Most of you know that we’ve just recently put our house on the market. We had several showings the first couple of weeks, but February was slow. I’m trying not to be discouraged because I know that God has a grand plan. At the moment, I’m pretty convinced that his plan involves both selling this little cottage and buying my childhood home, but I’m trying to be open to whatever He has in store. At the moment, it would be pretty disastrous if our real estate agent called to schedule a viewing given the current state of our home…
Although we have plenty of square footage for a small house, our storage is somewhat limited. We are lucky enough to own a century-old beauty, but with that charm and character come tiny closets and interesting floor plans. The previous owners turned the fourth bedroom into a laundry room and we opted to add wardrobes and use it like a giant closet. We store most of our clothes, luggage, sports equipment, tools and other random things there. For weeks, Josh and I have been talking about doing a major cleaning spree, but the bug finally bit me a few weekends ago and I can’t seem to stop.
The first thing I tackled was our pantry. We’ve been at this “Whole365” thing for over two months, so I figured it was high time I overhauled our food. I threw away baking mixes, junk food, pasta and everything else that didn’t meet our current standards. By eliminating so many unnecessary foods, I freed up enough space to add a cute little coffee cart in the pantry and empty out two of our five cabinets, moving their contents to the pantry shelves. Josh scrubbed the walls and floors while I purged and organized and by the end of the day I had decided we might as well finish out the kitchen. I ended up packing three huge rubbermaid containers full of dishes we aren’t using, making everything so much more organized and efficient. As a bonus, the kitchen looks so much cleaner and so much bigger without all of that extra junk!
This past weekend, I moved onto the laundry room. We cleaned out our storage shed ahead of time, taking plenty of bags to donation bins and selling a few nicer things. I found plenty of empty containers to pack things in and while I organized the shed, the girls played with my vintage Barbie Dolls and Josh worked in the garden. Once I had some available space in there, I started moving anything we don’t need on a regular basis from the laundry room to the shed. We figured packing up things we would want to move anyway makes so much more sense than walking around them for the next six months! The house looks bigger and there isn’t as much for me to dust. I ended up buying an extra set of shelves and made a little extra room for shoes and jewelry next to my closet and added a little area in the laundry room to take blog and instagram photos (score!).
I don’t know about you, but it always seems to get worse before it gets better. I knew Ella and I would be leaving for Chattanooga on Friday and I really didn’t want Josh to have to deal with the mess all weekend. I worked a little bit every day (before work and after) to tackle the remaining piles of junk and I’m planning to move on to the bedrooms and bathroom next week. Before work on Tuesday, long before the kids were up for school, I made a pot of coffee and emptied the little built in cabinet next to my desk. It used to have doors on the bottom half, and more recently curtains, but I ripped them off and packed up everything inside. Instead of having my art supplies strewn all over the dining room, now most of my favorite supplies are within arms reach of my desk. Isn’t this adorable?
I moved my sewing machine off the desktop and flanked it with every art and craft book I could find around the house. I relocated washi tape and colored pencils and appropriated a color printer that had been in our laundry room for months. I hung up my pretty lady painting and got everything organized and I must say, journaling here in the mornings just got even prettier! Now if only I could figure out how to keep my little old lady from falling off the wall. Any suggestions for hanging a canvas without a frame?! At this point, I’ll try anything.
I can’t quite fit everything here, so there are still paints and more involved art supplies in the cabinet across the room. I used a few organizational pieces left over from previous offices and other projects, to corral my favorite supplies and lots of pretty inspiration.
The kids coloring books are in a bin on the bottom shelf and I relocated all of the colored pencils and crayons since they looked so pretty in jars and buckets.
I still have LOTS to do, but I’m so happy with my progress. Sophie wants to have her birthday party at home this year (she hasn’t celebrated here since her first birthday) and I’m determined to have everything in tip top shape and beautiful by mid-April. I think with a few more weekends, I should be able to clean off bookcases and under beds and pick up a few cheerful house plants to keep us all company.
Do you overhaul your home every spring or have I completely lost my mind?!
