Week 25: Don't Just Think About it

Last week's challenge from Laura was to pick a spot that you were avoiding and just do it. She suggested we'd probably be surprised at how little time it took...






Our bathroom drives me nuts. J's bathroom is tidy all the time. Not ours. Our washer and dryer and hot water heater are in a closet in the bathroom. Which means our bathroom often doubles as a laundry room. You'd think that would motivate me to get the laundry put away, but it doesn't. Go figure. Because it's our laundry room as well, our drying rack is in here and stuff gets pulled off of it or out of the dryer and dumped on the counter. And then I get distracted and it stays there. Until it falls over or drives me nuts.

So on Sunday while J napped, I decided that I'd tackle the laundry. It took 15 minutes to move it to the bedroom, fold and sort it and put it away. And then something happened. I was inspired....

I'm not sure how I managed to get myself ready in the morning - all my face stuff and other things were underneath that massive pile of laundry.

This end of the counter isn't much better....

Some of that stuff should probably go in this drawer, but I can't even see what's in the drawer, let alone add to it!

And while I was at it, this cupboard could use some help...

And so could this one...

But not this one...this one is my husband's domain, so it's spotless! He is in charge of switching and washing towels and he does a great job...they never sit on the counter for longer than a few minutes! I didn't include my husband's drawer because the only things in there are a brush, a tube of toothpaste, the q-tips and one or two small things. It's already very well organized!

Less than two hours later, my bathroom looked like someone else's bathroom. While I make sure the bathroom gets cleaned at least once a week, I did give it a special deep cleaning - and it took less than two hours. With two not so helpful helpers helping me!

Look at that bathroom...it's so shiny and clutter free and yes there is still laundry on the rack but that's because it was still wet. When it dried and I took it off, I had a beautiful, flat, clutter-free counter to fold it on!

Still lots of stuff, but not as much (one day I hope we'll have an over-the-toilet cabinet to put a bunch of this stuff in)

And that drawer that you couldn't even see into? Well, when the toiletry bag was moved to a more appropriate home, there was lots of space in there. I repurposed a gift box (now empty of) of soap and hand cream to hold some of the smaller things.

I had a Groupon from the Body Shop a while ago and got about a year's worth of products all at once at a great price - they're in the clear box on the left (I will use them, they're all products I normally use). The wooden box is repurposed from some other bath products and now my face stuff is all in one place and I can get at it all once, but also put it all away together.

Under the sink is  much prettier - it didn't need a lot of help, just a few things needed to be moved or thrown away.

In the course of cleaning out the bathroom I found one bottle of expired Tylenol 3, two bottles containing a total of about 20 percocet, two bottles with some old antibiotics, a bottle of face toner that I know I bought when I lived in London TEN years ago, two empty Shout bottles and a bunch of junk. I discovered I need to take a lot of  baths and probably never have to buy shower gel again (okay, maybe in 2013). Alex took the expired drugs to the pharmacy. They were very happy he took them the narcotics. Apparently we could have sold them on the street for a couple of dollars each....

I applied the same idea to the dishes later on that night when all I really wanted to do was lie in bed and read. You know what, 11 minutes later I was draining the sink and heading to bed!

I do have a question though...because the laundry is in this room, everything gets covered by a thick layer of dust in no time at all. Other than dusting daily, is there anything I can do to minimize the dust?

If you need a gentle push to get your organizing project started or you need some inspiration or new ideas, visit Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie and check out the 52 week challenge.