Decluttering update

As promised: here's the decluttering update.
The following is a list of rooms/areas I finished:

-living room
-living room closet
-upstairs bathroom
-hallway closet
-kitchen (this took me two or three days)
-our bedroom (but i didn't do Mark's side of the bed or his closet/drawers)
-under our bed
-our bedroom closet
-laundry room
-kids' room (two days)
-kids' bathroom
-alcove downstairs
-sewing area of the playroom (which is the only area I happen to have a photo of, so that's right here):


The following is a list of the rooms/areas I did NOT finish: (and why)

-the playroom ~deep sigh~ If you were to stand at the ironing board (on the right, in the above picture) and look out onto our playroom, you would see it in all it's cluttery glory.

Our playroom is sort of our catch-all room. It contains the following, other than my sewing stuff: the foosball table, our TV area, an old desk and computer that we never use and need to get rid of, our printer, our filing cabinets, a drum set, some toys (train bin and miscellaneous toys), a bookshelf, and all of Mark's baseball cards. That he's been collecting since he was eight.years.old. (This is no small collection, people.) I actually spent a full day in the playroom and then one evening Mark and I tackled the sewing area of the room. The rest of it I have no motivation for. Yet.

-the storage room [Don't even get me started. Wanna see a picture?]

This right here is what you'd see if you opened the door:


So, yes. Um... lots of stuff.

If you were to turn to your immediate right, this is what you'd find:


Oh. Can't quite see further into the room because that bin of Christmas lights is two inches away from your face? Right. Here's another picture, then, beyond that little stack o' stuff, to give you the full affect:


And, um...yep. That's pretty much it in all it's finery!

Now I know you're all probably thinking that the reason I didn't tackle our storage room is because of the magnitude of the project.

Not so. I am not deterred by all of that stuff. No way, no how.

The one-and-only reason I did not touch the storage room is this:

There are spiders in there.

Big, black, hairy spiders.

Did I mention they're big? [~shudder~]

I assure you: if it weren't for my phobia of spiders and my absolute certainty that they live in there by the hoards, I would have that room looking so decluttered you would not even be able to recognize it. But I refuse to pull out one single box at the risk of seeing one of those things tear across the room at me. Or even running away from me. It matters not. I don't want to even see one of them unless Mark happens to be right beside me.

With a shoe.

So we'll be working on that room together at some point.

[And might I just add, here, that about a year ago I smartened up and began training my boys to get all the spiders in the house. It's daddy's job, but when daddy's gone, the men of the house have to do it, I tell them. And they revel in that sort of manly thing. And Isaac is especially good at getting spiders around here when I squeal for seeing one. He immediately comes to my rescue. Unless, of course, it happens to be one of the big, black hairy ones. That's when he freezes up and says, "I can't do it." ]

Which is why I need his daddy.

-the girls' room [Or what will be the girls' room when they move into it. Right now Ella is with the boys and Addie is in our room.] And the girls' room closet. I did spend a full day working on this room, but the problem is that we have about four huge boxes/bins of hand-me-downs (for Addie) that I just have no place for. Plus there's a bed that will be for Ella when she moves in here, plus there are more bins of clothes and the dollhouse and too.much.stuff.for.this.one.small.room. I have yet to figure out where it's all going to go.

-the back (indoor) porch. [Because, quite frankly, I'm really hoping Mark will just do that all by himself. Let's all vote. Who thinks my husband should do the back porch area? It does, after all, have his nails/tools/BBQ stuff, as well as the kids' shoes and our recycling stuff and... what else is even back there? I have NO idea. See? He should so do that. I think we're all agreed on that. That and the garage. Which is fully ten times worse than the storage room. Not to mention ten times bigger.]

That's all for today. But in another post I'll share a bit more about what I learned and what I've changed.

Oh, and by the way: Weather was not permitting, and the garden was NOT planted yesterday. Which is really too bad since the weather is permitting TODAY, but alas- it's not Mark's day off today. And planting the garden is always a family event, so we're not doing it without him. Another day...