the big purge ...

I've been completely MIA for the last 10 days, devoured by a massive spring cleaning project that has been years overdue. Over the period of 2 weekends and the week in between, we've been working nonstop at our house. The process went like this: each bedroom had all drawers, shelves, and closets completely emptied out - the contents were dumped onto the bed and evaluated one by one. What didn't make the cut to be re-shelved got given away and what we kept got neatly organized. In the end, we donated 7 huge bags of clothing and bedding to Goodwill:

As you can imagine, accomplishing the bedroom purge felt great - but then my husband insisted that we capitalize on our momentum and continue on with the ... wait for it ... garage (gasp!). Let me assure you that our garage has long been one of the scariest and least functional spaces in the house. It was a wasteland of disorganized toys and games on one side and yard gear, coolers, and cushions on the other side. It all sat on shelves, but we had never taken the time (in 8 years of living here!) to adjust the shelves to be functional ... so things got lost as the shelves became overrun and eventually the shelves got blocked in by things like bikes, scooters, and giant battery-run cars for the kids. How I wish I had taken a 'before' photo! Sadly, I have no proof of its previous dysfunction - all the better, I don't need to be reminded of the horror. But I do have this amazing 'after' photo to behold:

Not only is it a pleasure to look at, but we even managed to double the storage space by taking the time to adjust the shelves to functional heights! Note the thin shelves at the top for boogie boards, hula hoops, and sleds - then there's a wide shelf at waist level for bins full of everything from wading pools to racquet games (the bins are now labeled). The open bins at the bottom hold soccer balls, lacrosse sticks, and baseball bats. Even the sidewalk chalk has its own bin - this new garage is pure bliss and makes me so happy every time I drive in. We used the same approach as with the bedrooms: emptied all shelves completely and placed everything out in the driveway. It was a grueling and dirty process, but we purged all the duplicated or outgrown toys and sports gear that were accumulating (our church's annual rummage sale was so grateful!), threw away everything broken, and completely organized the stuff that remains so that it can be easily found ... and it only took about 4 hours from start to finish ... amazing!