Progress in the bedroom, playroom, and the pantry

Last weekend, the fit was upon me! I spent most of Saturday in a burst of frenetic energy, sorting and re-organizing the pantry, the kids' bedrooms, the playroom, and my bathroom (which is not yet finished, so no pictures).

First, the playroom. I have no before picture, but imagine books all over the floor, blocks, paper airplanes, bits of paper - a general mess. Every few months I have purchased another black Itso bin at Target - they are $9.99 (unless you find them on sale) and they fit perfectly into the Expedit shelves. Now I have 3 and I would like to get 1 more. These were extremely useful for getting stuff out of the kids' rooms and into the playroom. I have one bin for things that go (cars, airplanes, rockets), one bin for blocks, and one for animals (plush toys, electronic hamsters, dinosaurs).

Here is my son's room, before and after:

We did a lot of sorting, purging, and consolidating. We moved the rug out to the playroom. He has kept his room clean for 3 days, which is wonderful. The best part was that we worked on it together.

We also worked on his closet - again, no before picture, but imagine clutter and toys and books and papers. Such an improvement!

Last, but not least, the pantry. It is half laundry room, half pantry, and is our entrance from the garage, so it is a high traffic area. The laundry side just needed a little attention. Most of what I did was sorting and consolidating pantry things. We had a lot of half empty #10 cans of various foods, and I was able to put a lot of that into glass jars. Now I can actually see what I am looking for instead of having to read 5 labels and shuffle cans around. I also moved things around to be more intuitive, so breakfast cereal and oatmeal are reachable by my children.

Here is the laundry side, before:

And after, just tidied up:

The pantry side, before (see all those #10 cans, spread all over the place?):

After (top shelf is practically empty! Jars on the second shelf, like things together, breakfast foods within reach. Ahhh! So much better):

Before  (unsorted laundry spilling all over the floor, can't open the door, can't really walk through easily):

After (sorted laundry in bins, 4 #10 cans of onions holding placemats - do not ask me why I have 4 #10 cans of dried onions):

Tonight I went to the grocery store and bought some more pantry staples, so that top shelf is no longer empty: another box of oatmeal, two cases of applesauce, some bbq sauce, salsa... I was having contractions all evening (just warm-ups), and I kept mentally patting myself on the back for making sure there was food in the house, just in case labor started. Wishful thinking on my part:)

I am still working on several areas. My bedroom and bathroom are getting a little cleaner every day - babysteps! - and so far, I've managed to keep the pantry and the playroom clean upstairs, thanks to my kids helping out.

What room would you like to be more organized? Do you work best in a fit of energy or taking babysteps? Check out simplemom.net's Project Simplify for organizing ideas and motivation.