Even though I didn’t get back to real life until January 4th I still decided to take on the January Cure hosted by Apartment Therapy. The cure started January 1st which meant I was four-day behind from the get go, but I was so pleased with the results last year,and badly in need of some organization this year, I decided it was not something I could miss. Since we just moved into our house in August lots of things are still not as they should be. Although things are put away, I put off getting them organized until later. Well, “later” is now and I have a ton of work to do.
Because I was so behind, This weekend was a whirl wind of catch up work to get this house in order. Here are the tasks for week of the cure that I crammed into the last three days.
Assignment 1: Buy flowers
Check out the photo at the top of this post, I totally got that one!
And then, do some hard work. Vacuum the rugs and clean ALL the floors.
Okay so this one really sucked because I hate doing floors but that also means it really needs to be done. The bedrooms are carpeted so they got a good vacuum but the kitchen needed a total scrub down. Sweep, mop, scrubbing on my hands and knees(Fun!) I admit, as much as I hate doing floors I love seeing the results.
Assignment 2: Make a list of projects
Grab something to make notes on. Set aside an hour or so to do a walk through of your home and write down any trouble spots as you move through each room. It’s easiest to organize your list by room
Guys this list is long because I ALWAYS have things I want to get done. Writing them down on a single list will be a great way to help me get them accomplished one at a time. If I have thirty minutes to spare or a whole day I can run down my list and try to accomplish at least one thing.
Day 3: Clean and Organize Your Pantry
I don’t have a pantry but rather a bank of cabinets where we store all our dry goods. This is not the best arrangement but a little organization has definitely made things look and work a lot better.
Assignment 4: Set up an out box
I always have an out box, mostly just a cardboard box in the garage to toss things that need to be donated but the January Cure out box has a few more rules.
OUTBOX RULES
1. Anything can go in the Outbox
2. The Outbox is allowed to get messy
3. Everything must stay in the Outbox for at least one week
4. After that time you have several choices
- Take anything back out
- Leave anything you are undecided about for one more week
- Dispose of the rest by moving to the recycling bin or giveaway pile
Assignment 5: One Small Step at a Time
Choose a drawer anywhere in the house and clear it out.
I have a dresser that we used in Germany especially for hats gloves and scarves, not much need for them here in South Carolina, but some I will keep just in case. Right now they are all stuffed into one drawer all mixed up. The scarves are mostly fashionable not for warmth so they need to be sorted and folded along with tossing single gloves and hats that are now too childish for my “Big Kids.” It didn’t take long to pull everything out to sort through it, now the hats, scarves and gloves are each separated into their own drawers and a nice pile is being added to the out box.
And since all my Christmas wrapping paper was piled on the top of this dresser, I took a few minutes to organize that as well. It fits perfectly into the side compartment of my new/old secretary.
Assignment 6: Kitchen – Choose an “inside or out” track and get started.
To Get Your Kitchen Organized on the Inside clean out fridges cabinet, and drawer OR for Outside clear counters clean all surfaces including cabinets appliances and trash can
Since I was already cleaning out the “pantry” cabinets I decided to keep going and do the “inside” cleaning. The previous renters had installed gripping shelf liners into all the drawers and cabinets that make it very difficult to slide things around in the cabinets, it completely drives me CRAZY. As part of this assignment I am removing all the old shelf liners and replacing them with a pretty contact paper. I am not quite finished but even just starting makes me so happy.
And as always for the weekend…buy flowers
At the end of the week I still had fresh flowers since I didn’t buy the first ones until Wednesday, but who doesn’t want more flowers? Or maybe I’ll splurge on a houseplant instead.
