Now is the time...

... to test my resolve.

I have not blogged much on this blog, but I have kept my commitment to not going to garage sales thus far.

Some of the other rules... not as much. But I am recommitting to not letting things come in without letting things go out. Also, I need to donate WAY more stuff. I did have a baby, so that's kind of an excuse. Kind of.

But the point is, I started this challenge last September which is right around the time garage sales start slowing down and it is now June. PRIME GARAGE SALE TIME. The time of year when every Friday and Saturday there is a garage sale on EVERY CORNER...

Now, one thing I have found these past few months is that people have garage sales or estate sales or moving sales all year long. I know this because I have seen them, because when there is something you are resolved to stay away from, temptation is sure to be in your face all the time. Every time I see the neon colored SALE sign or the cardboard or whatever, I can't stop myself from rubber necking. My heart races, but I keep on moving.

But the tough part starts now. Just this morning as I drove with my family through the sunny streets of our town, I couldn't help but think about the many sunny mornings I went garage sale-ing for fun. Happy memories of deals to be had... I only remember a few of the things that I bought.

It's also going to be tough because I had a baby in February. And she needs stuff. And I gave most of my old baby stuff away. And guess where you get the best deals on baby stuff? And guess how many garage sales around here have tons of baby stuff to hock? (If you guessed 90%, you're probably right).

So I just have to hang tight a little longer. 3 more months. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....

I did not get this dresser at a garage sale...

Yes it's been a while since I have posted. I have definitely been "nesting" lately, but nothing post worthy. I have been staying a way from garage sales (not too hard since it's winter) and getting rid of stuff. But with a new baby on the way, I did have a legitimate need for a dresser for the wee one. Not wanting to spend tons of money-- I picked up an old, but solid dresser from Value Village for $25. I almost always prefer used dressers because they tend to be cheaper than IKEA and definitely more solid and better crafted if you choose carefully.

I didn't take a before picture, but it was kind of a nasty off white color with these lovely little circa 1990's star shaped pulls. I didn't like them, plus they are spiky and hurt the hands:

I bought some new pulls at Home Depot for about 1.20 each. I spray painted them black:

I was in the process of painting my crib white, using enamel paint (about $10). So I used that to do some easy coats over the old paint on the dresser and got this lovely finished product:

So for an investment of about $40 and 30 minutes, I got a cute little dresser for baby.

De-Hoard Mini Project #3: Desk

I really shouldn't call this one a mini-project since anytime paper is involved we are in the midst of a major project... But technically since it's not a whole room... Anyhow, I cleaned our "desk" which was kind of a nightmare:

All clean:

Close up:

De-Hoard Mini Project #2: Dining Room

So I love my dining room. It's probably one of my favorite rooms in my house. It can be one of the easiest to keep clean since not much needs to be stored in there. However, because we eat in there, it gets messy pretty quickly and because it is the first room most people see in my house, keeping it tidy is kind of critical. As you can see from this picture, it isn't too bad...

But here's all the crap on top of my buffet:

The inside is worse, because in a quick clean up, everything goes into the drawer:

Here's the buffet when everything came out of the drawer:

But look what I found in there that I had forgotten about! Yep, same drawer...

I threw a bunch of stuff away, filed some, and reorganized. Here is my clean, lovely buffet ready for fall/Halloween:

And here's the clean dining room (complete with smiling children!):

Small Steps Count Too

You know those papers you never know what to do with? Or other stuff of a similar nature? A lot of mine ends up here. In what is supposed to be my phone docking station. (I got it as a Christmas gift and drilled a hole in the back so I could feed my charger cord through.) Yeah this is what it looked like:

But I cleaned it out. I did put the phone in it, but I can't take a picture using the phone while the phone is in there soo...

Yay, for baby steps!

De-Hoard Project #3: My Son the Hoarder.

There was an episode of Hoarders that I watched the other night, where they had an 8 year old boy who was a "hoarder". Now, I put that in quotes because I really think all kids can/are hoarders if you let them be. Most aren't naturally tidy. Most like to collect and keep the weirdest stuff. If you take a toy that they rarely play with and offer to toss it, it suddenly becomes more interesting to them. So, if I want to get rid of my kids stuff, I sometimes enlist their help, but often I just trash what they won't miss behind their backs.

So this kid on the show-- they start really trying to get him to part with stuff and he is... struggling. Screaming, crying, refusing to get rid of anything. Does that make him a hoarder? Well his mom was a hoarder and I just sort of think she didn't make him get rid of anything, hence his behavior came from conditioning. (If I cry, Mom empathizes and doesn't make me do it...) Anyway. I was watching thinking, seriously? Clean it out while he's gone and he will deal! Guess what they did? Guess how it worked? He left, they cleaned, he returned and was FINE.

This is really a long introduction for me to say that I don't typically clean my kids' rooms. I usually leave it up to my husband to help my kids, because I get frustrated with their lack of co-operation. My mom used to come in and clean my room a lot, which was nice, but didn't really help me learn to do it myself and I want my children to be able to independently take care of their own things.

However, I knew there was some de-hoarding to be done in my son's room and so I tackled the task on my own, while he was away at school.

The closet has a lot of baby stuff in it, and also other people's stuff, so it was kind of critical for me to deal with and not my seven year old. I will say that I planned to go through two bins in there full of baby stuff, but couldn't get through it. I was tired and since I don't know if our baby-to-be is a boy or girl, I just left it be.

This to me was just funny. He had tons of school work papers stacked up on his desk, and underneath I found an arsenal of plastic guns. Apparently they could not shoot through the clutter. I did not throw these away, but I put them in a jar.

Forgive the blur-- camera phone. But you can see the desk is cleared.

Not an amazing closet, but better than before...

Books on the bookshelf!

He came home after school while the bins of garbage and giveaway were still in his room and in spite of that says, "I really love what you did with my room mom." He doesn't have a clue about the stuff I tossed.

De-Hoard Project #2: Using my display case

When I did my Mary Kay de-cluttering, I cleared a bunch of MK product out of a lovely display case in my living room so the product could live with the rest of the product in the closet. So then I was left with an empty case needing to be filled...

My plan was to take my Barbie Doll Collection from my bedroom closet and put it in the top half of the case and to put the bottom half of the case also to good use.

This basket of stuff was sitting in my "fancy" room holding my Musikgarten teaching materials. I tended to toss stuff in there whenever and it, and it worked out... okay, but I have four more classes this year than I did last year and I have more teacher books, etc...

Of course, this was not the only problem in my "room-that-is-to-be-kept-clean-at-all-times."

It didn't look terrible, but there was some crap in it that didn't belong...

All in all I purged from the room: one bag of " doesn't belong in here", one box of garbage and one box of give away, which I forgot to upload the pictures of. Amongst the giveaways and trash? Sheet music, books and magazines. But in the bottom of my display case, I did this with my MG materials:

And my Barbies that have been in a box for months now had a place to shine:

And the room looked like this when it was done:

Yay!