope to see some "real" progress soon! Now that all the Christmas is up and good to go, I can redirect my focus to that organization.

Going to eat for by bro's BD dinner tonight so that will be nice.

Well the Cleaning/Purging/Organizing has been going very well. I have gone through my entire bedroom, bathroom, and my toiletry closet. I have gotten rid of over 170 items already (151 to rummage sale, 16 thrown, 4 give away) and going full steam ahead!
But now I am starting on the disaster area (ok one of the disaster areas) in my home. The "Extra room"!! SCARY! I am honestly embarrassed to post this pic, but it's the truth so I am going to face it head on!
Since it is such a mess, I am going to try to do it in pieces (closet, desk, bookshelf, floor etc) to keep me motivated.
Can't wait to post the after pics!

Normally I keep this closet very neat, but it was too full and starting to get messy. Plus it was next on my list of cleaning/purging/organizing! So I used my snowday wisely and attacked it!

Before Full Closet:

After Full Closet:


Before Top Shelves:

After Top Shelves:


Here is the inventory:
Keep:
5 Boxes Kleenex
30 Bar Soaps
3 Bottles Contact Solution
16 Womens Replacement Razor Heads (4 more in bathroom)
1 Venus Embrace Razor with 2 spare heads
3 Bottles Hair Gel (2 more in bathroom)
1 Hairspray
7 Bodywashes
8 Lotions (Many more in bathroom)
4 Mens Shaving Foams (My 8 are on the storage shelf)
2 Bottles of Handsoap
2 Bodysprays (8 more in bathroom)
1 Foot Spa Kit
3 Nail Polish Sets (these are for gifts)
12 Nail Polish (38 more in bathroom)
2 Bottles Febreze
8 Jar Candles
7 Bottles Shampoo (4 more on storage shelf)
16 Bottles Conditioner (4 more on storage shelf)
Waxing Pot and Supplies

Travel Size Bottles:
70 Shampoo/Conditioner
27 Bar Soap
34 Lotion
5 BathGel
*I organized these in their ziploc bags, tossed the ones that were leaking, and sent a few of the lotions to work with DH.

Toss:
4 Travel Size Bottles that were leaking

Sell:
Pirates of the Carribean Bath Fizzies
3 Suave Conditioners (I don't use this kind)

Give:
Halle Berry Perfume Set - to SIL for her BD

Thanks to "Money Maker" for irritating me enough to get me to clean the toilet! Much appreciated! I finished cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the shower, floor, mirror and toilet. All the drawers and cabinets were already finished. So now I am done with the bedroom and the bathroom in my Cleaning/Purging/Organizing Quest! I am also happy to report I have been staying on top of the bedroom, cleaning it each weekend so I don't have to start this all over as soon as I'm done...lol. Next up is the hall closet, which is where we store our extra toiletries, towels and linens.

Here is my cupboard....sooo much stuff! Awwww! And I swear I don't even buy any of this kind of stuff. I get a lot from free samples and also my Aunt is a beautician and gets a lot of free samples that she gives to me.

Before:


After:


Toss
-One Minute Manicure (Old and not good anymore)

Donate
-Pair of glasses (Have 2, so don't need these)

Sell
-Peppermint Bath Foamy

Keep
-8 Sprays
-2 Pairs of Glasses
-21 Lotions (mostly mini lotions)
-38 Nail Polishes
-4 Razor Heads
-7 Headbands
-4 Travel/Cosmetic Bags
-Numerous Shampoo/Hair Product Samples
-Hair gel, Mousse, Leave in Conditioner, Bathbeads, Biore Cleansing Strips, etc.

Cleaned out the 2 cupboards in the bathroom.
First cupboard is medicine cabinet and DH's stuff.
Before:

After:


Toss
-Vitamins (expired)
-Medications (expired)
-Condensed several like items (bandaids, cough drops etc) so was able to throw away several boxes/bags.

Donate
-Prilosec to a coworker (we don't use this)
-Pepto to a coworker (we don't use this)

Sell
-(2) Theraflu packs, marked for $1.00 each

Keep
-12 Tubes Toothpaste
-9 Toothbrushes
-2 Lint Rollers
-Numerous medications, bandaids, cold/flu relief products and sports injury products
-3 Shave Foam
-2 Razors
-10 Razor Refills
-2 Hair Products
-3 After Shave
-Numerous colognes

I refilled my work medications from the bottles in the cupboard. I also found 3 hand sanitizers which I took to work to use at my desk.

There is a good chance that I have not cleaned out underneath the bathroom sink since we moved in. It is not a very messy area, but needed a little sprucing up.

Toss
-Cleaning Toothbrush (already have 3)
-Brawn Cleaning Wipes (dried up)

Sell
-Charmin TP holder
-Misc feminine hygeine free samples that I won't use (put 10 in a bag and marked for .50)

Keep
-2 bottles glass cleaner
-3 bottles bathroom cleaner
-1 bottle CLR
-1 can Scrubbing Bubbles
-12 Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Cleaning Brushes
-11 Magic Eraser Extra Power
-264 Tampons
-31 Rolls TP
-1 Scope Mouthwash
-1 Bubble Bath
-1 Softsoap Handsoap (moved this to kitchen sink)

Before:

After:

Trying to keep the cleaning/purging going so started on the bathroom right away today. I cleaned out my "everyday" drawer. Tossed a few things, but mostly just organized. I also made up two baggies to sell, makeup removers for .50 and shoe cleaning wipes for .25.

Before:


After:

I finished going though my bedroom! I went through my entire closet, every dresser and every drawer. I am soooo happy to be done!

I went through 853 items of clothing and got rid of 134!! Most went into the rummage sale, but a few I tossed. I also got rid of a few books and misc items from my bedroom. Feels great to be almost 140 items lighter!

Here is a pic of my room now!

Yeah finished my last dresser! Went through each drawer and got rid of a few more things.

-----------------Keep-----------Sell-----------------
Pajamas-----------10-------------1-------------------
Tshirts-----------5--------------2-------------------
Sports Bras-------9--------------0-------------------
Running Tops------10-------------1-------------------
Running Shorts----2--------------0-------------------
Totals------------36-------------4-------------------

Got rid of 4 more items.

Here is the before:


And After: