Every year around this time cabin fever starts to set in. Since it’s still too cold to get outside, I’ve decided to start spring cleaning earlier than usual. It’s a good thing too because we are planning to move this summer and it will be the perfect opportunity to get our house organized and ready to sell.
Since we’ve been in our house 10 years now, we’ve really outgrown it. While we loved the house when we bought it we never planned to stay here more than 4 or 5 years and didn’t think we’d be raising a family here. Now that time has passed, Kora & Logan are getting older and need their own rooms and honestly in this house it’s just not possible.
I have to say over the past 10 years, we’ve really settled in and accumulated a lot of stuff. We are also doing some remodeling so while that is very exciting, it’s displaced most of our closets temporarily. This means we have areas of the house that are a bit out of control.
Our house is a bungalow so our second floor has sloping walls. The area in the picture above would be an amazing walk-in closet if the wall/ceiling wasn’t in the way, as a result it’s sort of an odd storage space that I use for the kids outgrown clothes and keepsake school papers and projects.
Each year I do pull out the clothes and get them ready for our summer garage sale or a local PTA mom-to-mom sale. It leaves our living room looking like this.
My plan is to do something more productive and organized with this space. To make it easier to access everything and to make it look less like a free-for-all.
Speaking of free-for-alls and slanted walls, check out what we call “The Alcove.”
Isn’t it a cute room? It’s been so many things. A bedroom (which would be so great if you didn’t hit your head on the slanted ceiling every time you got out of bed), a play room, a sitting room, and now it’s my gift wrapping station.
I love my holiday ribbons, papers, bags, and bows and used to store them in our closets but now they are in the alcove. I kind of like them here because they are pretty and fun to look at and it makes it easier to find what you are looking for, however as you can see in the chaos of the holidays I sort of just started putting things up here without thoughts of organization.
This room could be a real seller for our house so I want to get it in great shape and restore it to it’s former cuteness. I also can’t wait to finally have my gift wrapping items as organized as my mom’s!
I also have a number of other projects that I plan on tackling as well. The next couple of weeks are going to be very busy but exciting around here thanks to my Brother P-Touch Labeler.
Honestly, I’ve never had a labeler before and I’m excited to see how using one will help me get the rooms mentioned above organized as well as tackle other projects around the house including:
Our Mudroom (or lack of one)
The Endless Piles Of Mail On Our Kitchen Counter
The Kids Art Buffet (It used to hold dishes and serving wear)
These are more of the areas around the house that are all essential to organize in order to get our house ready to sell. They are a bit daunting but they are also great spring cleaning projects that I can’t wait to tackle.
Now that you’ve seen the before pictures be sure to stay tuned because at the end of the month I’ll be sharing the after pictures and my thoughts on how the Brother P-Touch Labeler stood up to the challenge.
In the meantime be sure to visit the Brother Office Facebook Page for more conversation on organization and to check out posts from other bloggers who are using labelers to get their homes in order too.
I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Brother P-Touch and received a product sample to facilitate my review as well as a promotional item to thank me for my participation.
About Tired Mom Tésa
That’s a lot of work ahead of you! But I’m eager to see how it all comes out. By the way, I love your little alcove wrapping station!
We just moved a few weeks ago and went through the same thing. I never realized how much junk we’ve been holding onto :P It’s so much better and easire without all of it!
I have to fight my natural tendency to hang on to everything ‘just in case’. I have gotten better, simply because I like for my house to be uncluttered and organized. I still struggle with the basement, though. That is where all the kids extra toys, clothes and books are and it looks terrible.
I’m also in the process of organizing/spring cleaning. Little by little I’m making progress…3 closets done!
It is hard to keep organized with kids around. I love my storage totes. I label them with the size of clothing and they are ready for the garage sales.
We have many areas like this in our small house, that we bought 12 years ago and now have completely outgrown!! We are planning to sell this one and buy something bigger too!! A place for all the 4 year olds STUFF would be awesome!!
Our homeschool room gets out of hand at times and could really use some more organization, too.
Good luck with your move! Having everything labeled will make unpacking a lot easier on the other end.
I really need to do a good spring cleaning also!
Oyy I was just saying to hubby it time to clean the kids clothes out and see what needs to be donates and what needs to be trashed. I really like the idea of an PTA yard sale.
i have so much spring cleaning to do i dont even no were to begin with it lol
I think most of us busy families have piles like you have, so don’t feel bad! It can be overwhelming getting to all of it, too…so pace yourself and enjoy the excitement of preparing to move into a new home. I wish you success with the organizing, the selling, the buying and the move. All hard work, but exciting times, too!