I jumped on the Marie Kondo Tidying Up bandwagon.

I admit, I heard rumor about this Netflix show on cleaning up or tidying up or something up and thought "I should see what all the fuss is about." But then there just seemed to be other things to watch and I never revisited it. Then my cousin texted "Have you seen Tidying Up yet!?" Nope. It wasn't until she said "she has a way of folding that will change your life!" 

That little nugget was all I needed to look in to the show. Secretly I was already working up the motivation to clean out my closet. It was overflowing with old clothes, too many shoes (ok wait...that's not really possible. Maybe I should say too many shoes I don't wear and need to make room for new shoes I will!) 

You get the picture. 

So here we go - my Tidying Up experience.

I did NOT...

1. Greet my house. 
2. Thank my items as I tossed them. 
3. Empty my entire closet and drawers at one time. I would have just quit at that point. And we would have had to sleep on the floor. 

However I DID...

1. Hold each piece/item and ask if it brought me joy. That really seems to work! 
2. Organize by category. So that's why I did #3 instead of everything at one time. 
3. Emptied my shelves first and dealt with those. Then moved to hanging clothes then to my drawers. It was definitely a multi-day, multi-week process. 
4. Move on to other closets once mine was done.

This is what I started with...a hot mess. 

And because I hate putting up clothes because I have to force and shove them in my closet or drawers, I end up with this often times.

And I also had to store my scarves behind the bathroom door, which was bulky and a mess.

So once I decided to embark on this journey...because believe me, it was a journey and not one to be done when you only have a few hours...I went over to Bed, Bath & Beyond to see what might be useful. I knew I needed a new over the door shoe holder and a new shoe rack for the floor.  Then it was time to get to work. 

And now...

Do you hear the angels singing!? Do you see those empty hangers!? That means not only do I have extra hangers but I also have SPACE. It's glorious. And this new shoe rack for over the door holds shoes so much better...

I organized by color and style so that my wedges are in the floor rack, athletic shoes and boots on the left side of my floor and then everything else is in this shoe holder. So much easier to find my shoes! (don't judge the volume. I have issues.)

The shelves are also much better. I now have everything coordinated so it's easily seen and quick to grab...

Those clear containers holding my clutches are the other storage items I bought at BB&B. 

Take a look at my fabulously organized jeans. Thanks to the new folding method, I can now fit all my jeans in these recycled china boxes. 

Once my closet was complete, it was time to start my drawers. I had several bedside table drawers, 3 drawers from the tall dresser and 2 from the long dresser. Not to mention the scarves and a plethora of misc. in a basket behind the bathroom door. 

All done! 

And all those scarves? Turns out when you clean out, you have an extra drawer that they can fit in. 

I got rid of bags and bags and bags of old clothes. Some went to donation, some went to consignment and a lot went to trash. 

I can't tell you how much nicer it is to get dressed now. I can easily find everything - I feel more inspired by my clothes (maybe because I can find them now) - and I know what extra toiletries I have (apparently I'm set for deodorant in 2019!)

I've since moved on to a few other closets and have just two left. If you take nothing away but how to fold better, it's worth it! I feel so much more put together now. 

Now remind me of this when we have to tackle the attic this spring. I'm sure tears will be "springing" when that starts! 

A few things I learned from moving...

As you may know, last weekend we managed to move out of our house and in to a friend's house who is graciously letting us borrow it while he is out of town traveling for a few months. It's a beautiful house. We may become squatters. ha ha! So all of our belongings now look like this:

It's actually a bit more packed in now but we still have a small walkway if needed. The boys found it fascinating to see it all packed in. Once we close on our house and finish renovations we can finally move to our house (somewhere around mid-September).

Moving day was actually not a bad experience. Not pleasant but not bad. We had great friends to help us...

That's Chippers who came to help despite his injured thumb. A big thanks to all of you who helped move or watch the kids while we moved! Disregard the chair next to Chip. I actually bought two of them at an estate sale that morning for $35/chair. I couldn't help myself. I saw the sign. I had to stop. A little fabric and they will be super cute.

But I digress...there are a few things I've learned in the moving process...

1) Dogs and babies are dirty - had I not been pressed for time, exhausted and let's face it, embarrassed, I would have taken pictures of the filth that can pile up behind large pieces of furniture as well as the amount of small little spills that were on some of our walls. Apparently every time one of the boys threw their sippy cups in anger (which happens often) a small splattering landed somewhere. It took us 5hrs of hardcore cleaning last weekend to get the house cleaned.


2) I don't do windows. One of the few things the renters asked us to come back and do is wash the outside of the windows. When Daniel cleaned the eaves the week prior he forgot to rinse them as he was going so they had all kinds of spots on them. But then it also made me realize we've never washed our windows to begin with so they were probably pretty grimy. We tried a new product I have been dying to try:

It was surprisingly not hard to use. After attaching it to the hose, turn the switch to rinse and wet the windows. Then simply turn to switch to spray and douse the windows and let sit for a few seconds and then rinse again.

It certainly did the trick. In our next house we probably need to add this to the spring and fall cleaning schedule...as soon as I start a spring and fall cleaning schedule.


3) A clean cook I am not. When we had Cole my mom came to stay and she offered to clean the oven. Apparently it was filthy and self admittedly I had never cleaned it. I mean who thinks about that in the midst of cooking? And I certainly don't think about cleaning it any other time. Out of site - out of mind. So there it's sat uncleaned for the past 21 months. In fact the last time she came she said "Anna, I'm not cleaning your oven again." A hint? Did it work? Nope. Call it child selective hearing. I hear it's related to spousal selective hearing, mostly found in men.

Take a look at what I started with...

Guh-ross. You can see where I already started the cleaning process just to show how absolutely bad it was. I had no idea!

Don't let your oven intimidate you. A little help from this guy is all you need.

I sprayed it heavily and left it for a few hours while we went house shopping (more on that later). It was actually pretty easy to wipe it down once it soaked in. Although don't try to save any trees during this process. I learned quickly that paper towels were better than constantly rinsing a sponge. I used an entire roll! In the end it was sparkly and clean minus a few areas that were so baked on I think they needed to sit overnight.

I also took the time to replace the drip pans on the stove. They were also pretty dirty and it's much easier to replace them (for less than $20) than to clean them.

Again...adding this to the soon-to-be spring/fall cleaning list.

So if you're keeping track we now need to do the following in our new house...First and foremost start a quarterly cleaning list which would include the following:

• pull out all furniture and vacuum underneath
• wipe down all baseboards, door jams and doors to remove grimy hand prints
• clean ceiling fans
• clean oven (my mother will be so proud)
• wash windows inside and out

I'm sure there are others. In fact, I would welcome any suggestions on what you do/clean a few times a year that you think makes a huge difference. While I'm not planning on becoming a cleaning nazi, I certainly don't want to become piggy-pigerton.