This is one of the shelves in Hailey’s playroom before.  There are two rows with bins that were just filled with a variety of toys and the bottom shelf has books.

This is another shelf with toys on the first two shelves and books on the bottom shelf.

And this is one of the shelves afterwards.  I organized all of the toys into bins and then took pictures of what was in each bin.  Then I used contact paper and put the pictures of what belongs in each bin on the front of the bins.  This will hopefully make clean up easier- if Hailey knows where everything goes she can put it away easier.  I forgot to take a picture of her other shelf but it looks similar to this one.

It’s a mess!  Part of the problem is that Hailey constantly takes books out and I don’t consistently make her put them away.  Another problem is that the bins on the shelf have all sorts of stuff thrown in them.  I’m going to organize them- Barbies in one, Legos in another, etc. Then I’ll take pictures of what is in each one and put the picture on the bin.  That should make clean up easier since Hailey will know where to put things.

I started working on it this evening and it looks much better.  But I am going to have to finish the bins and pictures tomorrow.  I’ll be back with after pictures.

In the above picture you can probably see that the bins on the shelves are still a mess.  I actually did some more work getting those organized.  I dumped everything out and sorted and put away the toys.  Then I took pictures of the toys in each bin and then put a picture on the bin of the toys that are in the bin.  This should make it a lot easier to clean up the toys since Hailey will know where to put the toys.  I’ll post some pictures of those after shots later.

First up- painting- we (and by we- I mean Rich, my mom, my dad and Brooke) painted the living room, dining room, hall, foyer, and Brooke’s room.  That is done and I should have pictures to show but I don’t.  I have before and during pictures, but no after.  The big project has been doing the hardwood floors- my dad and Rich have worked really hard to take the carpet out and sand the floors in the dining room and the our bedroom.  That isn’t done yet.  It takes a while for each coat of polyurethane to dry so this is a long process.  We plan to shampoo the carpets next and then finally move in.

So0- that’s what we’ve been up to!  Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom to see what everyone else has been tackling.

This is Rich’s work bench area before.

And after.

And the major tackle this week was completed by Rich and my Dad.  My parents came to visit us over the weekend and helped us get all sorts of things taken care of.  This was the biggest project:

This is the floor of our foyer.

There were  several problem areas- I’ve pointed out a few of them to you.

They ripped the old floor out.

And here is the new floor.

We have everything ready and our house will be going up for sale this week.  Now we just have to keep our house clean all of the time with a 2 year old.  That will be an everyday tackle!

Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom to see more tackles.

First up- the laundry area.  Not too bad.  Just some boxes that I packed up from some closets.  But the boxes needed to be taken care of. 

Afterwards- the boxes are all gone.

Next- my freezer has been growing some boxes and odds and ends and I didn’t know where else to put them.

All taken care of.

A messy storage shelf.

Almost all cleaned off.

A messy corner of stuff that “I will take care of later.”

“Later” has finally come and it is cleaned up.

Ahhh- yes- I saved the worst for last.  This is a shelf of stuff I used when I was in college- books and notes and lesson plans, etc.  As well as materials I used while I was teaching, teaching materials that have been given to me and things I am using to teach Hailey.  This has been bothering me for months.

Much better!

This was definitely my biggest tackle in preparing our house.  I didn’t want potential buyers to see all of that messy clutter.  I think we (Rich) will take the storage shelves completely down to make the storage area look nice and open.  The rest of our house is in pretty good shape and we are almost ready to sell!

Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom to see what everyone else is tackling this week.

Before

Hailey helping to put the tree back into the box.

Vacuuming the area

All done

Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom to see what everyone else is tackling.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

So there you have my tackle for this week, a day late.

I started with our spare bedroom.  Since we don’t use this bedroom it always ends up with stuff just getting stuck in there.  I usually keep on top of it by straightening it up every week or so.  But before Christmas it got messy and then I was sick and then we weren’t home, and then Hailey had pneumonia, and so on… It’s gotten really bad.

The bed has bags of clothes that need to be put away in that rubbermaid container.  Plus some random boxes, wrapping paper and other random items.

I usually use the desk to put craft supplies for the activities I have planned for each week.  But the stuff has been piling up since before Christmas and I hadn’t put away the stuff I had already used.  There are boxes of stuff that I have already packed and boxes I used for wrapping Christmas presents.

This side of the room isn’t too bad but still needs to be straightened up.

All straightened up.

Looks very empty.

All done.

This room is all done- it looks empty because things have taken off the walls and packed up.  I won’t be doing that in other places- but since we don’t use this room I thought I’d get it all done.

Stop by 5 Minute for Mom to see what everyone else is tackling.

I realize that Christmas was two and a half weeks ago… but I still haven’t put away all of Hailey’s new toys.  Since we were leaving the day after Christmas to go out of town the new presents that came from Santa stayed under the tree.  When we got home on the 5th we had more presents from other relatives to add to Hailey’s collection.  Last week for Thursday Thirteen one of my goals was to put away SOME of Hailey’s new toys.  And I did get quite a bit done.  But there was still a lot left to do.  And since I haven’t been feeling very good it hasn’t been a priority of mine to get everything put away.  But I just can’t take it anymore.

This is the living room yesterday morning.

Another view of the living room.  I know you can’t really tell but there is quite a bit of stuff still hidden under the tree too.

By evening time I had made some progress.

The end result- for now.  There are still a few toys that need to find new homes.

Another view of the end result- with Hailey waiting with a handful of books for me to read to her.

Don’t even ask me when I’m tackling the Christmas tree.  That won’t happen until sometime in February- at the earliest!

Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom to see what everyone else is tackling.