Organizing Goals 2012 - #7 Combine Bedrooms

Each day for the next week or so, I am introducing my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. The first post in the series can be found here.

7. Combine Girls' Bedrooms: Later this year we plan to move my youngest daughter in with her sister. It will involve buying new beds and bedding. I think my two-year-old is too young for bunk beds (I can just imagine them pushing each other off the top bunk), so I've got my eye on this amazing DIY trundle bed. Side-by-side bunks are also an option. We've got an old loveseat in the room that we cuddle on to read our books at night, which will have to go (the loveseat, not the cuddling and reading) to make room for the beds. We will also need to figure out how to combine closet and dresser space. There are two large, unused closets now. I would love to add closet desks if there is room. And finally, we'll decorate! The room is already painted and has some flower and fairy decals on the walls, but that's about it. I will be on the hunt for a rug to warm things up a bit. I  have a fun dinosaur theme in mind--my daughter is obsessed.

One of Those Days

Yesterday was just one of those days.  The kind of day I wish I could wear headphones and still be an effective parent.  Seriously, I think scientists should study my daughter.  It must be medically significant to be able to talk, sing, laugh, cry, scream, grunt, giggle, groan, holler, and otherwise vocalize astonishingly loudly, nonstop for 12 hours all without the slightest strain of the vocal chords.  I blame my husband; he's the talker in the family.  When I married him I guess I didn't realize I was signing up for that same quality in a three-year-old!
It was also one of those days where after putting the girls to bed and finishing up my freelance work, I finally got a long-overdue shower.  It was lovely.  I enjoyed every minute.  Then I got out, dried myself off, towel-dried my hair, and was half dressed before I realized while one of my legs was baby smooth, the other one sported several days' growth.  Yes, I had only shaved one leg.  So I re-undressed, the towel came off my head, and I went back into the shower one more time.

Have you had one of those days?  Where you forget to shave one leg?

I also learned these fun facts yesterday. 

• Sheets are disgusting.  According to this article, "sheets can contain 0.1 gram of feces, salmonella, and E. coli after just one night's rest. That means they'd collectively contain about 10 billion microbes." And that's nothing compared to the feces party in your carpet.  Seriously.  Disgusting.
• There's a birth control shot for men.  Well, it exists, but approval is still being worked out in India, the home country of the shot's inventor, and maybe in the next year or two the FDA will start it's own research in hopes of eventual approval in the United States.  So basically by the time I'm menopausal, there will be a birth control shot for men.  Sigh.
• I had one more thing, but my browser isn't working to bring up the article.  Basically it was all about the harmful effects of the sun, including the risks of skin cancer.  And since we had a week of 90-degree temps here and I've been outside with my daughters every day in that blistering sunshine, I was suddenly alarmed at the sight of my slightly darkened (compared to the the usual pasty white) arms and ashamed at my previous pride in the first glimpses of a tan in years.  Damn you, sunshine!

Coming soon: Fighting weeds in my garden the lazy way.  And this year I don't mean hiring the neighbor girls to do the weeding.

Freshly Fallen Laundry

image source

So running and jumping in piles of dirty clothes is just as good as the leaves thing, right?  Thank goodness my daughter seems to think so.

Bathroom Drawer Revisited

In a previous post, I added a before photo of the last holdout in my bathroom purge: a bathroom drawer.

And here it is now.

I have no idea why we have such an abundance of oral hygiene products, but we do.  We also have a disturbing number of lighters (11) considering neither my husband nor I smoke.  Actually, a couple times a year he picks up the bad habit for a few weeks.  Apparently he's not good at keeping track of lighters. Anyone have any good ideas for getting rid of them?  Do I just toss most of them in the garbage?  Is that even safe?

Since the bathroom is pretty well in shape now, I'm going to be moving on to my daughter's bedroom.  The biggest obstacles there are a drawer of sentimental stuff (ALL of the cards from my first daughter's birth and a bunch of manuals for baby gear) and her closet (a catchall for all kinds of random family stuff).  Now I'm very practical when it comes to the sentimental stuff.  I have no problem throwing out those cards.  My husband, on the other hand, thinks it's imperative that we keep it all.  I know from experience (thanks, Mom!) that someday we will need to get rid of this stuff; we'll be downsizing to a smaller place or just needing to use our space more efficiently.  And we'll have to pass along this stuff to our daughters.  And then they'll have to find a place to store it.  I've got the proof, handed down by both sets of parents, in our basement storage room (the last room in the project, for good reason).

So, any suggestions on how to handle the sentimental overload and convince my husband it's a good idea to pare down?  Or will I regret it someday?

Pulling back the Covers

I've decided it's time I act like a grown-up and start making my bed every morning.  I didn't say this housekeeping challenge was rocket science, people. This is a habit many people pick up when they are just wee ones. I was not one of those kids. I've never been a morning bed maker.  My excuse used to be that I often left for the day before my husband was out of bed.  When I started working from home, I decided that the dogs would just mess it up anyway, so what's the point? (That is, indeed, my dog in the photo, demonstrating my argument rather nicely.) And now with a toddler, I could use the same excuse.  But now that the dogs aren't nearly as playful as they once were and my little girl usually just slips under the covers for a mellow game of pretend sleep, I'm running out of excuses. I honestly think it just doesn't occur to me to make the bed in the morning.  Seriously, I'm lucky just to get myself dressed for the day. 

You may have noticed I said I'm not a "morning bed maker."  What other kind of bed making is there?  I make my bed at night, right before I get under the covers.  I like it to be nice and neat and put together properly.  I guess I will just move that step up about 17 hours, and I'll be golden.  So, from this day forward, I will make a conscious effort to make my bed every morning and keep my countertops clean.

I'm Going to Read Them, Eventually

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/indi/ / CC BY 2.0

There is a towering stack of books currently sitting on our dresser.  It grows every time my mother visits or my husband steps into a bookstore.  His stack is composed mostly of big, thick, hardcover history books like The House of Morgan, The King of Vodka, and Supreme Power *yawn*. My stack is made up of literary fiction and memoirs *yes!*.  What my books lack in girth, they make up for in quantity.  I currently have 8 books in my to-read pile.  Throw in a couple Bibles and we've got ourselves some impressively tall stacks. Eight books will sound like a lot to some of you.  But I know plenty of people who could get through my pile in just a few weeks (Mom, Grandma, Traci, I'm talking to you).  That's part of my problem.  My main supplier (my mother) has a lot more reading time on her hands.  I can't keep up. (If you're curious what sort of books are in my pile, click on over to my Goodreads profile.)

So why must they sit on our dresser?  Good question.  I like my stack.  I like seeing it every day.  It give me something to look forward to, something to plan.  What am I going to read next?  I don't necessarily want these books out of easy reach.  I've decided a new nightstand will be my next purchase in the name of decluttering.

Our current "nightstand" is pathetic. It's one of those $10 three-legged plywood round tables a college kid might pick up for a dorm room.  That's our nightstand.  We don't even bother to throw a cheesy round tablecloth on it (hence the water spots).  Nope, it's just a very unstable, ugly plywood table, steady enough only to hold a lamp (don't get me started on the lamp) and our cell phones.  When our dogs are particularly playful they have a tendency to knock this table and the lamp and the phones onto the floor.  Often the legs come apart at that point.  It happens every couple of months.  Eventually I'd love to get a new bedroom set.  But our bedroom is small--large enough only for our bed, one nightstand, and a dresser.  So a new bedroom set will wait until we move, some day far in the future. Our current dresser, by the way, is from the bedroom set my parents got when they married in 1969.  It's showing it's age, but it's got modern clean lines and I like it. 

Other than our two bathrooms, our bedroom is the only room in the house that has not gone through some serious decorating since we moved in 5 1/2 years ago.  It will happen.  Maybe once the project is complete and we've been living in a clean house for a while we'll finally see the potential in this room and get the job done.  Until then, a new nightstand will have to suffice. 

PS I will be looking for a new lamp as well.  Isn't this one just lovely?

PSS If anyone knows a high school senior, I've got a fantastic dorm room table available!  And a lamp!

Airing Our Dirty Laundry

I've been searching for a hamper for our bedroom. We don't have one. We never have. We keep three laundry baskets on our bedroom floor. Occasionally clothes end up in them, but it's really just hit or miss. I realize there are some really snazzy hamper systems out there with three separate side-by-side compartments, but they aren't for us. They take up too much floor space.  We have a tiny bedroom, made even smaller by our king-size bed (necessary for the 130+lb and 50+lb dogs that sleep there). Also, I don't like the idea of having to transfer clothes from a hamper to a laundry basket when it's laundry time. It's an extra step, and who needs that? And then you still need to find a place to store the laundry baskets. You can tell I've been thinking about this way too much.

I've checked out the options at Target.  I even brought one home the other night, hoping that it was larger than it appeared on the box.  I bought a Michael Graves vertical laundry sorter.  It's now back at Target.  It was too small, poorly constructed despite the design award prominently featured on the box (it was impossible to disassemble and even broke while trying to do so), and a hassle.  The fabric baskets velcroed (sp?) into position and required two hands to attach and detach.  I think it's also a bad sign that this product does not seem to exist in the virtual world.  I've spent 5 minutes trying to find it so I could link to it, but no luck.  How is that possible?  I bought it at Target!  It has won some stupid award!  Oh well, take my word for it and don't buy it.

I have since found a near-perfect solution to our hamper problem. It's the Rubbermaid Stack'n Sort laundry basket. I sent my husband to The Container Store to pick up three, and they are now stacked vertically taking up very little room on our bedroom floor. It's not a pretty solution, but notice there is no transferring of clothes at laundry time, and it takes up the same amount of floor space as a single laundry basket.  It was hubby's first experience at The Container Store, and he has since said something to the effect of "when we need more storage stuff, we should go back there." Another success!  The only complaint I have is that it takes a little maneuvering to get them into place, and of course you have to disassemble your stack to get to the bottom baskets. That said, this is the best solution I've found.  If I were designing my own vertical laundry basket hamper system (why not?), I'd have a frame with the baskets hanging in place and the ability to slide them in and out individually...and I'd make it look cute. Think laundry basket file cabinet. Feel free to make that happen for me.  Again, I've thought about this way too much.

So that's it.  No excuse for clothes on the floor anymore.  I've had the baskets for 24 hours now and I see my husband hasn't actually used them yet.  We'll see if a gentle reminder will help.  By the way, he said to me the other day, "You know, with this blog thing you're going to have to stick with it you know--keeping the house clean."  And he's right...I'm counting on it!

Clothes. Clothes. Clothes.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mysza/ / CC BY 2.0

It's the beginning of week 2 and the project is well under way in the bedroom.  We've gone through our closet and thrown out heaps of clothes (a garbage bag full) and have 2 more bags to give away.  It was a freeing experience, but I'm beginning to think I have a regretfully close relationship with greasy food.  I think I threw out at least 8! shirts with grease stains.  They were some of my favorite shirts.  Ones I've been wearing around the house (because really, who cares?) or with a strategically placed cardigan.  But I decided I'm done with all of that.  Besides, how will my husband ever believe me when I tell him I have nothing to wear if I have a closet full of grease-stained clothes?  What's worse is they were some of my favorite shirts.  So now the clothes that are left in my closet are not so cute and definitely not so flattering.  Luckily, my birthday is coming up, and I'm hoping to replenish my wardrobe--I've been hinting to my hubby for weeks.

I've gone through the same process in my dresser.  I've thrown out lots of holey, unattractive underwear and pjs.  Again, I think this project could have a positive effect on our marriage.  And I even went through the old sock drawer.  A few months ago I threw out all my white socks and replaced them with two new large packs.  My old socks really were old--probably at least 6 years.  And since socks are cheap, I chucked them all. My husband has yet to do this.  His sock drawer is so full it literally cannot be closed.  Who needs that many socks!?!

On a completely unrelated note, I've had the joy of allergic pink eye for the last 2 days.  It's the kind of pink eye you get from raging allergies.  This is my first year with raging allergies.  I don't recommend it. 

To the very few of you who have kept reading to this point, stick with me.  It will get more interesting than underwear, socks, and pink eye--I promise!

And if anyone knows how to get grease stains out of clothes, please TELL ME NOW!