Bathrooms

Some people claim to be cluttery, but still be *clean*. (I use that line all the time.) That just isn't possible in a bathroom. The clutter hides the dirt, grime, mold and cooties so that you don't even know it's there. (Has the word "cooties" actually ever been printed in the Estes Park News?) Clutter is a breeding ground for yuckiness.  

The first goal with the bathroom is to have nothing on the surfaces. Clutter makes surfaces difficult to clean effectively. Bare surfaces will make scrubbing down the bathroom that much quicker, easier and convenient.

Everything else needs to be able to fit under your sinks or in your cabinets and drawers. You can also add shelving to the walls or above the toilet if you are lacking in storage.

Purging items from our bathrooms should be pretty easy if we follow these rules:

• Purge all items that are not going to be used. That sounds pretty obvious, but I am guilty of having a lot of these. I have that "special" cucumber-kiwi lotion. It was expensive. Too special to use everday, and yet so special that I never got the chance to use it. I think it's safe to say it'll never get used. It's too old to use now, anyway, and I just need to purge it.

It's best to get rid of any products that haven't been used in six months, even if they're still unopened. If it's really something you need further down the line, you'll replace it. Let's face it - hair gel is just really not that expensive. But, chances are that you won't feel the need to replace it if you're not using it already.

• If it's old, purge it. The FDA requires that all beauty products have an expiration date, but does not require the date to be printed on the package. Lotions and creams are only good for about a year. Perfume is only good for three years. Cosmetics are typically only good for six months, except mascara which is only good for two to four months. Toothbrushes are only good for six months. Visit the House Purge Web site for a more detailed list of product shelf lives.

• Medicine cabinets are clutter magnets. Purge any medications that are expired. Expired medications can be ineffective or even toxic. Purge any medications for ailments you no longer have. If you have to get on the Internet and look up what an old presciption is actually used for, (Guilty!), it's a safe bet that it can be purged. Organize the cabinet with like medicines kept together. I am notorious for thinking we have no Children's Tylenol, so I stock up whenever I'm at the store. When I clean out the medicine cabinet, I find that I have four or five bottles of that same medicine. If the cabinet was organized properly, I'd save myself a lot of money on Children's Tylenol! I'd save myself a lot of cabinet space, too.

There are a couple different ways to organize the bathroom. One way is to give each person a "section". A section can be a drawer, a cabinet, or a drawer in a cabinet. (I have those plastic organization drawers that you can get at Target all over my house, including under the bathroom sinks. They're wonderful. I also labeled mine with my label maker. Label makers are even more wonderful.) One of the benefits to giving each person a section is that many times people have their own set of beauty supplies and toiletries. You can even give each person their own basket to hold the supplies. If you're short on bathroom space, people can carry their "Bathroom Basket" to and from their bedrooms. This could be a good way to get your teenager prepared for dorm life.

The other way is to organize it by zones. A hair product and supply zone, a cosmetic zone, a cleaning supply zone, a first aid zone, and a zone for whatever else you feel you need to keep in your bathroom. Keeping like things together works well when most of the users of that bathroom share those items.

Master Bedroom - The Finale

Our master bedroom is now complete, and does it feel good.

I've never considered us DIRTY folk, per se, just cluttery folk. But, the truth is, if you have a lot of clutter, you have a lot of dirt hiding under, on, and in the cracks of your clutter.

As the final step in perfecting our master bedroom, I gave it a good spring cleaning. I pulled out all furniture from the wall, and dusted and washed underneath and behind. We have hardwood floors, and it's just gross how dust, lint, dog hair and pilling accumulate.

I don't believe under our bed has been cleaned in, well, I dunno... years? Many years? EVER?

We keep very few items under there, but I noticed there were three baby pacifiers. Our current baby doesn't use pacifiers, which means they were Ryan's, and possibly even Aaron. YUCK! So, it's been AT LEAST four years since we've cleaned out under there.

I also found.... now don't judge me, it takes a lot of guts to admit this.... a DIAPER under the bed. A USED diaper. Not poop, just pee. Although it was dried out. Because it was old. Probably not from the current baby, either.

All of this dusting and cleaning the master bedroom in the past two or three weeks has actually given me HAYFEVER! I go in our room at night, and start wheezing, something I only do with the most severe pollen in the air. I'm pretty sure our bedroom air was borderline toxic, and looking back I realize I should have worn a HazMat suit when I cleaned it.

I'll post photos soon of our new sparkly, purged bedroom.

My Closet

I have spent the last two days purging my own small closet. I am amazed about some of the things I found in there, and did it ever feel good to purge those things. Some of the items I'd been keeping all these years, because I'd already kept them for so long, might as well keep on keeping them. What a ridiculous reason to keep something!

Here's the first rule: If it doesn't fit you right this minute, if it doesn't flatter you, if you don't like it, or if you never wear it, PURGE IT!

As part of this process, I tried on every single article of clothing I own. It doesn't matter what the size is on the tag - some things look good on me and some don't. Some things I've kept in the past because they fit me, but I don't actually ever leave the house in them. Those things have now been purged. Phew!

We all have those clothes that are a couple sizes too small that we hope to fit into again someday. Would you believe I have size 12 - 22 in my closet?? I am a tall girl, and getting down to a 12 again is pretty unlikely after having three kids. And, without having any more 80-pound pregnancies, getting up to a size 22 again is also highly unlikely. Thank God. If I ever do get down to my college size again, I tell you what - I've earned myself a whole new wardrobe - one that's actually currently in style! And the big-girl size? Those were for just in case I "let myself go". Well, if I don't have a wardrobe that allows for some weight gain, then gaining weight isn't an option! So, if it doesn't fit you right this minute, purge it. I did.

I ended up purging several suits from my "corporate" days, as well. As a stay-at-home mom living in the mountains, I just don't have much need for suits anymore. So why have I kept them all these years? By the time I'm ready to go back to work, I'll probably need to get a suit that's not so outdated. But, what would be nicer still is to work a job that doesn't require a suit in the first place! I did keep my FAVORITE suit for job interviews and dinner with the President.

The second rule to follow when purging your clothes:  You can only keep what you have room to keep.

Not everyone, myself included, was blessed with a gigantic walk-in closet. Therefore, I simply cannot own as many clothes as someone with a bigger closet than mine. It's much more economical to get rid of stuff than it is to build a bigger closet.

I especially had to consider this rule when purging my shoes. I do not consider myself a fanatical collector of shoes. Going into this project, I decided to only keep five pairs - hiking boots, dress shoes, sandals, gym shoes, and my favorite trail runners. Well, I'm human, and I ended up keeping 14 pairs of shoes. (Afterall, you can't just have one pair of dress shoes - you need black ones, brown ones, white ones, sassy ones, conservative ones... And my friends are probably laughing right now, thinking, "Kristen owns dress shoes?")

I decided that to keep my closet managable, I could only have as many pairs as would fit around the perimeter of my 5'x5' closet. I had to narrow it down to 14 pairs. (Truly, did I still need that pair of Vans skateboarding shoes from high school? How embarassing! Did I really think those would ever again be in style again for my current demographic?) As long as I live in this house with this closet, I will not be able to own 15 pairs of shoes. When one pair comes into the house, one pair will have to leave the house. So, I whittled until I got down to 14 pairs, and managed to purge 21 pairs in the process!

Just to accentuate my day's accomplishments, I weighed the bags of clothes I'm purging from my closet, alone, and I am purging 102.6 pounds! To think - that just came from my closet! Not my dresser, not Josh's closet, not Josh's dresser, and not any of the kids' clothes! I have to say, losing house-weight feels just about as great as losing body-weight. I'm proud of every pound.

Now, doesn't it feel good to go into your closet, to be able to pull out the first outfit you touch, and know that it's a perfect fit?

Room By Room

This page will give specific advice on each room of the house, and go into details about what I encountered, and what I recommend. I also plan to post before and after pictures here.

Master Bedroom

The first room we're going to do is the Master Bedroom.  And, as I mentioned previously, the first sub-section of that room will be the clothes - closets, floor, dressers.

Peter Walsh, author of "It's All Too Much" and host of the TV Show "Clean Sweep" has a recommendation when you purge. Decide what the purpose of a room is. Make a list of all the things that room is to you. Also, make a list of all the things it is not. When you are holding something in your hand and asking, "Should I keep this?", it's easy to go back to your list of what you envision for that room.

I made worksheets to help Josh and I figure out exactly what we wanted out of each space in our house.

What do we want out of our master bedroom?

We want it to feel ROMANTIC. When you're the parents of three young stinkers, very little in the house can seem "romantic". But our bedroom CAN be. We want it to be clean, smelling good, crisp, beautiful and fairly stark. We want it to feel like a nice hotel room. We want to feel the way we feel in a nice hotel room.  ;-)  We want soft music, candles, incense. We want to be able to comfortably read in bed. (We can't now -  we don't have enough pillows, and the lighting is bad.) We both have always been in agreement that a bedroom is not the place for TV or video games. We've also agreed that our bedroom is not a place for the kids to play, so we don't have their toys to contend with in there. We also don't think the bedroom should be an office. The bedroom should be a sanctuary - the one place we can go to escape everything else in life.

But right now our bedroom is UGLY. It has yucky old wallpaper that came with the house. It has no color scheme. No time or money has gone into the decor. All of the furniture is an eclectic mix. I have random pictures and things hanging on the wall, many of which carry no special meaning to either of us. STUFF. The dog sleeps in our room, where we have hardwood floors, and I'm certain there's an unhealthy amount of dog hair and dander under the bed. Our room is not stark, it's cluttered. Our room is not clean, it's covered in dog hair and dust. Our room is not romantic. It's a mess. And it's ugly. It's a room that we're anxious to leave in the morning. We don't linger in bed. Let's get out of this room! I want a bed and a room so comfortable that I don't want to leave it in the morning.

The Closets

The biggest problem in our room is CLOTHES. Everywhere there are clothes. There's not enough room in my dresser for my folded clothes, so I pile the clean clothes on a chest. There's not enough room in Josh's dresser for his clean clothes, so they're piled on top of his dresser. Josh hangs his clothes at the end of the day on the stair railing? Are they clean? Are they dirty? I have no idea. My closet is so full that I have the hanging clothes I actually wear piled at the door of the closet. It's really insane. I have full wardrobes for sizes 10 - 20... is that insane? And yet, I feel like I wear the same clothes every day. My favorite jeans, my favorite workout pants, my favorite t-shirt, my favorite pull-over. It's hard to imagine that I have much more than that. And don't get me started on all the shoes I don't wear!

So, we're starting with the master bedroom. Josh and I's sanctuary is priority one right now. Plus, once we have it purged, it's an easy room for us to close the door and keep the kids out. (Sometimes when I'm trying to get a project completed, it seems room destruction is all the kids can find to do to keep themselves entertained.)

So, in order for me to get the master bedroom in working order, I have to have a place to put my clothes. And, to have a place to put my clothes means I'll have to purge most of them. I'll talk about the basics of a closet purge in my next post.

My Closet

The "first room" I'm going to tackle will be my closet in my bedroom. I've had three babies in the last six years, and I have clothes in my closet ranging from size 10 - 22. (Ok, I probably don't have any 10s anymore, but I know I have 12s.)

I really can't do anything else in my room or laundry room until I have a place to put STUFF. With full wardrobes in five different sizes pouring out of my closet and dresser, I think this will be a good, easy place to start. I'll keep you posted.