31 Day Organization Challenge

***Warning: Lots of pictures ahead!***

One thing I talk about a lot on the blog is my never ending quest to get organized. And I feel like I'm getting a handle on things, one room, one drawer at a time. I follow several organization blogs and get tons of inspiration from these uber-organized women. They are amazing and I want to be just like them when I grow up :-)

One of the sites I've been following for years is I'm An Organizing Junkie. This is also where I take part in Menu Plan Monday (except for like the last 3 weeks!! Slacker!!! UGH!!) For the month of March Laura is hosting a 31 Day Organization Challenge. The challenge is to choose one room in your home and spend the next 31 days organizing it. Well, I've been kind of organizing every room in the house at once so I thought maybe it would be a good idea to step back and use her challenge to focus on the one room in the house that has been majorly neglected for the last 5 years: the Master suite. I've always dreamed of the perfectly organized and decorated master suite. A room with zero chaos, zero clutter, lots of style and the perfect relaxation oasis. I've yet to accomplish that here. We've spent so much time and effort on the rest of the house (kids rooms especially) that our room just gets ignored. Well, not anymore. This month I am focusing on purging, cleaning, organizing AND decorating our Master suite. This includes our bedroom, our bathroom and our walk in closet. 

To keep it real Laura has set a linky on her site where people can link up before pictures of their space if they want to. Just to be clear, posting before pictures now is not a requirement of taking part in this challenge, but you will have to show them in your big reveal so I thought, "Why not? I'll have to show them at some point anyway!". And just so you can see how much work I have to do to get this room in tip top, luxury hotel shape (Yeah, I wish!!!) I thought you should see what I'm starting with! And because I know some of you would never believe it unless you see it! (Gail, don't go into convulsions OK!?!?! lol) 

Clockwise from the door:

Steven's dresser. Looks OK until you open that top drawer!

Ahhh!!!!

The bags on top of that Rubbermaid container are going to an organization in Cincinnati called Dress for Success. Inside the container are some infant clothes for Steven's cousin. So that stuff will disappear very quickly.

The top drawer of Steven's bedside table. The bottom drawer holds his PJs.

Hello! You aren't clutter! Look! The bed got made that morning! SCORE!!!

My bedside table.

Inside the top drawer.

Inside the bottom drawer.

Our Prayer Altar

This box holds memorabilia for the kids from school. It's now so full I'm stacking thins on top :-(  Time to purge!!

Shoes...went through these the afternoon I took these pictures. Threw away a few. Donated a few. Set some aside for Micah and Eli.

Winter clothes needing to be boxed up. They will get taken to the consignment shop this winter. (Kitty photo bomb!)

Hi Monkey!

Spring/Summer clothes to be delivered to the consignment shop. They will be taken in on Saturday.

Behind the bathroom door. The baby's bouncy seat is in there for when we need to hop in the shower. Obviously our dirty clothes hamper and a miscellaneous bag full of PSR stuff that needs to either be thrown out or filed.

My dresser. I need a curio cabinet to hold my egg collection which I started when I was 13.

Our TV stand. Lots and lots of crap on here. The bags by the door were dropped off at Goodwill that afternoon. I'm not sure what that pile is on the other side of the door. Probably a lot of crap that needs to be thrown away, shredded or filed.

Another look at the crap on the TV stand.

So that's the bedroom. A quick look at the bathroom since it's not that big. But you'll notice we have almost ZERO storage space in our bathroom. We "upgraded" to have a vanity and only one sink. As you'll see the mirror (and only plug in the bathroom) was over the sink so the vanity area was pointless. That also meant we also only have one cabinet! And apparently having a medicine cabinet is now considered an upgrade (what?!?!) so we had to put that in after we moved in. But as you can see my tries to organize the space with Rubbermaid drawers is dying!

View from the door.

My pointless vanity area and our Rubbermaid drawers that are so not organized! Hello cluttered counter top!!

The cabinet! Yea, that crap makes me crazy!!

The medicine cabinet. We have a love/hate relationship!

The windowsill above my large soaker tub. Hello more clutter!!

And this is where things get totally out of control...the walk-in closet. Our closet is HUGE! I mean it takes up the half the length of the house! It is narrow but it is long! And it is so builders grade impractical! I swear these plans are drawn up by men. These closets they put in these spaces are so stupid. Wire shelves going almost the entire length of both walls. That's it! Drives me nuts! We have big plans for this closet one day, but for now I have to figure out how to make these stupid wire shelves work for us, until the day I get my California Closet knock off!! :-)  If you are claustrophobic or can't stand utterly disgusting and cluttered spaces you might just want to skip to the end. You have been warned!! I can't even give you a play by play of these next pictures. It upsets me too much to even go there! So I'll be back at the end.

Whew! So I realize that a good chunk of the mess in there is from plain laziness! Shoes have racks to be put on. Ties have racks to be put on. And yes that is a filing cabinet in the corner! I didn't take pictures to show you the disaster inside of that! It's all a little bit embarrassing and a lot overwhelming! But I have the next 26 days to finish up. 

I've already started. Most of the "mess" in the room is already gone, having been dropped off at thrift stores, thrown away, etc already. Just one step at a time. We can do it! And by the end of the month I think you will be shocked and amazed! (Hopefully for the better this time!) I hope this post didn't make you think any less of me! I told you I needed to work on this and it wasn't just an exaggeration as you can now see!

If you want to join the challenge head over to I'm An Organizing Junkie. You don't have to do a post like this one to participate but you will have to eventually show your before and after pictures so just rip the bandaid off! It only hurts for a while! And it's way worth it in the end! Oh and did I mention there are prizes!?!? Go check 'em out!!