I prefer to start the “spring cleaning” process during winter break and at the beginning of the new year as opposed to the Spring-time. During winter break you have some downtime from not having school and after-school activities. It’s also good to include your kids on this chore. There’s no reason this dreaded task should only fall onto us Moms. After Christmas, I also get overwhelmed with the sight of toys everywhere.
My process of getting started is pretty simple. I do a walk-through of our home. I carry a notepad on a clipboard and if an area needs to be cleaned out or reorganized, I write the name of the room and below I make a checkbox and what needs to be done.
Side note: I need to get better at remembering to take before pictures but I do have some to show you. This post is a little personal for me because I am exposing and sharing the insides of drawers and cabinets in our home, so please be kind š
Another Side note: When I organize each space, I’m not a perfectionist about the visual aspect. It’s more from a thought process of: does every item belong in here and do we use/need everything in this space? If I can make it pleasing to the eye then I do it. If the area needs a container or a specific organizer I will purchase it but I don’t overdo it on buying things to organize a space. My main goal is to make areas functional and for everything to have a home to return back to.
Let’s get started….My bedroom desk is a collecting area for receipts, sports pictures and a holding area of items I need to tend to or return. It is an area I need to frequently clean out for it to look nice.
Our hallway cabinets are used to store our cold medicine (high up so kids can’t reach) and extra items that we use regularly. There are two types of people, the ones that go and purchase something after they run out of it or the person that already has it on hand for when they run out of it. You can probably guess which person I am, lol. The planner in me is always ready for when we run out, haha.
I store the medicine in cute photo boxes 
All the extra things we have on hand to use when we run out
Luke needed to reorganize the shelves in his closet. He was in charge of doing this himself and he did a nice job.
The Playroom needed a lot of work. The toy cubbies needed to be cleaned out and toys put back in the appropriately labeled bins. I purchased them from Ikea and they can be found HERE. Here is the final look at the boy’s toy bin storage:
When we moved into our home 6 years ago, I had all the closets redone. The playroom closet had so much nice storage that I filled it with all the stuff we had but didn’t take the time to actually clean out and sort through it. This had been a dreaded task for me to tackle and I do have the before pictures.
This closet is in the playroom:
I needed to organize all the pictures that we had before storing on our computer was possible 
I was reorganizing all the shelves 
What a MESS! 
Yikes, so messy during the cleanout process
Now for the after pictures…this took me a few sessions to get it organized and functional but it now makes me so happy that I finally completed it, YAY!!
Awe, so much better!
I use to be a big scrapbooker so those needed a shelf and of course a couple shelves for kids games and craft supplies 
These holders are great for grouping items and then labeling the container, you can find them HERE
There is 4-drawer storage and here is how I organized each drawer:
Ribbon to gift wrap 
Random Items, labels, banners, envelopes, past employment stuff 
Old planners, checks, calculators (maybe I don’t need to keep these, lol) 
Top drawer: all the office supplies. These desk organizers are good to use.
We have four large drawers below the shelves and here is how I organized them:
All the Christmas gift wrapping supplies 
Extra red albums to hold xmas cards, folders, misc. items 
Tech boxes for items to resell when we are done with them, old school CD/disks & misc. items 
Tissue paper, boxes, small bags, etc for gift wrapping
The back wall shelves are finally more functional
All the pictures organized into photo boxes 
Long containers are great to store wrapping paper. You can find them HERE 
Long containers are also great to store flowers & greenery not in use 
Gift bags, boxes & flowers I use at xmas time 
Thank you cards, file folders and that middle holder has labels & dividers 
Finally took books out of boxes because we don’t have a bookshelf
Ahh, all clean! 
You can find the Keepsake Portfolios at Lakeshore Learning HERE
I didn’t want to make this post too long because I had so many areas to clean out this year. The next post will be on the downstairs cleanout.
My motivation for sharing this with you is to encourage you to make that cleanout/organize list. Each week when you have pockets of downtime start tackling the list and in a month’s time, you will have your home cleaned out and looking great for the start of the new year.
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