For anyone not familiar with my annual Purge and Clean, please visit this page for all the info. And read the start of this year here.
So….to continue…..apparently I suck at throwing up pics as I go too….but I’ll keep trying….here’s the big post that I wanted to put up about last week….
The room we call our “Big Room” is a garage conversion we use for our art/school area. I started with this room this year because I was really excited to get started on getting our school area revamped. It was completely trashed, as you will see, and I felt a fire burning under me to get it put together in a way that would encourage my children to want to explore and create and learn.
I had the idea to get rid of the file cabinet in there (emptied and gave it away…success!) and to take the existing big table that was in there that was cool but a wee bit too short since it technically was a preschool table and replace it with 2 other preschool tables that I had that were smaller but could be used separately, one for each kid, and have the legs replaced to get them high enough for them.
So I went online and ordered legs immediately from Amazon (just went for broke and used a credit card before I changed my mind….I had been trying to find the money for so long, it was obviously just not going to happen anytime soon so I just did it and I’ll deal with it later.) And went to town on emptying that darn filing cabinet that I hadn’t looked into for years. Big job. But what a great feeling, ditching all that paperwork.
Shuffled a bunch of stuff to my desk in the other room….pitched a bunch of stuff and shuffled some more stuff and took the filing cabinet to donate to our homeschool charter and voila! Empty space! Shuffled some more stuff around and got to work!
We are now well on the way towards that room being a great place to create and learn in again. I think it just regularly has to be changed up to keep it freshly interesting.
So here’s the mess I started with:
And here’s the process I went through:
(Hover over pics for captions.)
Emptying file cabinet.
YAY! Got the table cleared finally!!
Sigh.
YAY, cleared the top of the art dresser!
Oh, that's where it all went. Sigh.
Inside the drawers...so organized now! Art supplies galore!
Paint supplies!
Lots of string and ribbon and oil pastels and rags...
Cups for all sorts of things....
Pens, staplers, tape, glue, etc...
Glitter, straws, Valentine's Day craft stuff, little bags of assorted things....
YAY! Art dresser is cleaned and organized now!!
Well lookee there, the floor is all cleared and the old table is OUT!
Table tops ready for new, longer legs to arrive.
New legs finally arrived!
I have a helper.
One work station complete, with new legs.
Both work stations complete w/new, longer legs!
Happy campers.
Once I get some white boards and cork boards, I’ll see about getting some better “after” pics with the kids. I have plans for shelves too. But it is MUCH NICER in there now!!! I am EXTREMELY PLEASED with how it turned out so far!!!!
And now it’s ready for some Experience-Based Learning and also some Project-Based Homeschooling!!!
At the same time I was working on the Big Room, I was also doing 15 min outside in our front flower bed, which had become a weed infested mess.
I am NOT a yard person, and it gets quite hot where I live, so 15min is quite a doable amount for me….and in just one week, I managed to kick butt on that flower bed, I’m happy to say! I even had a 9yr old helper with me the entire week, for some special Mommy/son time too! Pretty fun!
Now I did get off track a fair bit, as I always expect I will…but I managed to stick to my plan of always starting with what’s scheduled each day. So even if I didn’t finish my job the previous day, I start with the new job that is on my schedule each day. (To find my schedule, check the Summer Purge and Clean page for the link). This keeps me from always being behind. Then, if I finish my job for the day, then I can go back and work on whatever I didn’t finish previously. I’ve been doing that a lot.
I also do a lot of shuffling things around, if I think it will work. Like, I had floors on my schedule for this week but never got to them so I decided it actually would work fine to just move them to the second week of kitchen.
Another way I avoid getting behind is planning very carefully. I plan small enough jobs each day so that I avoid filling the day with too much, so that I allow for interruptions and sidetracks and make it easy for me to complete the job and feel good about getting things finished. It’s amazing how important it is to feel good about getting something done. I can ride all week long on that feeling! And it helps me to do even more!
I am on FIRE with my Summer Purge and Clean!!! What are you up to this summer??/