Lose the Junk

I have been working hard the last few weeks to complete a Clean House Challenge that I was working on in the Spring. This week I tackled just a couple of spots in my kitchen.

I have people help with dishes and sometimes that is not so wise. I forgot to take before photos but basically I have a silverware drawer then junk mix drawers. I removed everything and started over. I am not sure how I never thought of putting the small cutting boards that get used all the time in a drawer but when I reorganized everything, the thought came to me and its been GOLDEN. I  hope to create a divider thing for the silverware, we bought the wood but we haven't had time yet. My poor organize holder is 22 years old. 

I love this little cart, somehow it always feels with junk though.

I had some odds and ends so I allowed them to stay in this tiny drawer.

Now knifes have their own drawer, this was needed for sure.

This is my favorite part of the To Do list, reorganizing all these Kitchen Utensils. These little picnic baskets were perfect. I hope to put a light in the cabinet though as it gets very dark and is hard to see. More obstacles to conquer in the following months. 

google.com/+JennWellsandSunshineOfAutumnQuilts

Martha Home the Mary Way Day 3

I am very behind in posting on the cleaning challenge. We had tackled the cabinets the other day. This is one of the lower sections. It was a disaster. This seems to be the place anyone putting dishes puts things in a hurry, instead of doing it correctly. This is the before photo. 

We removed everything, tossed some things into a box that we could part ways with and reorganized. There are probably a couple things that could be moved from this space, but we won't know until we tackle the couple spots that hold pantry items. 

This is the before of my other upper cabinets. I had posted the reorganization of the spice cabinet the other day. We had worked on the other side and it is also so much better. It seems food items that are left on the counter get put here when I ask someone to clean the kitchen.

It was amazing how much space we truly had when everything went to the right place. In fact I had purchased two pans sets for my husband to help with canning and they both fit along with some other appliances that are used pretty often. It will be nice for him, and maybe just maybe he will put them away instead of leaving them out.

This is my donation box for my kitchen. Stuff that truly doesn't get used. Its really nice to down size.

If you want to catch up on the challenges if you didn't print your page from Sarah Mae'sBlog then here you go.

Day 1: Put a Load of laundry in the wash. Kitchen: Do the dishes, scrub pans, clean out sink. Gather papers from counters and set aside. Wipe counters.

Day 2 Kitchen: clean out and wash down interior and exterior of the fridge, Clean out interior and exterior of microwave.

Day 3: Kitchen Wipe down cabinets, Scrub the Kitchen Floor

Day 4: Kitchen: Clean out your Pantry.  Pull everything out, throw away what is old, wipe pantry down, organize and put food back.

Day 5: Bathrooms: Clear Counters and Remove trash can, clean toilet, sink, mirror. Wash out tub, sweep and scrub floor.

Day 6: Bathroom Closet/ Cupboards: Pull everything out and sort into trash, keep and donate. Take donate box immediately to your car. Put Keep items back.#MarthaHomeMaryWay

google.com/+JennWellsandSunshineOfAutumnQuilts

Martha Home Mary Way Day 2

We have really struggled with the cabinets in our kitchen. Sometimes I think people don't think about how they will use their space when they install them. One day I hope to take them all out and start over. They are super deep but not functional. This is one of the upper cabinets before we reorganized it. Stuff just gets thrown into the top shelving, it frustrates me.

I liked this challenge because we could look at going through stuff and parting ways. Maybe containers without lids, lids without containers, old spices etc. 

I didn't get this posted on day two. We have had a crazy busy week with choir 2 days, UIL, then MOPS, catching up on homework for a daughter who missed 2 full days of AP courses. I can feel the lack of sleep. I am grateful to my husband who assisted with some of the kitchen this week. He went through the top shelf, matched up all bottles and put them together and parted ways with some. 

He also found me a spot for the mixing cups my oldest purchased me for Christmas. This is nice that they now have a true home in the kitchen.

Last he went through the spice cabinet for me. We are working at growing herbs and getting away from store bought spices where necessary. I am trying to learn to cook as much as I can  from scratch and have a better food situation for all of us. I can see a difference in the health of my younger two who struggle with so much medically.
So I will work on posting the kitchen cleaning jobs through this week.
I had just enough time this morning for Day 2, we are headed out to see my oldest inducted into Alpha Chi tomorrow night.

If you want to catch up on the challenges if you didn't print your page from Sarah Mae's Blog then here you go.

Day 1: Put a Load of laundry in the wash. Kitchen: Do the dishes, scrub pans, clean out sink. Gather papers from counters and set aside. Wipe counters.

Day 2 Kitchen: clean out and wash down interior and exterior of the fridge, Clean out interior and exterior of microwave.

Day 3: Kitchen Wipe down cabinets, Scrub the Kitchen Floor

Day 4: Kitchen: Clean out your Pantry.  Pull everything out, throw away what is old, wipe pantry down, organize and put food back.

Day 5: Bathrooms: Clear Counters and Remove trash can, clean toilet, sink, mirror. Wash out tub, sweep and scrub floor.

Day 6: Bathroom Closet/ Cupboards: Pull everything out and sort into trash, keep and donate. Take donate box immediately to your car. Put Keep items back.

#MarthaHomeMaryWay

google.com/+JennWellsandSunshineOfAutumnQuilts

Tackling the House and a Quilt

This morning my bible study focused on Simplicity. Sometimes its hard to keep things simple. I assigned some chores to each child and had them pitch in because I had bills to pay, a to do list to write up for the weekend and a quilt to work on. I know they weren't terribly thrilled but we got a lot done.

I will get a better picture later but here is the progress on the quilt. It still needs some little pieces and such. I had to run to Joann's to get flannel for the back. What I ordered was not flannel after all and its really what is perfect for a baby quilt. It will be a pieced backing like one other I finished up recently. I couldn't' find enough of just one. I think it will fit just fine though. While we were out I picked up a much needed shower liner, some office supplies and a new shirt.

We made laundry soap. I taught Jakob how to do it. It is one way I will be trying to cut down on some bills. We go through lots of laundry soap.

Mekenzei worked at cleaning out the video/catch all cabinet in the front room. She organized all the drawers and cleaned the top off.

Izzy worked in the yard leveling out some soil area where we used to have a garden

Zekaryah worked out side a while then decided to get on the horse. I caught him playing not working.

google.com/+JennWellsandSunshineOfAutumnQuilts

January 1st Success

My goal is to have a more successful plan to keep our home clean and clutter free. It is difficult with 5-6 busy people in the home. It seems often that surfaces find clutter quickly. Things get placed on anything with a flat surface and then it soon becomes a mountain. We lack closets, attic space, a garage.. so it really means creative planning. I have some projects for the year that I hope will help get us steered in the right direction.

While I would love a desk that was more functional for me, for now I am working to clean this one up. Its probably over a year of paperwork and other things as we have moved rooms, done repairs in our room etc. The den tends to collect anything that comes out of a room that is being worked on. 

I had a plan to use expandable files and binders to clean this area up. I hope to get my external hard drive set up to start taking scanned quilting files, from purchases, to recipets, to orders. I think that will help. I am playing with the idea of doing the same with bills. I have no idea how to stay on top of all the papers that come in. I do great with mail and then getting bills into my slots. I now have one metal rack for things that need to be filed and I have a binder for monthly bills, and one for quilt orders. Will see how it looks in  a couple of months and if this is the new system for me or not.

Another issue is shoes and jackets. My husband surprised me with this jacket "rack" by the back door. To create a kind of mud room. Let me tell you I pick up jackets constantly and shoes as well. You can come in and out of two main doors through the back or front and it seems that shoes and jackets follow. I am hoping to train children to put their jackets here and their shoes in their rooms or the shoe rack. We will be working on a new shoe rack that is taller and narrower. We built our old one 7 years ago and we both agreed a better solution is needed. 

Its these small things that will make a difference, just need time for more ideas like this one. This was simple to create with some pegs from Hobby Lobby, a Pallet board and a little bit of stain. I love it.

google.com/+JennWellsandSunshineOfAutumnQuilts

Winter Cleaning

Christmas Break for us is trying to re-situate our house. Moving some furniture and re purposing some rooms. One of which is creating a space in our bedroom for our daughter to study right after school. The morning sun warms the room and so it stays warm pretty much all day. That really helps when you are trying to focus for long hours. It is also quiet and she can be in here without interruption.

I also wanted the space to work for my morning devotions. 

Another area was getting all of the storage put away that was in the den and making it work for an exercise space. We had done this in the past. Eventually we hope to build a space outside for exercise equipment and then use this as a family zone, since our living room is where I quilt.

I hope to turn the stairs into a full book case area, otherwise the room turned out pretty good.

Our daughter had already put the space to use. Taking all AP courses means you study during break, you don't get much time to enjoy being a kid.

google.com/+JennWellsandSunshineOfAutumnQuilts

Spring Cleaning My Daughters Room

My daughter and I have a different version of what clean is. She stacks things- I do this also but there comes a point where you just have to get in there and get it cleaned. The trash bag is clothes I had cleaned over the weekend that are all nicely folded but I couldn't begin to know where to put them away for her.

We had the boys bring all the containers to my room that had clothes in them. I sorted them into piles on my quilting tables and then filled her buckets. I would still like her to go through them and decide if things are too big or two small or if she doesn't like them. We were given clothes from several people this year and it has created a tad of chaos, unless she makes some decisions. Its hard in such a small room to really keep everything and she has no closet space since there is a washer and dryer in that portion of her room so it must ALL fit under the bed to some degree.

She still has quite a bit of work to do. I am hoping that I at least gave her a head start and maybe some motivation.

It will be nice when the room is clean because then I can get in there to take measurements for curtains, paint her vanity etc.

Tackle it Tuesday

This is what my den looked like this morning. I had six buckets of fabric to go through. My husband had a misc bucket and there was a bucket of incubator supplies, then just some random things. Really it wasn't too bad but still took most of the afternoon. I still have a few papers to file.

This is my newly cleaned den. I still need to organize my desk and clean under the stairs, the stairs will be my tackle it Tuesday next week. It will take a while.

I have now touched every piece of fabric I own and this is what I will donate this week. I am excited that it is going to a good home. I am also excited to have the entire floor under my quilting tables free and have most everything truly organized in the quilting section of my pantry closet. I still hope to get some of those shoe containers to finish organizing the rest but that will have to wait until the 15th when I get paid. On a positive note someone gave us a bunch of clothes yesterday to go through. I have already gone through them kept the few things that we could use and drove the rest to the donation site so that I am not storing them. That is great progress!

Summer Deep Cleaning

After spending some of last week cleaning our closet and pantry- a very huge deep clean I was left with a mess that my husband had said he would help me "weed through" over the weekend. That didn't happen. Yesterday I woke up and decided I could not take anymore. So I decided to get some empty containers and start piling everything in.

It did take me all day but I did it. I got everything put away, found new homes for fabric. Gathered fabric that I was not going to use and boxed some up for a dear friend and then bagged the rest 7 bags~! That fabric will go to a Mormon Church to help with their quilt/blanket ministry.

It is amazing how clean it truly became. Now I have plans to put up some peg board for some quilting supplies, purchase new blinds, I had the same curtains up for 5 years which I made and to be honest I didn't ever like the fabric and I didn't quite know what I was doing. The current blinds let in a lot of light and I sleep better in a very dark room, otherwise my mind races for hours.

This is the fairly organized quilting portion of my closet. I want to purchase a few more shoe containers, I already had these, they really do help with sorting fabric by projects that I have planned. I have two containers of fabric that still need to be put into shoe boxes.  Today I plan to tackle my den, some of the containers of fabric had been put in there when the room was so full I couldn't store anymore. It will be a tall order. 

Today's Tackle it Tuesday