Bathroom toiletries purge. Day 4 Zone 3 De-Clutter Games

The Event was to head to the main bathroom and toss out/give away old make-up, perfume, lotions, etc. in order to do that, I had to do some sorting and organizing to get to everything. It had been awhile since I cleaned up the bathroom cabinet. There were untouched items in there ever since and I was feeling more generous.

A few days ago, during an impromptu Ellie bathtime, I was able to do a fun 27 thing fling. I combined all 3 "hair" drawers into 1. Ellie's hair pretties had just been kinda stuck in random places so I made one of the drawers hers and picked 27ish hair ties/headbands to give away.

Bathroom cabinet before the purge (after combining the 3 hair drawers into one)

TOP Shelf BEFORE

BOTTOM shelf Before

AFTER:

(i actually had another shoebox for the items overflowing in the top right box.)

I got rid of all of the expired, old, yucky, or toxic medicines, lotions etc. Any that were still good but that I wont use, went in the GIVE AWAY pile and packed up into the box with hair ties and other random stuff. I put a hook up for my seldomly used hair dryer, I need another hook for my pink/black travel toiletries bag in the back.

THE GIVE AWAY PILE:

THE TRASH BAG

(not pictured are a big bag of magazines my husband doesnt like to throw out. They moved to his space)

Bedroom De-Clutter Games Day 2 Zone 4

I have kept the bedroom picked up the last few days but I knew I had a jumbled bedside table drawer- not a good idea because Ellie loves drawers.

I grabbed a bin and quickly pulled out anything that didn't need to be bedside.

 It could use a little bit of compartmentalization but I only had a couple minutes and wanted to put everything away first, while doing that Ellie needed me.

all that is left are a couple hair ties, teething aids, book light, phone stylus, coaster and headphones for late night podcasts or netflix viewing, and the AC remote goes in there too. 

Kitchen De-clutter Games day 1

In the kitchen on Day 1 of the FLYLady De-Clutter Games we de-cluttered the front of the fridge, I have kept it pretty clutter free since I cleaned up before. 

Some quick Befores:

After: 

Mostly I just straightened magnets and removed post-its that I can always remake if I need them again. 

Entrance Event 1 De-clutter Games Days 1 and 2

During day 1 of the FlyLady Olympics, I went a little overboard and without realizing it, I did day 2 also. My home is pretty small, so my entrance is pretty small also. There wasn't much trash and recycling and after picking that up, I decided to just keep going and put away things that didn't belong also, this ended up being day 2's challenge, which was great because we had a busy day on Saturday.. 

the cabinet in the entry way is a hotspot for dumping whatever we bring into the house or for whatever needs to leave the house. It is a constant struggle because Ellie climbs on the end of the couch and can reach about half of the cabinet. 

after a short 10 minutes, everything is put away. I used to have a basket on the top shelf for wallets, keys and sunglasses. I had repurposed it elsewhere so I found the new purple one. There were things here and on the couch that belonged to other people, they were gathered in bags and put in the trunk of the car. 

behind the door is a coat rack and cabinet and hooks for brooms etc. 

I took the reusable bags to the car, cleared out some coats and picked up all the random stuff in the corner. 

Bathroom clean-up

we have ironbacteria in our well so our water stains everything it touches this beautiful rust color. misc clutter on the counter and whatnot

diaper changing table with un-stuffed cloth diapers (underneath is a bunch of dust bunnies and random stuff I am sure.)

shelves above the changing table for changing and baby care items. hooks under the shelves for airing wiped clean diaper covers. 

overflowing garbage can and more beautiful rust-colored water stains

Now for the afters:

clutter put away and counter wiped down

diapers stuffed and straightened and floor swept, including underneath

shelves decluttered and random hanger put away

garbage emptied and toilet wiped down

the entire job took just 2 15 minute sessions.

ETA: doing the swish and swipe daily since I began learning to FLY has kept this bathroom looking great. Potty Learning has helped too, whenever Ellie is on the potty I look around for something to pick up, put away or clean up. The tub is very much stained and with just a few minutes scrubbing the stain away when Ellie is on the potty or taking a bath should get it clean again in no time. 

Laundry room clean up.

I mentioned before in my laundry routine post how I would LOVE to make-over the laundry room in my in-law's house. Well I decided to just do it. I turned it into a gift to thank my MIL for always being so helpful with Ellie. 

The BEFORES

The AFTERS

I pulled all of the clothes down and swapped out mismatched hangers for matching white ones to eliminate some visual clutter. 

previously this wall was blank and the laundry hamper was shoved on the other wall. Random laundry and misc stuff sat on the floor. 

I got the huge cloth bin on the top because it matched the other small ones. After trying cleaning supplies in it, I realized it was much too big, and destined for much to high up to hold anything heavy. Elsewhere in the house was a costco size package of paper towels, they fit perfectly in the bin. 

I didnt have enough of the fabric bins for everything so I used some plastic shoe boxes. I have an idea to dress up the front to eliminate a little of the visual clutter though, perhaps later. 

The excuse I gave for starting the reorganization was my very tall bottle of Ecos laundry soap that previously lived on the floor, Ellie learned to twist off caps, so it, the bleach and the Clorox 2 had to move. I found some short square drink dispensers at Walmart for $15 and they work great for the laundry soap. ( I wanted to test with my Ecos soap before putting my MIL's ALL in one, it worked great though so now the ALL is in one too. I already had gotten 2 glass canisters for my old soap (before I started using Ecos I used powdered Country Save) and baking soda. I re-purposed the CS one for Oxy-Clean and added one for the IRON OUT my MIL uses on occasion. If I would have had time I would have used vinyl and cut out the labels with my Cricut for the powders and the liquid soaps. maybe later. 

I added a few clear glass jars for pretty items, clothes pins (this is a laundry room), extra dryer balls, and one for loose change from pockets. 

cleaning out another closet in the room (no pics sorry, im a bad blogger) I found the laundry bags on the green shelf thing, I will make a box or jar and label for them too. The open box of bounce sheets didnt fit under the little white shelf thing so I found a shallow plastic storage container. I like that it cleans up the visual clutter. 

NOTHING was purged. This wasn't MY space to decide what to get rid of. a few things were relocated, so that this would be mostly just Laundry. I only threw away actual garbage. 

FLYing Day 4

I woke up, got dressed to shoes, brushed hair, teeth, and washed my face. I did a swipe and swish last night so didn't need to again. Then I got the baby a healthy breakfast and then did the rest of my morning list: Made the bed,

I gathered a couple stray laundry items and sent a basket down with DH to start when he checked on his dad (we live on the same property as my in-laws and share their washer/dryer.)
I checked the calendar and asked DH for any to-dos. I filled up my water bottle and had a nice long drink and made myself a measured out portion controlled breakfast and logged it on my myfitnesspal.com app.
Enjoyed my shined sink 

and did dishes from yesterday (I couldn't do them last night because we are in a loft and dishes tend to wake the baby.)
After breakfast I
I took this picture: 

I set the timer for 15 minutes and got to work. 

After 15 minutes: 

Ellie's clothes are all away except dresses because the hanging bar fell down.

-I decided what was going to be for dinner- Parmesan Encrusted Tilapia, green salad, watermelon and pasta.
-I managed 19 minutes of loving movement/ exercise on the Wii Fit.

-The next thing on the list was to remove the trash from the bedroom, there was very little trash in there but I did that first and came back to finish the corner I started. At the end of the day it looked like this: 

throughout the week I will be working on my wardrobe and under the bed. 

Schoolwork Desk

Even though it wasnt the FLY zone this week, I had about an hour and a half with no kid this afternoon so I decided to work in my craft room, (its easier to work in the rest of the house with her) I picked up and put away random stuff at first then decided to target one space- what is supposed to be my schoolwork / household CEO station.

Here is some befores:

It could use a couple more minutes and my label maker but the baby woke up so I snapped those pics and went to bed.

Empty notebooks, spirals, and folders are together with dividers and notebook paper, textbooks and past terms classwork is on the top shelf. Household stuff is grouped.

Clearing off everything that didn't belong, I made myself put it away (as much as I could, some items are in temporary albeit logical homes) rather than just pile it on another surface.
It's great because I need to organize some bills and figure out some school stuff and now I have an inviting space to use.

Now for the Afters:

FLYzone: Bedroom Before

Sharing our bedroom with our daughter is wonderful, a whole lotta extra laundry and toys and books, but mostly wonderful. We have bed-shared since birth (after researching how to do so safely and finding that it REDUCES the risk of SIDS and improves breastfeeding relationship and affords mom-me more sleep) and we have had a never ending battle with baby clothes. Our lack of real closets and ever growing (and outgrowing) baby made keeping the bedroom from looking like a hotel room (which I'd love). This week I will get a little closer to that dream!

Here is a sneak peek, a before shot I took last week before becoming a FLYbaby.

I'm a FLYbaby

I've decided to follow FLYLady's plan to get in to better house-upkeep routines and declutter and organize.
I've been practicing her first few baby steps. Shine your Sink, Lace up Shoes, and Swipe n Swish. I have also been setting a time for 15 minutes at a time to clean. The bonus is that cleaning burns calories which follows along with my other personal improvement goal.

I've been keeping busy cleaning amd not being lazy last few days and I like it.

Tomorrow begins The Bedroom Zone where my decluttering is focused around the bedroom. I did some of this not long ago and moved a dresser in and some too small clothes out. I intend on purging a few pairs of shoes and some more pants this week.

I intend on posting quick from-my-phone updates on here on a somewhat regular basis, I hope you enjoy!