Organizing Plans

So, for my first and second weeks of organizing I’m working on the half of my garage that has been used for storage, and our downstairs family room.  I’m sort of combining both over the two weeks out of necessity.

The garage has been used for storage since we went down to just one car, and my husband’s work truck.  The truck was too big to fit in the garage, and since we still had stuff we were moving over from the old house it was a convenient place to put it all temporarily.  His company finally gave him a car since you could see the road through the bottom of the truck, so now he’ll be able to park it in the garage once there’s room.  Also, we’re finally having our generator installed on the 15th, so anything in the way of the circuit boards or the generator itself needs to be moved.

The family room needs to be cleaned up and better organized because H. is having some friends over the weekend of the 10th for her birthday party, and they need a place to hang out where they won’t make the rest of us crazy.  Much.

While I don’t necessarily expect to have everything completely put away in both places, I need to sort out a lot of boxes and figure out which rooms everything should be in or whether it should stay here at all.

One extra thing on my list is to put together a table in H’s room.  It’s partially put together, but then we realized the screws they included in one part are NOT long enough for the parts they’re supposed to connect if we want the table to actually stay together.  They just about reach, but not enough to screw in securely.  I found the longer screws, so now I just need to do it.

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52 Weeks of Organizing

I always need help getting (and keeping) my house organized.  Since moving, I’ve done a pretty good job of not letting things pile up too much upstairs.  The downstairs finished basement is another story since it’s been where the boxes that can’t stay in the garage end up.  It’s also my office, Chris’s office, the playroom and the family room with the big TV and the DVR.

Still, we have only been here for a few months and are still unpacking.   I’ve taken it slowly because I refuse to have stuff everywhere.  When I unpack something, I want to be able to find a place to put it.  If I can’t, or I don’t need it, out it goes.

With all the unpacking and organizing (and reorganizing) going on, I’ve found two sites that have some great tips and/or encouragement.  One is Orgjunkie, which I have known about for a while through OpenSky.  I had never actually been to the site, and finally got there tonight.  There is a series of posts on organizing throughout a whole year, taking on one small project each week.  I think that’s a good way to deal with all the unpacking and sorting and decorating, so I’m following along with the posts now.  The series is from last year, but I’m just starting at week one and working from there.

Now, that’s a great idea for the long-term stuff, but what about the more immediate concerns?  I can’t have the laundry pile up or the counter become a paperwork nightmare because it’s not the right week to handle it.  There are some things that need to be dealt with now, and regularly.  Enter in “Unf*** Your Habitat,” a Tumblr blog that encourages, threatens and–if necessary–just plain scares you into behaving and getting things done.  Their slogan is “Terrifying motivation for lazy people with messy homes.”  Oh yeah, that’s definitely for me.

Between the two, and just my need to keep my nice new house…well, NICE, I’m keeping up with all the laundry and dishes and regular washing of floors that just does not come naturally to me.  Not that I don’t know what to do, but I never really learned this stuff.  As a teenager, my job was to keep my grades up at school.  I had two chores at home:  dusting and washing/putting away any dishes there when I got home from school.  I still hate doing dishes, but I’m good at it.  I can dust like a madwoman.  For everything else, I learned once I moved out on my own.

So while my adventures in organizing may not be as much of an adventure for some of you, I’m betting there are plenty of you out there who could use the push to get moving too.  Feel free to join in, comment if you want to and let me know how things are going.

For this week, check out Orgjunkie’s intro post from her 52-week challenge, and the post for week one.  Print out the 52-Week Checklist if you’d like, and let me know where you’re starting your first week.  I’m still deciding where to start, but I’ll post again as soon as I know.

Well?  GET MOVING!

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