I’ve got the Itch to Pitch Challenge--Week 1

Over at The Happy Housewife, Toni has issued a summer challenge----to clean, declutter and organize our homes. Since I wanted to do this before the baby came I was thrilled to join in. Basically, each week pick one area of your home you want to work on, take before and after pictures and work on it throughout the week. Then every Monday Toni will be posting a link to her site. What a great way to have accountability.

I don't know what has happened to my house over the last 5 months...it's a disaster!!! Actually embarrassing. Honestly, most rooms have a mess in them. Last weekend CJ did an AWESOME job going through his room and cleaning it out. Doesn't that say something when a teenage boy's room is the cleanest in the house: )-

So this week, we tackled 2 rooms and one "hot" area. I saw "we" because I had the kids joined in. I figured they did a fantastic job messing it, they should help in the cleaning. First up----the family room. I wish I had pictures but my batteries on my camera died. So I guess I will have to tell you what they did.

CJ moved a mattress and bed frame out (it is temporary being stored in the end of a hallway (we will be finding a place for it eventually). Clothes that needed to folded were moved out and put into the living room. Jessie and Alex worked on them.

Zachary cleaned out the entertainment center, wiped it down with cleaner and took all the movies out and put them in their correct case. Jessie took ALL the books off the bookcase (Alex and Zachary both helped her at different times, however, she did the majority of the work on this one.), dusted it and re-organized the books . All the toys down there were sorted, broken ones thrown away and organized into there correct bin.

The couches were vacuumed out. They then washed all the walls and the baseboard heater. Chris then moved the tv up to the main floor into the living room. The room was then rearranged. It makes the room look HUGE! What a difference a day makes. Yesterday morning I could hardly walk through the room without worrying about tripping over something and now......lets just say the kids did a mama proud.

When Chris got home from work he got busy right away washing rugs with the rug cleaner. He helped the kids finish up the family room by directing them on what to do.

While this was all going on, I was cleaning out the old school room. I am still not done in there. My goal is to be done by Wednesday so we can wash the walls and rugs on Wednesday.

Also this week, I went through all the school book we had. I put the books we are using and the books for the upcoming school year on the shelves in the new school room. Next, I put all the books to sell in 3 milk crates. I have one milk crate left with book we will use someday in the future. Alot of old papers and books (ie: dot-to-dot books and old coloring books) were thrown out.

I would say we had a successful week. This upcoming week we will be working on finishing up the old schoolroom and going through Emily, Jessie, Alex and Zachary's clothes. I should have pictures to show for this one because I am going out today and buying some ; )