29 Day Organizing Challenge: Day 10 Update

I can't believe it's already time for the ten-day update. This is going by faster than I thought. I had originally planned to do a little something every day, but it hasn't quite turned out that way.

On February 1, I went through a mail organizer that was filled to the brim with random paperwork.

Uh...that's about it.

It's not that I wasn't planning to do other things, but furniture needed to be moved, curtains had to be bought, things needed to be spray painted. I felt like I couldn't start until I had some nice weather so I could spray paint. I also needed a big chunk of time during which I could clear out the furniture so I could move it around. That wasn't happening.

I have gotten some little things accomplished.

On February 3, my friends came over and gave me some great ideas. That entailed 3 adults and 3 kids climbing all over each other in the room. That was interesting.

Remember that mail organizer I organized? On February 4, I transformed it from this:

to this:

I also moved it to the entrance and stashed it with envelopes, stamps and return address labels (all in the same place. That was a tip from my genius friend). It also holds a notepad with pen for grocery lists, and business cards I collect.


I made 2 burlap-covered cereal boxes to hold some of my paperwork. I'll add a tutorial for these soon. They were free, and I love the way they turned out! I have to make more to fill up the whole shelf.

While my friends, the kids and I were hanging out in the room last Friday, the blankets came off the windows. And then I saw: I actually do have curtains in the room! I had completely forgotten. I still need something to block the light. On Saturday, I bought some light-blocking curtain liners at Wal-mart, but they were too small. Great idea, but I need something that fits. I don't want to have to make new curtains, and I don't want to have to install the kind of shades that roll down. I'm looking for easy. And cheap. But that means I'm still looking.

Slowly but surely, I'm tackling the room. I pulled all my stationery out of the armoire and added most of the cards to the $5 box of multi-use cards I bought at Office Max (which has the cards organized by type). I pulled out some computer paper and put it where I really use it--next to my printer in the living room.

See that set of orange drawers on the middle shelf?

It now holds papers here:

Now I don't have to run across the house every time I need to use the printer! (Why are there q-tips on there, you ask? Well, they are there to erase the items I tackle on my dry-erase to-do list, which is hanging on the wall next to that buffet.) Ignore the situation on top of the printer:

Baby steps, right? See? There are boxes to organize. They just aren't being used yet.


I took all the small office supplies like paper clips and index cards out of range of visibility and organized them in the armoire drawer. I used the empty boxes left over from organizing the note cards to organize the little stuff:

This is what the inside of the armoire looks like now:

Emptier, but messier. Working on it.


This is what the file cabinet looked like last week:

This is what it looks like now:

Ok, it looks the same. But I assure you that I filed away a lot of paperwork!


This is what the bookshelf looked like last week:

This is what it looks like now:

And this is what it looks like when I back away a little bit:

Just so you know, after I took these pictures, I threw away that diaper, took out the trash, and put away those file folders and notepads you see on the right side of the bottom shelf.

This is what is still on my list to do:

• Do something with the garbage can (I don't think it needs to be bigger; it just needs to be less of an eyesore).*
• Organize armoire drawers*
• Get longer screw for armoire knob
• Cover cereal boxes with burlap for work paperwork*
• File/organize old documents (there is an empty beer case filled with old paperwork under the armoire).
• Rearrange room
• Spray paint the armoire
• Fix wire situation behind armoire
• Do something about the curtain situation*
• Fix the artwork in the room.**
• Put shelves on wall for photos**
• Cover pillow on glider**
• Organize armoire shelves*

What?! That list is exactly the same as last week! I swear I've been working diligently. I put one star next to the stuff I've been working on, and two stars next to the stuff that would be nice but is optional. We're rearranging the room this weekend, and once that's done, I feel like everything will fall into place.

So stay tuned. I promise, this space is going to be awesome when I'm done. {starts to sweat} At least I still have 19 days to go.

Does anyone else feel like they have been working diligently but don't have much to show for it?