Well, I’m here this week to report back and to say I failed miserably on my organizing list this week.   Okay, I didn’t entirely fail, but still not nearly as much as I had intended on accomplishing!

I did manage to get all the paper shredding and filing done.  That took me forever because I had to do the shredding in stages so I wouldn’t burn out the shredder!  This taught me a lesson: don’t go more than a month without shredding!  While I was filing our important papers, I went through the section that holds our product operating manuals and recycled the ones we no longer need. (As in, we don’t own those items anymore!)  I even ditched some birthday cards from friends from 10 years ago??

Since I didn’t get much else done off my list this week, the only picture I have is the one above of the basket that holds all our mail as it comes in.  (It was the “before” picture)  I love this basket because it helps contain all our important stuff until I get around to filing/shredding it.  Some stuff permanently stays in there as we access it all the time.

So, as for my computer file cleanup and the organization of our hot water tank closet…those didn’t get done.   Well, I did delete the photos off my computer that I no longer needed.  I’ll add them onto the list for this week.  As for the hot water tank closet, this may work out better since I intended on organizing our broom/pantry closet this coming week and I’m thinking I’ll be shuffling some of the contents from one closet to the other.  It’ll help with them both being empty at the same time!

Just so you don’t think I sat on my behind all week, we did completely rearrange our bedroom to allow for more room for the baby for the first little while.  The baby’s room has also really made progress and it looks like we’ll be painting this weekend!

For those of you still joining me this month, how did you do this week with your projects?

Up next during my January Organization endeavor:

• Organize the broom/pantry closet
• Organize the hot water tank closet
• Clean up my computer files and email accounts

I’ll be back on Saturday, February 4, 2012 with my final update!

I quite like this idea I found on Pinterest for wrangling rolls of wrapping paper!  Cut open an empty toilet paper roll, then slide it over your wrapping paper!

It’s time again for my weekly update on my organizing/purging project!  Although, this time I didn’t quite succeed with my list. (coat closet, our clothes closet and the baby room closets)  I’m pretty sure I was too ambitious, considering there are actually three closets in the baby’s room!   But I’m very happy with the progress that we made!

The above picture is sort of embarrassing, but I always say, it has to get worse before it gets better.  That was an in progress shot.  (It looks a bit better now!) There are about four empty boxes for the recycling, three bags of clothing for consignment/thrift store, a workout bench that we’ll be giving away, two bags of garbage, and a double sized bed that will be leaving our house.

I went through our coat closet and our clothes closet and managed to find several pairs of shoes, a vest, and a large stack of clothing to donate:

I wasn’t as ruthless as I wanted to be with our clothes closet since I have no idea what will fit me once the baby is born.  What I am letting go of, is stuff I haven’t worn in years.

The biggest project this week was tackling the closets in the baby’s room.  What. a. job!  Thankfully, it wasn’t all up to me since there were quite a few boxes that my husband had to go through himself.  We found two cardboard boxes full of Lego that got a bath because it was so dusty:

I was going to buy a Rubbermaid container to hold it all in one place, but I decided to go through my fabric stash to see if I could let go of enough fabric to free up the bin to use for the Lego.  Sure enough, I did it!  I didn’t have to buy a new container after all.  I must say though, I’m sure glad my husband still has all his childhood Lego, it’s going to come in real handy one day! (We were even tempted to take a break and play!)

We’re currently at a bit of a standstill with the closet situation in the baby’s room.  We have to borrow a truck in order to move a few pieces of furniture out.  Since we’re wanting to paint in the room, the biggest closet has to remain empty, so the contents of that closets are currently all over the place.  Here’s what the closets look like right now:

This is the biggest closet, which needs to remain empty for the time being.  It holds our Christmas boxes and used to hold a lot more stuff but we managed to get rid of soooo much stuff out of there!! (like the awkward workout bench!)  I even managed to get all our Christmas stuff into two boxes, rather than three, when I cleaned up the first week!

This would be the clothes closet in the baby’s room.  It currently holds our deep freezer, which is really not ideal, but that’s our only option right now!  There’s empty shelf space which will get filled with the Lego bin and my sewing machine once I’m done sewing.

Finally, the small linen type closet in the baby’s room.  Definitely not done at all.  I started putting stuff in there just to clear a path to walk.   I imagine some of that stuff will be staying in there.  How much storage does a baby really need?  I think it will have plenty of storage between all the empty spaces in all three closets.

So, definitely a work in progress.  I’ll be sure to do an update once the room is painted and complete!  But do you know how good it feels to know just how much stuff has or will be leaving our house?  I’m amazed! (with the feeling and the amount of stuff!)

For those of you still joining me this month, how did you do this week with your projects?

Up next during my January Organization endeavor:

• File/shred paper work
• Clean up my computer files and email accounts
• Organize the hot water tank closet

I’ll have another update for you next week, Saturday, January 28, 2012.

The Family CEO has some great tips to help you organize all your store reward cards and gift cards if you need some help in this area!

Family Fun has an simple project I like that creates a system for holding papers off all kinds.  School papers, craft papers…etc!

They use shipping boxes, but I’m sure you could use empty cereal boxes as well!

I thought this was a clever idea!  Turn a dish drainer into a file organizer for your desk!  It will even hold all your pens and pencils!