Before and After Pics - Kitchen and Living Areas

We have completed our Great 2013 Purging and Decluttering Fest. Will and I have now also decluttered the kitchen, living room, family room, back bedroom, and deep basement, took more loads to Goodwill, compiled an even more ridiculous number of items to recycle or throw away, and met the amazing Nonnie and Pa for lunch in Topeka today to pick up our kids - who were delighted to come to a house now in less danger of appearing on Hoarders.

Kitchen - Before

I think that this is the room that we spent the most time decluttering, since it was probably in need of the most work. 

I did not think to take a picture before we started working on the "art desk" in the right corner below, but it was piled high with art supplies, completed and half-completed art projects, and who knows what else.

A small sample of the items in the art desk that we attempted to sort.

I feel so organized seeing a bag with all of my coupons together. Oh wait, they all expired in April.

The dried roses on top of the fridge used to be alive. In fact, they were very much alive on Valentine's Day, when they first came to live in our house. Does this mean that romance is now dead?

The pantry. The shelves are labeled but we appear to have abandoned the filing system.

Inside the fridge. The worst are the crisper drawers. There is some sort of unidentified liquid collecting on the bottom that I think might be from liquefied lettuce...

The freezer. I just about cried when we took everything out and I saw that deep in the bowels of the freezer were some remaining freezer meals that I had made with friends....in February. I tried to convince Will it would still be okay to eat, but he held firm on the opinion that we weren't so destitute that eating Black Vegetables was an option.

Practically empty dessert cups in the freezer. Perhaps our children are taking my love of ice cream a little too far.

Kitchen - After 

It looks like we now might have room in the kitchen to prep AND actually eat dinner!

The art desk after much purging. The two items on the desk are projects that each child is currently working on.

The pantry, with no expired food and organized shelves.

I filed all of the papers in the inbox, each family member's keep box, and the random "to-be-filed" piles.

Our sad fridge after all of the expired food was thrown out. It looks like a trip to the store is in order, soon.

Living Room - Before

We left for Wichita right after opening presents on Christmas and the place still looks like a bomb went off.

Random boxes from Christmas, plus the tree is still up (although it IS still in the 12 Days of Christmas).

We have a "shoe basket" by the door where family members can put their shoes so that they can easily slip them back on when going out again. Well. I neglected to count the total pairs in the basket, but there were at least nine pairs of flip flops or water shoes in the bottom of the basket. Since we will be slipping those on any time now in December.

Living Room - After

Much more relaxing!

 The tree has been put away and the train table returned to its rightful position.

Only one pair of shoes for each in the basket now. Someday we should do something about all of the scuff marks all over the wall. Someday.

Family Room - Before

This room was probably in the best shape since it tends to be where we have visitors.

The baskets by the TV were a wreck, though, with all kinds of treasures hiding there.

Family Room - After

Yeah, this looks about the same....but there was still cleaning that happened.

Organized baskets and fitness equipment by the stove.

Just a portion of the game shelf. We love games and did not really purge anything here. Would anyone like to play board games??

Back Bedroom - Before

View from the door. This room has sort of turned into the "exercise" room with the treadmill and bike (it is on a trainer).

This is also where guests sleep (lucky them!), but the bed had turned into a Christmas Gift Wrapping Command Center.

The desk. I think the share held the remnants of some of Will's grading.

Back Bedroom - After

When the kids saw this room, they said, "It looks the same!!" Well, it sort of does. But it is still better!

Clear desk and workspace.

Our cats had to check out all of the action.

Laundry Room - After

I forgot to take a before picture, but you can imagine. :) This is after!

Deep Basement - Before

Oh my word, the cats have completely destroyed this area. There was litter scattered and spilled all over the floor.

Many naked Barbie dolls are scattered about. The cats also found a piece of Styrofoam and had shredded it all over the floor into a million tiny pieces scattered every which way.

It's Raining Toys.

The ABC mat is from when Annika was a baby and the cats have destroyed it, too.

Deep Basement - After

The cat below is obviously confused about what happened to all of the litter.

Not the best long-term place for the Hot Wheels Tracks, but hey, it's a flat surface.

Toys on the shelf instead of the floor.

No more mat! And a completely barren deep freezer - we found meat that we had purchased in 2010 still there...

Post Kid-Return Changes

The kids were so, so happy to see the house when they came home after lunch. Daniel's first comment on seeing his room, though, was, "What happened to all of my stuffed animals??" We asked him if there were any specific animals that he noticed were gone and he could not think of a single one - he just knew that there used to be MORE. He then sorted his remaining stuffed animals animals into land animals (left), sea animals (right), and snakes (hanging from the "ceiling").

Annika sorted in her room, too, and took it even farther, with making different sections for animal/book combinations. To no one's surprise, the first section was a Cat Corner.

Completed Christmas Dragon Lego Projects in Annika's room.

Will found a spot for the "H" decoration that Nonnie and Pa gave us, and I think it looks great here!

Now the great struggle will be to maintain. I, ever the optimist, say that this year will be better.

Before and After Pics - Bedrooms and Bathrooms

The past day and a half, we have been working like mad on purging and de-cluttering the house. To no one's surprise, we are behind on our original plan, but we have managed to de-clutter the upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms, collect an amazing amount of materials to donate to Goodwill, and throw away or recycle a ridiculous amount of garbage (41 water bottles in one bedroom, anyone?). Thank you so very much to the amazing Nonnie and Pa for keeping our kids in DeSoto for a few days!! 

Master Bedroom - Before 

We started here on Friday night and finished Saturday morning. The purple basket contains all unmatched socks over the course of the year, aka almost all of our socks. 

Packing boxes from Amazon are on the floor and random paperwork is on my dresser.

Will's dresser.

The closet, noteworthy for the fact that it still included all of Will's clothes from before he lost weight.

The Herculean task in this room was going through all of Will's clothes. He had not gotten rid of any clothing since losing weight, meaning that almost everything in our closet was way, WAY too big for him. After this whole process, I think he was down to about 10 articles of clothing, total.

Master Bedroom - After 

No more papers on nightstands.

View of my dresser now. We still have these ridiculous pink curtains in the room that match nothing, but they work so darn well that I can't justify getting rid of them. We also still have a chin-up bar in the corner, because everyone needs a chin-up bar.

Our closet! Everything you see is...mine. The rows of empty hangers are where much of Will's clothing used to be.

Will's dresser, next to the empty laundry baskets (with properly matched socks now).

Master Bathroom - Before 

Stuff all over the sink. We have an incredibly tiny amount of shelf space here and things get all clumped together.

My favorite part of this de-cluttering experience was getting everything out of the medicine cabinet. We discovered that this tube of Neosporin expired in 1999. Oh, and we have moved 8 times since then. I am going to blame it on the fact that the expiration date is hard to read...but still.

Master Bathroom - After 

Reduced amount of stuff on sink. As it turns out, a lot of it I decided that I would like to have out, or I will forget things like flossing. But it is less than before!

Our reorganized medicine cabinet, courtesy of our handy label maker. Nothing in here has expired....as far as we know.

Daniel's Room - Before 

Next on our list - Daniel's room! We started this on Saturday morning.

The top of his dresser is impressive.

All of these clothes on the floor are 3T and 4T clothing that no longer fits Daniel. This is almost all of his clothing.

The long-sleeve shirt drawer after de-cluttering has a lonely one shirt left in it. Hopefully it will be a mild winter.

All of these stuffed animals were inside of Daniel's tent - this picture doesn't even include the ones on his bed, which were prized enough to not risk the cut. We ended up with three huge trash bags full of stuffed animals that we donated at Goodwill.

However, the very best surprise inside of the bowels of his tent was a bottle of prenatal vitamins. These expired in 2006, meaning I had to have been pregnant or nursing Annika. They were inside of a basket and Will thought the kids had been playing a "shopping" game. Yeah. I've got nothing.

Daniel's Room - After 

Ta-da! A clear dresser!

The bookshelf was the main task that I worked on in here. We had five GIANT trash bags full of books that we took to Goodwill. I also organized and sorted everything to hopefully make it easier to find, so hopefully instead of noticing everything that is missing it will seem like we suddenly have "more" books.

We also really thinned down the toys and left the ones that Daniel actually plays with.

Under the tent now! Still some stuffed animals but nothing like before. Oh, and no prenatal vitamins, either.

Linen Closet - Before

We have two linen closets and have never purged them. My thought before was, You Can Never Have Too Many Blankets or Towels.

After dumping all of the closet content onto the floor of my room, I changed my tune...you CAN have too many blankets and towels. Especially if said contents include items that are stained (gross!), include crib sheets and diaper changing covers (when we have no babies), or are bedding sizes for beds we no longer own.

 Linen Closet - After 

Will put our Label Maker to work and labeled each shelf. This is primarily the "towel" closet.

The "bedding" closet.

Kids' Bathroom - Before 

This is also the primary bathroom that guests use. Isn't it attractive? There is also a copy of just about everything Highlights magazine ever, for your reading pleasure.

Kids' Bathroom - After 

Much more sanitary! Oh, and only the current issue of Highlights is available now.

We added baskets and organized the inside of the drawers.

Annika's Room - Before

Oh, Annika's room. This is the room in the house that Will had been dreading the most (mine is the kitchen, which we are still working on).

What an easily-accessed bookcase. On the other hand, it does teach our kids to Fight for the Right to Read...

Annika's dresser looks much like Daniel's did. We left right after opening presents on Christmas, so some of that is scattered on the floor, too. I did not think to take pictures inside the tent, but it was SCARY.

Will stayed up late on Saturday night and removed everything from the tent. Among many treasures, he found 41 water bottles. Yes. All of this trash and much more was hidden among a never-ending bound of stuffed animals, which are on the way to new homes (Annika had sorted out the animals she wanted to keep before she left). He decided it would be easier to just get rid of the tent and turn it into an open reading area. The main area I worked on purging were the books - lots of sorting piles below.

Annika's Room - After

Tada! The animals on top of her bed need to be organized but we took out 2 trash bags full of books, 1 trash bag of clothes, 3 of stuffed animals, and probably a ridiculous number of actual trash.

Another thing we discovered was that the old backpacks hanging on the wall still had clothes in them from various sleepovers...

Bookshelf, bins, and shelves were massively reduced.

I couldn't get a good picture under her bed, but we put her beanbag under with a reading lamp.

And now we are working on the kitchen - stay tuned for more before and after pictures! Will just asked, "How many glue sticks is it possible for one family to own??" We are up to 22 sticks and counting...