Author - Lorri

For this week’s Corner of My Home, I attacked the dresser in the master bedroom.  In it’s current condition, our bedroom is far from the calming sanctuary that it should be.  It’s more of a utility room – we sleep and get dressed in this room, we don’t spend any real time in there.  For that reason, I think it’s easier to set things down “just for now” and never return to them.  For other rooms in the house, I can clean them up easier as I go about the day.  The kitchen and dining room get straightened while Boo and Pumpkin Girl are doing school.  Cleaning up the living room is one of their chores.  But the bedroom is w-a-y upstairs and I can never find time to get in there alone.  If you have little children, you know what I mean.   But this is what I was looking at every day:

One thing that I have noticed in reclaiming these Corners of my Home, is that it isn’t really that hard or time consuming.  As long as I focus on just one small area, I can get it done.  If I was to start on a mission to tackle the whole room at once, I would be easily overwhelmed and it would never get done.  But just the dresser area – that’s easy!  The whole thing took only about 30 minutes and I even dusted.

Again, I really worked at putting things away, not just moving them to another area of the house.  Most of the stuff I’ve been finding in our bedroom doesn’t even belong there.  It’s just been there so long that I’ve kind of forgotten about it. It really is just a matter of making the time and getting to it.

Oh, and let me show you my new best friend:

I bought this Rubbermaid tote a couple of weeks ago and it’s been in use constantly.  I fill it up with all the things that belong somewhere else, usually on a different floor than I’m on.  When it’s full or I’m done straightening up, off we go to empty it around the house.  Before, I would pile items on the floor and of course, those piles were always falling over.  Or the children would come by and get into them.  Or I would need to stop cleaning up and go read Harry Potter make dinner, without having the time to take care of those things.  The bin holds all the stuff in one place until I can get back to it, it’s easy to carry and it’s big enough not to ignore.  That last one’s very important!

So are you ready to see my newly de-cluttered dresser?

(Sorry for the funny angle.) All cleaned off and dusted!

Right next to the dresser in the “before” picture is this crate full of junk and a moving box full of books.  The crate was emptied, and the books were loaded in.  They are all toddler books for Bip, who shares the room with us.  He can choose a bedtime book (or 4) from the crate and they don’t clutter up the place.

I found an unused candle plate and corralled up my perfumes.  I’m kind of partial to the Philosophy brand, especially Pure Grace.

And look!  Nothing in front of the dresser!

Once again…

Before:

After:

If you missed it, be sure to check out all my hard work on the Corners of My Home.

“When in doubt, pile it in the bedroom.”

Isn’t that everyone’s idea of organization?  It’s not?  What are you saying exactly?  That maybe that’s the reason just one corner of our bedroom looked like this…

Lovely.

An extra end table piled with books and children’s winter clothes.

And isn’t the window just a vision with it’s white mini blinds?

With a little love, the corner now looks like this:
The extra end table is gone, the books are put away, the winter clothes either went into the giving-away box or were packed away for cooler days.  I left only the books and magazines that I’m currently reading on the bottom shelf.  I moved the diaper pails (one for dipes, one for covers) into the space, which cleared up a different corner of the room.

And behold!

Curtains!

Wait till you see what’s crammed into the rest of the room!  But as I always say, that’s a post for another time.