I will admit that I am not a tidy person by nature. I can clean when its needed, but I am naturally a slob and it takes a huge effort on my part to KEEP things tidy...a thing I am slowly learning about. During my year of unemployment, I have made it a goal to not just clean the surface of the house, but get to the root of the problem and KEEP it clean. So here's what I've learned so far (and I am still learning): 1. I have WAY TOO MUCH stuff! So I went through the house, basement, and garage and had a yard sale and donated everything that was left over to Goodwill after it was done.
Okay, great...now what? I am left with my rummagings (is that even a word? I don't care. I'm going to use it anyways.) and no place to put everything that's left- especially since we don't have any DRY storage areas since our basement floods and our garage roof leaks. So we have been forced to bring things in the house that I would rather store outside, but it is what it is when you rent. Which leads me to my next discovery: 2. Everything NEW that you bring into your house needs to have a place BEFORE you bring it home. If you don't know what you are going to do with it, DON'T bring it in!!! This rule has helped with new things I might buy, but what about the stuff that I already have? Well, I am going on the hypothesis that 3. Organization is the KEY to cleanliness. I say that it is a hypothesis because I am still in the testing stages :) I have found that the places that I need to put stuff away are taken up by a jumbled mess of other things that don't have a place. So I am organizing those said things to make room for the things that should be there. Example one:
I found that our linen closet was a mess all the time because all of the toiletries, medicines, lotions, etc that didn't fit in the medicine cabinet were consuming the closet. So I went to the local Dollar Tree (one of my favorite stores) and got these plastic bins to organize everything and KEEP IT NEAT! Is it O.C.D? Maybe. But it's working!
Example 2:
I don't have a lot of cabinet space in the kitchen and bathrooms and was constantly looking for places to hide all of these cleaning products and I would have to go through 5 different places sometimes before I came across what I was looking for. I also had some items (Paper products, plastic cups, bottled drinks) that never had a specific place. So I finally got tired of it all being strung throughout the house and taking up room that I needed for other things so I broke down, dug deep in my pockets, and bought this utility shelf for $14.88 at a store that shall remain nameless and put it in our laundry room/ half bath that we never use.
A small price to pay for such a great organizational space!
My next areas to tackle: the office, our bedroom (my clothes), and the basement. I am looking forward to see what solutions I find for these spaces. Although I did start to solve my clothes problem by giving away a whole garbage bag full of pants to a friend!
It might all be baby steps, but they are FORWARD steps and I can live with that! :)
