31 Day Organizational Challenge: Progress Week 1

Remember the March organizational challenge I entered with Org Junkie?  If not, catch up by reading my original post on the challenge. This is my progress report for the week.  I should have posted about this on Friday, but I had a crazy busy weekend of travel where I went through 4 different states and was in a car driving for 24+ hours in a 3 day timeframe.  So, this one is a little bit late. Better late than never though!

When I tell you I charged into this project, I did.  The pictures below don’t look like much, but I’m not sharing all the visuals because I want to have a wow factor at the end.  Now that I’ve said that I really need to work to make sure I can do it!  This is going to be a tough one.  Anyway, here are my few before and after pictures I’m sharing, I’ll give you a few details on the progress below.

You’re not seeing every thing I’ve done, but this is a small section I’m fairly proud of.  What’s been done in these pictures is everything on the blue totes have been set aside for garage sale, except for the bumbo chair, which we will find another place for.  We still use this chair several times a year for friends who bring their little ones over, so it’s still functional.  Just need to find a place upstairs for it.  The items that are currently on the blue totes in the after picture are waiting for a new home.  We went through Holiday decorations and sent a bunch to Goodwill and set aside for garage sale as well.

The white stacker and the black magazine racks on top of the piles there have both been emptied.  Everything in them has either been trashed, earmarked for garage sale or already sitting at the Goodwill.  The small plastic totes on the floor in the After picture have all been emptied.  They are currently waiting to see if they will be repurposed for some new contents or if they will also be sent to Goodwill/garage sale piles.

In the right before picture, there is a lamp sitting on a changing table.  The changing table is either being given to a daycare (waiting to hear back if they want it) or it will move on to the garage sale.  I loved that changing table, and I really hated to see it go since we don’t know if we’re having another child or not (we want one, just still up in the air on when), so we talked it over and decided it was time to go and we’d get a new one or use the bed or floor for changing the new baby, if we have one.  The lamp is now moved onto the floor waiting for a good location to store it until we have a garage sale.

The purple tent (that’s the flat purple thing in front of the file cabinet) was trashed because it had a giant rip in it.  The sack of stuffed animals in front of the blue totes has been either sent to Goodwill, garage sale, or some items were given back to the kids to organize later.

That is literally a small snapshot of all the work we’ve done in the basement so far.  Here is the breakdown of work to this point:

• 10+ hours have been spent boxing up stuff and putting like with like items (see, I said you can’t see it all!)
• 12+ boxes have been filled and removed from the basement for Goodwill/garage sales.  These were BIG boxes, by the way.
• Almost everything on the black racks in my laundry area was removed making room for items I really want.
• Military gear was removed from the basement.
• Projects or hobby boxes were analyzed and decisions were made if this was really a project we would realistically ever get to, or if we were just hanging onto the idea of doing it (got rid of some big stuff this way)
• Condensed some items we were definitely keeping from many many boxes, to one central location (reduced to 2 boxes, unless we find more.  Might end up in 3, but they will be categorized for efficiency)
• Tossed a ton of magazines because I had some strange idea I was going to use the information for something in the future (never going to happen!)

That’s pretty much it, it took us awhile and we’re really making progress.  The more we get out of there the easier it gets!  I know based on the organizational process we’re supposed to remove everything from the room and go from there, but we don’t have the space in the rest of the house so we’re keeping it there and making decision on trash, garage sale, goodwill or keep it.  So far we’ve placed more items in the first three categories than the last one and that makes me feel pretty dang good.

What organizational projects are you taking on this Spring, if any?