Monday, January 24, 2011

My Great Clean Out!

Today I'm joining in on a little clean up / organization blog party that Anne-Marie of 10 Rooms has put together! 

When Anne-Marie emailed me about taking part in "The Great Clean Out", I just knew I had to say yes... what better motivation to get my butt in gear and start cleaning and organizing? I also knew right away what room I would be tackling... My Craft Room / Office / Laundry Room...






Yeah - it was looking pretty rough. Left over Christmas pieces were stuffed in boxes in here. Construction materials had been placed here to stay out of the main basement living area. Basically, it had been a giant catch all for anything that didn't have a proper home.

With me back to classes as of last Monday (I'm soooo excited about my class this term!), I knew I needed to whip this space into shape so that I would have somewhere to escape to and get my work done. My first step was just to get EVERYTHING out... which meant relocating it all (with the help of B) into our living area. My #1 rule was that anything that didn't belong, was not to go back in! I knew that by keeping it out in the open in our living space, I would be more motivated to find a proper place for everything. After running the vaccum around quickly, I got to work organizing.

With the help of B, we moved my brand new IKEA "As-Is" dresser into the spot that was previously occupied by our big, ol' ugly filing cabinet (which we no longer needed).



There was a lot of stuff to sort out and organize. Old school projects, paper (LOTS OF PAPER!), crafty items, fabric and other samples... and pretty much any other thing you can possibly think of. 



It kept me busy for quite some time, and I definitely did not complete this in a couple of nights, it was an on going process. Items were moved, and moved again. At this point it is by no means "perfect", but it's exactly what I set out to accomplish for now. It has more storage, and it's a lot more functional than it was before - take a look at the before and after...




I can actually get INTO the room again... and with all that new drawer space, everything has a home!


The top left drawer contains ribbons, my blog cards and some other crafty items (and yes, it could still use some organization... I'll be working on that). The drawer on the right is looking a little better with a utensil organizer keeping all of my pens, pencils, markers, etc. nice and organized. This will make looking for a pen and other writing utensils a lot easier!


The next drawer down is home to all of my paper. The far left is craft and painting papers, the middle is blank and lined paper with some smaller pads down at the bottom. The right side is all notebooks - yeah, there are a lot of those around here.


The third drawer down I have dedicated to "gift wrapping/giving materials"... kind of. You see blank note cards, some tissue paper and a LOT of tape... that could also use a little extra organization.


This drawer holds a lot of my old writing stuff. I used to be big into writing poems and short stories, and they are all housed here. I am hoping to condense everything so I can free this drawer up... I have a feeling my bottom drawer contents will only continue to expand in the future...


My fabric drawer doesn't look very exciting right now, but they are all organized by colour, and my neutrals ended up at the top. 

My cleaning also got B motivated, and last weekend while I was back home spending some time with my family, he made some more progress on finishing up my desk. He finished painting it white, got the final trim attached, put up my cork board and attached my pistons... check it out in action...


I have a bunch of stuff that I stumbled across that needs to be added to my inspiration board up there, but I think that it is so perfect! What a lucky girl I am to have B make me such a fabulous desk! 

So, that's everything that went back in... what came out? Well, of course the old desk and filing cabinet - both of which are waiting to be relocated to my parents house. All of the Christmas stuff that had ended up in there was packed up when we did a proper clean up after the holidays, and then this...


Quite a lot to toss and recycle, as well as quite a few things that we will donate / add to our garage sale pile (we are determined to make a little bit of cash off all of the extra / unused stuff we have laying around).


Organizing, cleaning and purging our home of things always calms me down and makes me feel good, so thank you to Anne-Marie for lighting the fire under me, and getting me going on cleaning up this room! I'm already dreaming of all of the great projects I'll work on in here and all of the great blog posts I can write from my nice clean desk! Make sure you head over to Anne-Marie's blog to see her Great Clean Out and find out who else participated!

Have you taken on a major cleaning / organization project recently, or do you have one coming up? I would love to hear some of your best organizational tips!
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16 comments

  1. Great makeover Kerry! I think B. has a future is furniture design - that desk is perfect :) Love that you used a furniture piece for storage, it warms up your space. I would love to do laundry/make crafts/ work here! Thanks for participating - x

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  2. That looks so great! What a fab space to do laundry and some crafting. And kudos to B - that's a great desk he made for you.

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  3. Yipee for organizing! This is going to sound nuts, but I LOVE organizing. This kind of exhausting clean-up day gets my blood pumping :) (mostly because I love a clean and tidy space...)

    Thanks for sharing! enjoy doing laundry in this great space.

    *Tania @ Passport2Design.com

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  4. What a transformation! And I agree about the deks... amazing! Hey... I'm your 100th follower!

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  5. loving this series 10 rooms is going -- great make over!

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  6. Talk about motivation!! It looks great! And that desk!? Nice work, B.

    I LOVE organization and I know it makes me happy when everything has it's spot, it's just finding the motivation to do it! This is inspiring, so thanks for the kick in the pants, Kerry :)

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  7. Great transformation. Love that you have a craft room - I'm jealous! Doesn't it feel good to be on the road to organized and tidy?

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  8. Wow! Amazing job Kerry! I can tell that was a huge amount if work so congrats on doing such an awesome job. You must be thrilled with the result! Xo

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  9. WOW! This looks absolutely amazing! The before and after pictures look like two different rooms! Don't you just feel so much better being organized?? My extra room/craft room is my next goal! Thanks for the motivation!!

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  10. wahoo! i love a good clean out! nothing better! everything looks great~

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  11. Great job! Those drawers look fabulous -- I may be living vicariously through you :) You should pick up some drawer dividers (or do I like I did and make them yourself out of cardboard and drawer liner) to keep things organized. One of my bad habits is having everything looking amazing...until I touch anything or take it out of its place! haha Great job, I feel satisfied just looking at the photos!

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  12. Great clean out .... LOVE your hinged top on the desk ... Great way to hide stuff and the bulletin board on it is brilliant.

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  13. Oh my gosh, I totally need to join the great clean out party. I mean really, have you seen my current post? I'm going to get at it this weekend so I can finally have my own craft room/woman cave!

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