Make Room Challenge - Week 4: Play and Creative Areas

In the past week I have been working on completing the task for Week 4 of the Make Room Challenge to celebrate the launch of Melissa's book Make Room For What You Love.  

The task this week was: Play and Creative Areas.

As most of you know, I went to art school so this was not an easy task for me.  Meaning, I can think of a use for everything!  I find that most creative people are like that which makes it difficult to declutter supplies (even if you haven't used them since art school!)  

I have an entire studio dedicated to jewelry work and metal/gold smithing, but that is basically my workspace and it's outside of my home (and currently in disarray due to moves and other things).  

So, a few years ago when we put our master bedroom addition on our house and added a small coat closet under the stairs I asked Ken if we could convert our coat closet into an "art closet."  Of course he said yes (because he is awesome!)  He added a ton of sturdy shelves and then I proceeded to fill it right up.

This is how it looked:

I have tried to organize it over the last 5 years by adding things like the rolling cart from Ikea and the metal organizer on the back of the door.  But, what was missing was the simple things that make being organized easier.  Things like decluttering first and labels and stackable containers.

I really wanted to make this closet feel finished, so I decided to take everything out.  

This is the part I (and my husband) hate because it just makes a huge mess and it usually takes a few days to get the project done.

I started by priming and painting the shelves with paint we had on hand from our mudroom.  It was already so much better.

I also decided to rip out the old scrap of frayed carpet.  I found a runner that was basically the right length and I just cut it where the box is that our dryer vent goes through.  I think it came out pretty good considering what it looked like before.

I decided that all my decluttering efforts deserved some new storage bins that were clear and uniform so I could see the contents and they would stack easily and take up less space. (I ended up with a few too many so I will return some).

I spent 2 days staying up late sorting every last bead, button and paint brush and then put everything back in a way that made more sense and better utilized the space in this closet.  

This is how it came out:

I really made sure to think critically about what I would actually use.  Melissa says in her book not to save things to use someday, because let's face it "someday is not a day of the week."  That really hit home because it's so true!  While I kept most of the kids art supplies, I decided to keep things that could be used for the three most important categories to me (besides metals of course): calligraphy/drawing, knitting/weaving, and card making.  

I organized everything and with that in mind.  I also labeled the bins so I everyone is sure to know where things will go, and I made sure to put the kids stuff low enough that they can get it out and put it back on their own.   

I am really happy with the result and I think I may actually be able to do some art projects now that I can see where everything is!

If you want to join in the Make Room Challenge or get the book you can find out more here.

Next week is the final official week of the challenge, but I plan to keep going.  I have a new found purpose in my decluttering thanks to the book.  It's no longer just "getting rid of stuff" but making room for what you love so you can feel free from the burden of the things that don't matter.

Here's the final Before and After:

Make Room Challenge - Week 3: Clutter and Entry PART 2

So, yesterday I showed you my relatively organized command center.  Today, I wanted to share my mudroom.

The mudroom..UGH!!!  I look at photos of mudrooms and dream about what it would be like to have a beautiful mudroom with things like; a huge closet, or a dog washing station, gorgeous built-ins, or a lovely potting sink.  Let's face it, that is not a reality for this house right now.

However, we can always do some simple things to try and make the best of the space we have.

I spent some time this week as part of the Make Room Challenge, to declutter and clean up our mudroom.

Here is what it looked like before:

Okay, okay, not super terrible on the surface, but behind closed doors it was a bit worse.  Our mudroom serves many purposes including: art display area, coat closet, dog house, work out area, sporting equipment storage, food storage (freezer), basement access, and house project "stuff" zone.

As the first room you enter into our house, it would make sense that this room would be the most important space to whip into shape so when guests come over we could give a better first impression of our home.  Actually, for our own sake as well.  Why shouldn't we deserve to come home to an organized and tidy mudroom?

So, I spent the day opening cabinets and sorting things out and trying to decided if I really need to keep ice skates I wore 20+ years ago, and only once since then?!

This is how it came out:

The first, and most obvious thing I did was put little things away where they belonged and cleaned everything.  Although I don't agree with it, my husband insists on keeping multiple coats on hooks in the mudroom and that is a battle I am not willing to fight since at least they are getting hung up somewhere!  We have this nice coat hook/basket combo shelf that came from Ikea way back when.  We keep hats and dog leashes and toys in the baskets.  My husband's shoes go in the matching storage bench since they are too big to fit in the red cabinet that we keep the rest of our shoes in.  Hooks on the wall below the window are just the right height for the girls' book bags.

I brought in a bit of color with an oxalis plant that is still holding on from St. Patrick's Day.

Another area that I put some real effort into was our shoe cabinet.  This cabinet was an old jelly cabinet from Ken's grandmother's house.  I used to keep it almost empty with just a few items in our upstairs hallway, until one day I realized it would be great for our shoes! That's the funny thing; sometimes you just need to look at pieces of furniture you already have and see if you can envision using them in a different location or for a different purpose.  I got rid of 6 pairs of shoes in 5 minutes!  It becomes really easy to eliminate clutter when you just get real with yourself about what you have and what you need.

We keep our dress shoes in boxes in our closets and get them out when we need them.  So, this cabinet only really needs to hold a few everyday pairs per person.

Here is what the inside of that cabinet looks like now:

We keep some of our overflow flip flops and crocs in a basket on top of the cabinet.

The other basket on top of the cabinet holds various hats.

We have some old lockers that hold sports equipment and umbrellas and such.  They were pretty cluttered up.  So much so, that I had to push the stuff in and then quickly slam the door!

I added a hanging clothes rail and inexpensive cloth cube organizer to create "cubbies" for the smaller  items that needed to be stored in here.

Lastly, I took all the magnets and pictures off of our freezer.  I love seeing my kids art work and I am sure we will put more up in no time, but it was a nice break for a minute.  I did keep the girls' chore chart and message board on the side of the freezer.  I also removed all the paint cans and tools from the top of the freezer and put them away where they go.  The basket on the top of the freezer is for items that need to go to be donated (it's bigger than it looks in the photo).  When it's full, I just take it to Goodwill.

And, this is maybe controversial to some people, but I made a sign a while ago for my mudroom that says "Please Remove Your Shoes."  We are a no shoes in the house family.  It's hard enough to keep the house clean without the dirt from shoes.  So, our shoes and guests shoes stay in the mudroom.

This mudroom clean up was part organize, part declutter and part clean up and just put things back where they belong!  It is nice and fresh and clean feeling now; just in time for the warmer days ahead.

Thanks for following along with my progress in the Make Room Challenge.  Why not join in now and make some room in your home as well.  You can find out more here.

Make Room Challenge - Week 3: Clutter and Entry PART 1

In the last few weeks I have done a whole lot of reading this book: Make Room For What You Love By Melissa Michaels of The Inspired Room Blog and thinking and pondering about what I need and don't need to make my home happy and calm and functional.  As you know by now, I am taking part in the Make Room Challenge to organize and declutter and in turn make room for what I truly love.

This week's task was:

Clutter and Entry 

Make Room for Arrivals and Departures

The entryway and mudroom of my house is the biggest clutter magnet of all!  Awhile back I streamlined our "Command Center" - which is such a funny term to me, because sometimes it does seem like I am trying to direct rockets into space with all that I have to manage around my house!  Anyway, that space has been working pretty well for us and it didn't need much work except a quick sort and purge.  You can see what is looked like before here.

Here is what it looked like on Monday:

Okay, not terrible, but after only a few minutes of sorting, it looked like this:

It's amazing what can be done in a few minutes if you have a good system.  We have a magazine file from Ikea that has a slot for each family member's important papers.  This has been great!  A friend of mine asked me once "Where do you keep all your mail and school papers?" and I pointed to that magazine file.  If the paper needs to be kept, or if I need to deal with it later in goes in that file, otherwise it gets immediately recycled or filed where it belongs.  Bills go into a binder pocket with our family budget, so they never get misplaced.

We also keep a clipboard with our weekly meal planner/grocery list.  I have seen (and even made) some really cute weekly meal planners, but I always revert back to this old one from my friend Sarah.  What I like about it is I can write my meals for the week and my grocery list and then on Sunday I can just tear off the grocery list part and take it to the store with me!  Sometimes simplest is easiest.

I have also evolved away from buying fancy calendars because found that I would put everything in my phone calendar and then have to transfer it to the paper calendar which was a hassle.  Once I had everything connected on the "cloud" I could sinc my phone calendar, computer calendar and my husband's work calendar.  At that point it made more sense to me to just print out or calendar one month at a time.  I found this cute burlap pin board at Homegoods and I just tack our calendar for the month to it.

I just can't say enough about how good it feels to declutter and make space for space.  For me, clearing off cluttered flat surfaces and moving out things that I don't need and eliminating visual clutter is like walking in the woods on a hike and stopping to take a deep breath of air and noticing the world that surrounds you.

I am realizing that clearing clutter is a spiritual experience for me. Maybe that is why I have been trying to do it for so long?!

I would love to hear how you feel about decluttering?  Leave a comment below or link to your decluttering projects.

I will be back to share Part 2 of this week's challenge tomorrow - My Mudroom!

In the meantime you too can join in the Make Room Challenge or order the book...here.

Make Room Challenge: Week 2 - Jewelry Storage

Make Room Challenge: Week 2 - Jewelry and Accessories

If you haven't already heard, I am taking part in the Make Room Challenge to celebrate the new book, Make Room For What You Love, written by the wonderful Melissa Michaels of The Inspired Room blog.

Last week our task was to clean out and declutter our dresser.  You can read more about that here.

This week the task was the "Master Bathroom  - Make Room for Primping and Pampering."  Unfortunately, we don't have a master bathroom in our house.  The closest bathroom is actually the main bathroom in our house that everyone uses when they come over.

Because of this, I keep all my personal accessories in my bedroom on the dresser.  And if you know me well, you know I am pretty low maintenance.  For me, "primping" is combing my wet hair and putting it in a ponytail and putting on my watch and wedding band and maybe a pair of earrings.

I do have quite a bit of jewelry because after all, I am a trained jeweler and make jewelry for a living.  However, I always say, for me being a jeweler must be like being a chef who cooks all day at a restaurant and then all they want to do is go home and eat a PB&J sandwich.  I don't really wear jewelry.

There are a few pairs of colorful earrings and rings that I would like to try wear more often, so this was a good opportunity to put them front and center so maybe I will wear them.

I keep and antique jewelry box that I love with my overflow of jewelry that I just don't wear often.  It could use a good sorting, but that will be for another day.

Since we finished our bedroom a few years ago, I have had a branch from a lilac bush that I tacked to the wall with small finish nails, which holds some of my most often worn small necklaces.  This works really well because I can see them all and they never get tangled.  Tangled chains are the worst!

For the things I want to put front and center, I decided to gather a variety of small ceramic dishes that I had laying around.

This is what I came up with:

I also switched out my striped dresser cover with a neutral table runner from Ikea so that the blues and greens of these little dishes would stand out better.  I think it looks really nice and happy!

I think it will work pretty well.  Having these items out in the open makes it easier to see them and in turn hopefully remember to wear them!

Want to follow along with the Make Room Challenge? Or, if you are interested in pre-ordering the book and learning ways to tackle the task of decluttering without having to become a minimalist you can get more info here.

Check back next week for more Make Room Challenge progress!