Told ya I'd be back this week! I just didn't think it would be this soon! Thank God for toddler naps and ambition on my part! :)
This year I have decided that I really need to, as I like to say, “get my crap together!” I like to say that I’m an organized person and that I like things “just so”, but when it comes down to it, I WANT to be an organized person. It is one of my heart’s strongest desires! I love organized spaces and even drool over them when I see them on blogs, Pinterest, in magazines, etc. I want that for my life so badly, but have never been able to obtain it. Well, I have been following Simple Mom on facebook for a while now, I even have her book Organized Simplicity (although I haven’t read the whole thing yet, ha!), and I love her ideas, though haven’t implemented any of them yet. Until now. She has started a series, Project Simplify, and I am bound and determined to follow it. The first week focuses on organizing kids’ stuff. Since we only have one young child, you’d think we wouldn’t have that much kid stuff. Wrong! I don’t think Rylan even has as many toys as a lot of children and she STILL has way too much stuff! And the clothes! We have bags and bags full of clothes she’s already outgrown - and she’s only 18 months old! I don’t know where we’re going to store all of this stuff as she keeps outgrowing toys and clothes, but I guess I’ll get to that eventually. Also, I was under the impression that her room was relatively clean and under control - including her closet. Now that I’ve been looking at the before and after pics, though, I know I was wrong!
This year I have decided that I really need to, as I like to say, “get my crap together!” I like to say that I’m an organized person and that I like things “just so”, but when it comes down to it, I WANT to be an organized person. It is one of my heart’s strongest desires! I love organized spaces and even drool over them when I see them on blogs, Pinterest, in magazines, etc. I want that for my life so badly, but have never been able to obtain it. Well, I have been following Simple Mom on facebook for a while now, I even have her book Organized Simplicity (although I haven’t read the whole thing yet, ha!), and I love her ideas, though haven’t implemented any of them yet. Until now. She has started a series, Project Simplify, and I am bound and determined to follow it. The first week focuses on organizing kids’ stuff. Since we only have one young child, you’d think we wouldn’t have that much kid stuff. Wrong! I don’t think Rylan even has as many toys as a lot of children and she STILL has way too much stuff! And the clothes! We have bags and bags full of clothes she’s already outgrown - and she’s only 18 months old! I don’t know where we’re going to store all of this stuff as she keeps outgrowing toys and clothes, but I guess I’ll get to that eventually. Also, I was under the impression that her room was relatively clean and under control - including her closet. Now that I’ve been looking at the before and after pics, though, I know I was wrong!
Here are some before pictures of what we were dealing with...
And here are the afters. Not perfect, by any means, but much, much better. I feel like I can breathe when I try to get something out of her closet now!
As you can see, we moved her toy box from her room and replaced it with her table. The toys kept getting dragged into the living room anyway, so we put the toy box in there. That way it's easier to clean up at night! I still wanted her to be able to play in her room, so we put the table in there where she can color, read, or play with puzzles.
Travis and I went through her closet together. We put all the blankets in a bag and put them in storage in the basement. I love the blankets and appreciate them since most of them were shower gifts, but a girl needs just so many blankets! They were taking up valuable room and needed to move. We also moved some of the junk on the floor to the basement and some of it went in her dresser - which you can see part of in some of the pics. I've had an issue with that dresser because I really love the look of it and the storage it provides, but I hate that Rylan can (and does) get into it and take everything out! It drives me nuts! So I just put a few things in there for now. Things that are easy to put back should they be taken out by a certain toddler's little hands! :)
One big problem, which I suppose is a good problem to have, is that we have a TON of books for her. Travis and I, for whatever reason, loved our own books growing up so much that we saved almost all of them! So, Rylan has her own library right here in the house! We still have a ton of books packed away, but we had to stop somewhere. So, the books that are for older kids are packed away, the “in between” books (that I don’t want her ripping pages out of) are now in her closet, and the board books are on her shelves. She obviously can’t reach them yet, but she asks for her books ALL THE TIME, so I’d rather not have to think about which ones she can and can’t play with by herself, unsupervised. I like that the books that are displayed are the ones I don’t mind her being rough with and the more delicate books - for a little bit older children - are in her closet. We can still read them to her, but I don’t really want her to have access to them just yet. I think once we turn her room into a “big girl” room, we will rethink the book situation. I want to display them like they are in the photos below someday. That way she can reach them and grab whichever ones she wants.
I haven’t looked into what this week’s project/room is, but I’m already excited about it. I really want to have less of my stuff hanging around the house. And I think in the process, I will hopefully learn to let go of some things and learn to live with less.
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