40 minutes wasn’t enough, but I came back when I had a few minutes later in the afternoon, and finished up.
Here’s the after:
Yes, that’s one of my wigs.
I took my time. I focused only on the dresser and took every piece of . . . ahem . . . junk to its proper home. I got out my pledge and shined it up and arranged the photos and cleaned the mirror.
Our master bedroom is so bad, that I know in order to “do it right” I’d have to devote an uninterrupted week to it. In the past, on my maniacal cleaning days, I’d pick up all the dirty clothes in the entire room. Then pick up all the trash. At that point, I’d become overwhelmed. And I’d always, always get to the point when I wouldn’t know what to do with those last few things that didn’t have a home anywhere else in the house. And then I’d usually quit.
So, since I’m committed to truly changing my slobbish ways instead of just getting the house ready for one party, I’m going to take my time. I mean, no one has seen the master bedroom in 3 years, what’s one more month, right? I’m going to work on a small section at a time, celebrating each section as its own success, and work to maintain the finished ones.
And that cleared-off, shiny dresser gives me hope.
I'm very impressed with your dresser. Good job…taking it one step at a time.
Great job! Know how you said 'maniacal'? We're moving today. And only our bedroom and 1/6 of other stuff is packed. And I'm reading your blog instead! Ah well, it will get done soon enough.
I am exactly the same way. I talked about this at my blog http://www.mommyoffaith19.blogspot.com. I do the maniacal and need to be better at methodical. Having a preemie is so overwhelming that methodical is starting to bring me so comfort in the orderly but I was in hospital recently and still don't have the house back to pre-hospital cleanliness. It's driving me crazy.
Around here you don't know what todo with it just throw it in mom amd dads room. Always on my list of things to do for the week but never get to it.
The dresser looks really pretty!
Thanks Jo! I'm enjoying it so much and love being able t o see my kids pictures that used to be covered up with clothes.
And anon, I totally get what you're saying. That's exactly how it is at our house.
I know what you mean about those little things that don't have a home!!!
What DO you do with them??? ugh.
Looks awesome!! I’m starting with my dresser!!
Thank-you for you blog, love it!
Donna
Have you read cleaning from the outside in? It has wonderful ideas. The one I remember most is what we leave out and lying around is a clue as to why. We need to look at our mess and live with it a bit to figure out why it exists. Interesting idea. Like figuring out you need to run your dishwasher every night.
I don’t see that book listed anywhere, including Amazon and Google Books. So you know the name of the author?
Ya know an easy way to keep the house clean? Have a pastor husband whose church bldg, got sold and we had to move all church activities to our home! Have to keep the main house, guest bathroom and kitchen clean… That kills me cause I hate empty counter tops!… We also have 3 cats who love to shed everywhere, so all I have to do now, is sweep or vacuum, dust very little cause my hubby seems to feel the need to clean the kitchen… The bedroom is off limits cause the cats are closed in there during church stuff. I also have a hoard craft/sewing/office upstairs. Now the garage is full of our older kids stuff, my former store stuff and now a church’s worth of stuff…
I didn’t think anyone else was as bad as me. Looks like my room!?
See I knew me going back to DAY 1 of your blog would help me!! I have a “master bedroom” that I need to work on too. Thank you for my motivation. If I can work 30 min or so a day then soon I can walk in there.
Argggg, I need to do this! My house is even worse than that and I’m dragging my feet because I know I’ll have to do it all myself.
A funny story for you. When my mother married my stepfather, we were old enough (merged family of 9, five teens) they left us at home and went on a short honeymoon. One of my older sisters wanted to help and unpacked a lot of the boxes. The parents got home and were thrilled to see so many boxes gone- until they went back to their bedroom and realized that when sister wasn’t sure where something went, she took it to their bedroom and left it on the bed!
Two families moving into one house I leave it to your imagination just how deep the bedroom piles were!