Monday, April 18, 2011

Spring Cleaning For The Win!

After a 2 week lull in spring cleaning, my husband and I plowed into purging/organizing mode last weekend.

What was this:

IMG_2958-1

Went to this:
Organized closet

Joyous sighs of relief! This is the doorless closet in Squishy's room (really people, closets are supposed to have doors! Not sure who decided that these apartments didn't need them...). We organized his entire room and got rid of a HUGE pile of stuff, including a bulky stroller and carseat. It is now pleasurable to walk into his clean room.

The bathroom also saw improvement...

Before:                                                                    After:
IMG_2962-1Finished Bathroom Cabinet

The curtain that normally hangs in front of these shelves is temporarily pulled back for the purpose of this demonstration. There is still a ton of stuff in these deep bathroom shelves...these shelves comprise some of our only storage in this house, and they hold everything--bulk cleaning supplies, tools, medicines, towels, toiletries. It's difficult to "prettify" this area, but I did purchase two cloth-lined baskets at Ross (much cheaper than Target or Wal-Mart!), and they help a bit. When all else fails, hang a curtain in front.

Our bedroom was also subjected to purging--especially the closet filled with boxes of books! We got rid of some, and listed the nicer ones on Half.com. Have you ever tried to sell unwanted books on half.com? I'm always surprised at how successful it is! We have already made over $80 selling some unneeded textbooks.

Other resources for selling unwanted items: 

Ebay: We listed our very first item on ebay after our purging spree, and it just sold! I will say that is was somewhat complicated figuring out how to list my item. But it was worth it.
Craigslist: Especially nice for big items, such as furniture. We sold our second set of couches and our television on craigslist before we moved.

It's been very nice to clean our house of clutter and make some extra money! Definitely worth the effort we put into it.

Do you have a favorite resource for selling your unwanted stuff?

Also among my spring cleaning victories...I organized my recipe binder! More on that soon.


Homemakers Challenge - 31 Days to CleanI just won Sarah Mae's ebook, 31 Days To Clean: Having a Martha House the Mary Way, so I'm excited to go through that, one small task at a time. In fact, there is a Homemaker's Challenge starting on May 1st, for those who want to go through the ebook together. I love the focus this ebook has on having a "Mary heart" for our homes.




For everyday cleaning, I rely on my cleaning schedule based on Creating Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule.


Where are you in regards to spring cleaning? Finished? Half-way? Thinking about tackling it?



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7 comments:

  1. Everything looks great! Looks like you've done an awesome job!
    Blessings on your day!

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  2. I didn't really make a list but we are a few tasks down on a running list of things that need completing around here:

    -Chris has cleaned out one of the the office closets. A huge task because it is like a small room. There is actually a down side to having room sized closets with doors. I'm sure you can imagine the clutter and shoving that goes on, and we have 3 of these giant closets in our house-yikes!

    We are also halfway through organizing Archer's 0-9 month clothes, just need to put them in the vacuum bags.

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  3. I have a list that is a mile long. I try to do as much as I can on the days I feel good, which are starting to come closer together now!

    Confession - at our last house in Iowa, we didn't have doors on our closet. We took them off when we painted and liked them being off. One reason was because it forced me to keep the closet clean. Which I did. However, we had plenty of storage elsewhere, so that helped a lot.

    Good job to you and Andrew for tackling all that cleaning/organizating.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm thinking and planning my tackle. This week my goal is just to finish getting the house in "working order" before tackling the spring cleaning with Sarah Mae's book. ;)

    Thank you for sharing about the challenge. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I needed a little motivation this morning and this is great! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Are you doing the 31 Days challenge? I just won the ebook, too!!

    ReplyDelete

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