Tidy Home Tuesday - Week 7: The Nursery/2nd Bedroom

And by Tuesday, I of course mean Wednesday Thursday!  Gah! 

This week's assignment is The 2nd Bedroom, which happens to be Jack's room in our house. 

Although I did get this task accomplished on Tuesday, but by the time I finished it was pretty late in the evening and then I slacked on getting the "after" pics taken so... yeah. 

Understandably so, Jack's room was lovingly set up during my pregnancy and hasn't had much organization since!  It's a very functional space which has gotten very disorganized because we only seem to put more stuff in it!  It was due for some TLC.

Here's a look at before:

Basically, just a whole bunch of disorganization!

Let's get started!

Step 1:  De-clutter

First, I started by sorting through clothes.  It was past time to pack up outgrown clothes for storage to make room for new clothes that fit.  What is not pictured is that Jack's stuff has been living in a laundry basket since before Christmas because his drawers were filled with outgrown items.  Not a good idea. 

I had been putting it off sorting through everything because I needed bins to put the old stuff in.  We finally picked up some bins on sale (not without trouble, HATE K-mart... more than Wal-mart!  Ugh!) for $3.99 each for 18-gallon tubs.  Not bad! 

So, I sorted through everything.  Packed up outgrown items (*tear*) into a storage tub and filled his drawers with things the he can actually wear, plus a drawer of things that he will be growing into shortly.  Pretty big task, but I'm so glad it's done!  At least for now...

I then rearraged some things so I could actually put his books on his bookshelf, novel idea, and I found places in his closet for more things that he has outgrown, like the boppy.  We used that thing everyday from the time he was born.  I was really sad to pack up things like that! 

And I pulled my poor husband into the room to help me play with the furniture to see if there was a better, more funtional arrangement.  After 20 minutes of his moving things around I found that there's a reason we put stuff where we did in the first place because it was the best arrangement for his small room. 

Step 2:  Clean

Thankfully, after spending most of the day alternating between packing things up and chasing a mobile baby whose new favorite game is called GET INTO EVERYTHING!  All the cleaning that needed done was some vacuuming and dusting, which I actually saved for today. 


And here's after!

It looks sooooo much better now that everything has a place!



My goals for keeping Jack's room clean and tidy:

Daily:  Put things in their place!  Everything has a home now, I need to keep it that way! 

Bi-weekly:  Change the sheets.  (But really, Jack's sheets get changed more often than this anyway out of necessity.)

Monthly:  Vacuum and dust.

Quarterly/Semi-annually:  Sort through clothes and pack up things that have been outgrown.  Right now, this needs to be done quarterly, but I believe that his growth is supposed to slow down soon as he's approaching 1-year so it will probably need to be done on a semi-annual basis, but maybe not... because the seasons will change... Hmm... I guess I'll figure this out when we get there! 


Whew!  I'm finally done with my self-imposed cleaning challenge!  Next week, I'll post an update on how I've been doing keeping up with everything and the chores that I have listed on my chart!