projects in process

I've been busy this week.  It's been good for me to keep busy.
We've been purging big time around here.
Spurred on by having had several foster kids -babies, coming without any belongings with them- without much break last year in the midst of an already busy life... our storage space was out of control.  Kids' clothes stored away, needing to be dug into at a moment's notice, isn't too convenient when it hasn't been sorted in the past four years or so after already being rifled through for other friendly borrowers (and returners.  That's where it goes wrong... when it's returned I just blindly threw it in there and closed the door). 
Factor in a mess of storage tubs for holiday stuff and boy... It was all a wreck.

I sent my dad up to our storage space (unfinished walk in "attic" space that runs alongside our upstairs guest room over the garage) last week to bring down our extra chairs for the New Years Dinner... he could only find three of the four -and swore there wasn't a fourth up there-, that's how bad the storage area was. (The last chair was up there- Ryan dug it out!)

Anyway.
In trying to put away our Christmas stuff, I knew I couldn't get it back in there without a major attack on our "stuff". 
I basically spent two or whole days sorting baby and kid clothes... and whittling them down to bare necessities.  One tub of girl, one tub of boy, for each age; 0-12mo, 12-24mo, 2's, 3/4's, 5-8, 8-10. Plus a tub of shoes for each and a tub of coats, jackets and hats. And a box of bottles, bouncy seat, etc.
Then I whittled down my miscellaneous/partially never unpacked collection of frames and random decor down to two small tubs of frames (I couldn't get rid of all of them; I have a plans for the walls in the dining room!) and one box of candleholders, vases, lamps and the like.
Craft stuff.  Man, oh man.  There were a few LARGE boxes of random craft and sewing stuff... most stuff I hadn't touched in years.  I was ruthless and ended up with one small tub of stuff left.  Which is mostly fluff/stuffing and fabric.

Which left us with five LARGE boxes (the largest cube in the moving box size) of clothes and one box of decor to donate and then probably half a dozen bags/boxes of garbage... too badly stained or worn clothes, broken/outgrown toys, broken frames and/or glass, packing paper from things that had never been unpacked (possibly from two moves ago).  It was crazy.  And amazing to think it all even fit in there.

So now we have those dozen or so large tubs of clothes, a dozen or so tubs of holiday stuff, four boxes of decor and crafts, a small set of drawers of cards/schoolwork/art stuffs for keepsakes, a dollbed and rocking horse not in use (but family heirlooms not able to get rid of) a handful of boxfans, four dining room chairs and all of our luggage... and still plenty of, a crazy amount really, of space in there.
Ah, feels good.
And it's nice because we're hoping to somewhat finish that space off this spring... divide it up into storage space and an actual "closet" space so that bedroom (which is actually technically a bonus room/rec room) can actually be counted as a bedroom.
Now we have plenty of room to work in there.

Thinking about painting that bedroom this weekend.
(the one room in the whole house we haven't painted since we bought the house)

We also (well, Ryan) simultaneously started working on a couple of other storage areas... there's a nice sized walk-thru closet between our bedroom and the little one next to it (think nursery or office) and we use it for a storage closet rather than as the other half of our his/hers pair of closets. We keep boxes of books, yearbooks, office files, office supplies, photos, etc in there.  And it gets a little out of hand from time to time.
Ryan is kind of an electronics hoarder... as in, he just doesn't get rid of them when we don't need them anymore.  We still had our last computer and monitor in there (while we replaced them in May of 2011) and there are at least two laptops (that both had issues with power sources, never got them fixed, and have yet to get any info off of them we might need before getting rid of them).  Also two very large boxes of miscellaneous cords, cables, chargers and the like.  A crazy mess of cords and cables.  And an alarm clock or old cordless phone thrown in there for good measure.

So I finally yesterday completely finished up the guest room/attic storage area, and today I am moving on to unburying the baby's room (kids' room?)(green room?) (still getting used to calling it something other than "the office" since we moved the computer out last summer and have a crib and twin bed in there), weeding through all of our office paraphernalia.

And then there's the garage. :)

It feels good to get rid of stuff and lighten your load though, doesn't it??
And I'm more motivated because as I work, I come up with other ideas and home projects I'm excited about that I want to do when I'm done with the dirty work.... but don't tell Ryan that! ;)

I've been really good though... usually it's way too easy for me to get distracted with an idea or a want and ditch the physical, just gotta get it done work, mid-job, to jump into an idea or new project.  But I've stayed the course this time.  So far...