29 Day Challenge - End Results

Hello Everyone, 

Wow, it has been an amazing 29 days.  The first day of February I started working on the challenge put on by I'm an Organizing Junkie.  The challenge was to pick one room in your house and organize it in 29 days.  Take before and after pictures to show the progress.

I chose my front bedroom.  This room started out as the office/storage room.  This room has always been the place to hold financial papers and store the important things that just can’t go in the basement.  While I was finishing my degree, it’s the place I did my homework.  Over the past five years, it’s become the place to drop anything and everything that doesn’t have a home.  Reality is, it’s the place things got dropped because I was too lazy to put the stuff away or find a home for it. 

Here is the first before and after picture.  As you can see, I can’t even get into the room. 

I had to create a plan to tackle this room.  The first thing I did was read a few websites on how to organize a space like this.  The next thing was to plan what steps I needed to have completed by the end of each weekend.  The next step was to head to the store and purchase some storage bins for sorting. 

The hardest part of this challenge was purging all the clothes.  I’m a serious clothes collector with a huge yo-yo weight problem.   So that means I have clothes that range from size 8 to 20.  When I started working on the clothes, I had to realize that I was never going to get into the size 8 again.  I took a long hard look at myself and decided that I was never going to get smaller than a 14.  Anything that was smaller than an XL was set in the donate pile.  Should I ever lose more than 20 pounds; my reward will be to go clothes shopping.  I was not able to purge the cedar chest.  I really tried, but the tears wouldn’t stop and so I figured I’m just not ready for that step.

I had four piles of purged stuff.  One pile was professional clothes that went to an organization that helps to outfit unemployed women for interviews.  The second pile was everything else that was still in good shape but just needed a new home.  I took games, puzzles, purses, Tupperware and casual clothes.  One bucket was for stuff that needs to be shredded.  Every night, I spend about 15 minutes shredding until the machine is full.  I figure I will be done in another week.  The last pile was paper crafting stuff.  All of this was placed in the basement in the crafting area of the basement.  This will be the next area to organize.

Here is a picture of the casual clothes.  I had to make three different trips to Deseret Industries.

The main thing I did to create space was to put shelves in the closet.  These shelves help to hold a few things that I don’t want in the basement, such as photos and special mementos.  My son welded some metal rods onto a plate to hold my thread.  When just stacking them, they fell over.  I used magazine holders for both the magazines and to hold all of the past taxes and got rid of the bulky binders.  I then used one bag and placed the rest of the bags in it.  

The best piece of advice I can give anyone – If you are taking on a big project discuss what you are planning with the whole family.  I really thought that this was Tammy taking on the house. It turned out to be Tammy taking on the family and the house.  Everything I was ready to get rid of, husband and son wanted to keep. 

I am very excited that I was able to finish my room.  There is still plenty left to do.  I didn’t complete the second area that was on my list, but I feel like I got a really good start.   I would love to hear what you think of my change.