For the organizational challenge you may remember I picked our disaster area, also known as our utility room. The notes on what it was like before this can be read at the
original post.
Here are the “before” pictures to refresh your memory (and comply with the rules of the challenge, lol):
This was the counter/cabinet area, an additional brown cabinet was there to purportedly hold hubby’s tools (which as you can see in the photo, have multiplied and grown to cover the entire room), and to the right a bit is a dresser that I was *supposed* to be able to fold clothes on and keep gardening stuff, tablecloths, etc in the drawers.
This is a better shot of the dresser and how I can’t get to it, and part of my washer. Note that you can see the *side* of my washer - I’ll explain that later.
On the other side of the room is my deep freezer, my pantry shelves which are turned sideways and squeezed in there so I can’t get to the back, and the cat litter box.
What I didn’t get a picture of was directly behind me; the washer and dryer. They were about 4′ apart or more, with all kinds of stuff stacked in between them, on them, and in front of them.
Like I said, the gory details are at the original post.
Now for the “after” pictures: (thumbnails link to big versions of the pics)
I can now actually SEE my counter! I can get to the cabinets!
There are a couple of jars sitting on the counter to catch odd things like screws and nails, and a red container to hold “to-do” projects (which is currently a new set of smoke alarms).
The big brown cabinet is gone, and all of hubby’s tools with it. The dresser got moved over nearly 3 feet, and the cat box and trash can were put at the end (well away from the food).
The wire shelves that you see above the dresser are new, and now not only do I have more space, I have a hanging rack above where I fold clothes!
Turning a bit more to the right, I present: my washer and dryer!
Yes, you can actually get TO them now! And no more carrying wet clothes across the room to put them into the dryer!
I moved the dryer over right next to the washer, and it made the perfect amount of room for a set of plastic workshop-strength shelves that I found at the thrift store. All of the stuff we use outside (like charcoal, fishing supplies, etc) are there, along with some laundry stuff, cat litter and food, etc.
Since we don’t access the stuff on the bottom often, the two laundry hampers are fine being in front of the lower shelves. I pulled them out a bit so you could see how neat the stuff on the bottom is. 
Still turning to the right: my deep freezer and pantry shelves!
Now we can easily lift up the freezer lid to get into it, AND we can access everything on the pantry shelves. I moved the freezer over as much as I could (man it was heavy) and it made just barely enough room to turn the shelves so they were facing outwards.
You’ll also see that the long wire rack thing that used to be on the right side of the door is now on the left - there was a perfect space there for it once the shelves were turned, and now that it’s moved I can fully open the drawers in the counter/cabinet.
Moving the shelves outwards meant I had to organize them too:
I’ve got baking stuff on top (including smaller items in a plastic container up there), boxed food on the next shelf down, canned items on the third shelf (with some nifty can racks that I ordered just for this purpose), snack foods (in the blue bins) and paper plates/bowls on the fourth shelf, and at the bottom there’s big stuff that wouldn’t go elsewhere.
It’s not a fine-tuned system yet, but it’s working so far. We’ll work the kinks out of it in the coming weeks and probably move some stuff around.
Now, the questions:
1. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and were you able to overcome it?
The hardest part was having absolutely NO help whatsoever. I did get hubby to install the new wire shelves and move the old one (by the door) for me, but that’s it. Moving all of the tools out, etc - I did that. Going through everything - me. Carrying everything out - me. Pushing around big brown cabinetry, deep freezer, dryer, plastic shelving - all me. At times I even felt that my efforts were being sabotaged; I had to clean off the top of that deep freezer at least 6 times. Everytime I’d get it clean, hubby would produce a big heavy box of god-knows-what out of god-knows-where and for some reason, decide its home was on top of the freezer. And then he’d leave it there as a permanent home.
How I overcame it was putting Jack Canfield’s “The Success Principles” audiobook on my mp3 player and listening to that while I worked and dreamed about how much room I’d have once it was all done.
2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?
Well if I could, I’d disallow anyone else from ever stepping in here, LOL. But since that isn’t going to happen…
This is a room that I have to be in daily to do laundry. So while I’m in here, I try to attack anything that has been “deposited” by the saboteurs other family members. I also have put a little tv/radio combination in here (you can see it on the shelf above the washer) to keep me entertained, so that I can just turn on my talk radio station and do the laundry on the dresser (and new hanging rack! yay!) as soon as it comes out of the dryer; rather than dumping it into a laundry basket and heading back to my office so I can hear the radio.
3. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?
Sad to say, it is sitting on our back porch. First we were going to have a yard sale, but got tired of the stuff sitting there while it was accumulating. So we (and I do mean *we*, hubby and I) decided we’d just donate it. He was going to take a box or two every day and drop it off at the battered women’s shelter thrift store every day on the way home. He has yet to do that with even one box. I’m going to end up trying to do it with 3 miserable, baking-hot kids in a non-air-conditioned Jeep by myself.
4. What was the biggest lesson you learned from this experience?
A few things:
- It’s okay to do it a little at a time, as long as you don’t let others sabotage what you’ve done in the meantime. Eventually, it will all get done.
- When you’ve gone two years letting the stuff pile up like this and given up raising a stink about it and begging/asking/demanding help and not getting it, you are NOT going to get everyone to stop using the room as their dumping ground in a matter of days. It takes weeks of re-training.
- Listening to a motivational cd/audiobook while you’re working really, REALLY helps when you’re looking around at everything and just feeling overwhelmed and wanting to give up before you start.
5. Now that you have completed the PROCESS, do you think having and keeping your space organized will make a difference in your life?
Definitely.
I am still having problems, like getting the boys (hubby included) to take their folded clothes off of the dresser (or hung clothes off of the hanging rack) and put them away; they seem to prefer simply dressing IN the utility room and leaving the stacks of clothes there. But I’m working on it.
Just having the room more organized has helped a lot. We were able to easily grill a while ago, without spending half an hour looking for the charcoal. I can get to and find the food stuff that I need much more quickly now. I can actually *get to* the washer and dryer, so it’s getting done daily - which means the piles of laundry are smaller and quicker to handle. And having the dresser cleaned off so I can fold clothes on it, and the hanging rack right there, has made finishing up the laundry a lot faster, too.
So it might not make a big difference to everyone else in the house, but it sure does for me.
Thanks so much to Laura for holding this challenge; having the time limit on it really pushed me to get it DONE and not let it slide. It also really helped to see the posts at the beginning of the challenge and know that I’m not alone in having an entire room just become a pure unmanageable mess if it’s not watched.
If you want to see the other entries in the challenge, head over to I’m an organizing junkie!
What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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