Rating Our Spaces - May

[ejchase]

Hello All,

I'm continuing with my commitment to rating the spaces in my life on a scale of 1 (totally cluttered to the point of unusable) to 10 (pristine and totally decluttered and beautiful) monthly as a way to give myself a reality check on my tendency to let clutter take over and to give myself a nudge to slowly take some baby steps towards decluttering.

This month was super busy with work, so I didn't make much progress. The upstairs hallway has fallen back to a 4. Because I knew I wanted to post these ratings today, though, I tackled my purse just about half an hour ago. Oh my goodness - I can't believe the amount of useless stuff I've been carrying around for months!!!!!!!! I've actually had shoulder pain the last two weeks because of it!!!!!!!! Decluttering my purse only took about 20 minutes (and I did just stack some papers that I didn't want to throw out but didn't have time to figure out places for with my other clutter), and I think I reduced the weight of it by at least a pound. It is now a 9.

Until my work life gets a little busy, I think tackling these little spaces are all I can do, but I do feel very rewarded every time I make progress in even these slight ways.

Here are my ratings for the beginning of May:

Mine and My SO's Bedroom 5
First Kids' Bedroom 5
Second Kids' Bedroom 4
The Upstairs Hallway 4
The Upstairs Bathroom 6
The Living Room 5
The Dining Room 5
The Downstairs Bathroom 6
The Kitchen 4
The Laundry Room 6
The Downstairs Closet 9
The Backyard - 6
The Front Yard and Front Steps -6
Purse was 4 – now a 9!
Car 4
Storage Space 4

Anybody else want to rate their spaces?

[Kat]

Great job on the purse, ejchase! Doesn't it feel good to clean it out?!

Well, all of my spaces are horrendous right now because we are in the midst of a home remodel. My entire house is a wreck! Hopefully we can finish within the next couple of weeks and get things looking better. I am a little bummed because the entryway furniture I ordered is backordered until July. So I guess I'll just have to make do with that space as is a little longer than I had hoped.

I was feeling a little powerless until I read your post. I tossed a bunch of expired coupons and organized what was left and now am feeling much better. Think I will do my purse and DD's diaper bag tomorrow. :-)

[iris lily]

I like the idea of this thread. I will contribute to rate on cleanliness, tidiness, and clutter in my house:

1st floor:
Living room: 8
Dining area: 9
Kitchen:7
Breakfast room: 6
small bathroom:7

2nd floor:
Big bedroom: 5
back bedroom: -negative (ceiling is falling in and all of the cleaning in the world will not solve that)
Upstairs bathroom: 3 (it is always free of clutter and is nearly always filthy)
Open space: 4

3rd floor:
tv room: 5
big front closet: 5
big back closet: 6

Basement level:
Storage: 7
Shop area: ? probably 6, DH keeps it neat and tidy but it is not clean and it is full the the ceiling of stuff
Laundry area: 3

garage: 5

patio:8

[fidgiegirl]

I will rate mine this time. But I doubt I will do much more with it. Awareness is valuable, though. Who knows what it might spur?

Living room - 6 - messy. Would like to get a different chair. Need to put up some pictures and also cute-ify the mantle. Perhaps a TV on a swing-out mount on the wall? Meh, probably not, don't value TV that much. Needs curtains.

Sun porch - 3 - need to sell the chair in there. Maybe the living room chair can go in there instead. Would like 2 chairs in there so we can both watch TV if we want to. Also need to sell that extra printer or give it away at this point since CL clientele has been so flaky about this particular item. We did get blinds, so that's an improvement, but we need curtains or at least a valance.

Dining room - 6 - Messy as well. Lots of flat surfaces to collect crap. Need to mount mirror.

Kitchen - 6

Laundry room - 7 - Dirty, but pretty organized. Could remove the weird half wall we thought we'd need but now realize we don't need.

Basement big room - 2 :( Not going to spend a lot of effort on it since we don't need the space. We might remodel, but that's down the road. Should get some stuff out of there, though, because we could start demo-ing the ceiling and it's a pain to work around stuff.

Basement closet - 3. Too much stuff

Our room - 8 - A bit too much stuff on my nightstand. Should mount the lamps we bought and add curtains and pictures or mirror.

Our closet - 7 - hooks for DH's worn-once-but-not-ready-to-launder-yet clothes helped, but he is still draping some of these clothes all over. This drives me nuts. Maybe a spring-loaded rod with curtain to block off his prime draping location (some storage boxes with seasonal clothes that sit in a corner)? Or I could get over it.

Guest room - 4, but DH is painting trim in there. Must wash my wedding dress. It's weighing on me.

Sewing room - 3, but DH sold a rocking chair on my request so that will help. I can also now paint my pegboard organizer pieces and put that together. Once that's made, I can hang up some of the little items.

Upstairs bathroom - 8 - A few organizers in the cupboard would be good, and have to set DH on using up the shampoos I don't like. ;)

Linen closet - 9 - Probably could use a cull of toiletries, but easy to see what's in there, and we don't have overly much.

Attic - 2 - Ugh. That is all.

Garage - 5 - Gardening time gets this all full of stuff. At some point we will need to use a critical eye to really see if we need it all still. It's hard to store aside to use the garage for a car in the winter, but we managed to do it.

Back yard - 6 - time to put out all the goodies for backyard enjoyment! And we're hoping to be able to buy my BiL's gas grill in a few months, so that will be fun.

Front yard - 7 - Needs big landscaping help, but that's for another year. Maybe a few chairs would be nice, there is a cute patio out there and it's nice and shady and looks out over the other houses.

Oh my. Lots of work to do. Must remind myself that it doesn't all happen at once. This is leading me to need to do another "finishing" list like I did a few months back on my journal thread. It was helpful for me to actually accomplish some things.

[ejchase]

Great job on the purse, ejchase! Doesn't it feel good to clean it out?!

Well, all of my spaces are horrendous right now because we are in the midst of a home remodel. My entire house is a wreck! Hopefully we can finish within the next couple of weeks and get things looking better. I am a little bummed because the entryway furniture I ordered is backordered until July. So I guess I'll just have to make do with that space as is a little longer than I had hoped.

I was feeling a little powerless until I read your post. I tossed a bunch of expired coupons and organized what was left and now am feeling much better. Think I will do my purse and DD's diaper bag tomorrow. :-)

Congrats on the progress you're making in the midst of the home remodel!

I'm a big fan of baby steps. Glad you're finding a way to make some!

[ejchase]

Fidgiegirl, I'd love to have so many spaces in the 7 or above category!

Someday, maybe ...