Organizing and decluttering the homestead

[flowerbug]

lately i managed to shred some old papers Mom had from before but that means i now have four large pails packed full of shredded paper plus the shredder itself is still full and needs to be emptied. normally i keep the shreddings around for worm bedding but this many is a several year supply. i can take them out and bury them in the gardens and they will get turned into worm food eventually but i don't feel like burying things when the weather starts getting hot enough and i'm on limited time outside so i need to use that time for weeding and other more important tasks.

my own decluttering is sitting right here on the small bookshelf beside the futon waiting for me to get around to it. old papers to shred that should have been done years ago. i think a bit of lunch and then get this done at last.

 

[tortoise]

I have been working on organizing and decorating our upstairs to be a school room. It was already designated for that purpose but we weren't really using it well. It's set up with Kindergarten "centers" for DS5 now. Looks surprisingly good for what I had to work with. I spent some money on posters. I have some painting left to do still.

I moved DS13's school stuff to his bedroom. He is happy with the change.

Not much decluttering happening here. I have 3 things in my goodwill bag.

 

[Beekissed]

For the past few days we've been doing the annual push to declutter work spaces outside and in, clean up the yard and spruce up things, as well as finish many small projects that have been sitting there waiting until we have time...which we rarely do at this time of year.

Annual push comes from having a cookout at this time of year for the immediate family to celebrate three fall birthdays, one of them being the Ol' Bat's. It's a good excuse to drop everything else and get some things that need done, done before winter.

Feels so good to have those things finally done instead of waiting in my periphery, taunting me about how much I haven't gotten done!

We are winding down on the wood shed extension build, so are moving the construction/tool table and accompanying mess under the roof of the new build. Still have to put on roofing, eaves, and do some electrical wiring into that space before we are fully done, but the main structure is finished. I'm tickled to have all that wood storage space and also space to work out of the weather, store extra things or just sit out and talk.

But, also getting porch gates built, stained, outside items bleached and cleaned up, new things built, etc. this week. Feels good to get the place looking good now, so we can concentrate on getting fire wood in all the month of Oct. Still have a sorting pen system to construct but have most of the elements on hand to do so.

Will get pics up of the new shed and sorting pens when done....a lot of the free pallets/skids we collected a few years back have went into all this construction, so that feels good. We'll also be using them for wood storage platforms this year, both under the new shed and also out in the paddocks. Those things have been a true blessing from God!

Fortunately the old log shed needs minimal sorting out this year and I'll get to that next week....just needs to have things put back in their places and new places established for new, temporary things. The outside of it, however, needs a major overhaul that I hope to get to sometime this fall/winter. I'm going to remove all things off the back of the shed~lumber storage, cabinets for storing odd things, fencing, and other misc. storage and find a different place for all that stuff. Then that back of shed will only be for things that can be hung up, like various tools we use the most, cables, ropes, etc. I want to streamline all such storage so that this place looks less cluttered overall.

This decluttering, cleaning and organizing is an ongoing thing around here, but I find it really helps in knowing how to find things later on.

 

[tortoise]

It's all about being able to find things! I get so frustrated when I can't find something!!

 

[flowerbug]

It's all about being able to find things! I get so frustrated when I can't find something!!

as long as someone else doesn't move things around on me i have a much better chance here in this room. out in the rest of the house i usually have to ask because Mom likes to keep moving things around.

 

[tortoise]

as long as someone else doesn't move things around on me i have a much better chance here in this room. out in the rest of the house i usually have to ask because Mom likes to keep moving things around.

DH thinks I'm silly about it, but labeling everything helps me coexist with my family. Mostly its DS13 stuffing things wherever, but DH puts things away in strange places in my kitchen too!

 

[wyoDreamer]

My DH puts things in strange places in the kitchen also.
I tried to tell him, the drawer on the right side of the stove is for things used for making food: can opener, wire whisks, cookie dough scoop, pasty knife, and such. The only exception is I put the pizza cutters in there also. The drawer on the left of the stove is for "cooking" items: spoons, spatulas, tongs, hot pads, etc. He just can't get it.

Last night we had a discussion about where the pizza rocker goes. Because it won't fit in the drawer with the rest of the pizza cutters, I put it in the cabinet that is closest to that drawer and is right under the wooden butcher block countertop where we cut the pizza. That cabinet has the frying pans and large stew pots, but the pizza rocker fits nicely along the side. For some reason, he insists on putting it in the cabinet next to the sink, with the cookie sheets, cutting boards and cooling racks. It fits there, but gets in the way of the cutting board and gets the cooling racks tangled together.

 

[Hinotori]

Magnetic knife bar. I attached one to a cabinet by my stove and use it for the most used knives and the the ones that don't fit well anywhere. Like my scraper/chopper on the very end.

 

[FarmerJamie]

Ugh....somehow we now have FOUR whisks of roughly the same type and size. How does this happen?

 

[flowerbug]

Ugh....somehow we now have FOUR whisks of roughly the same type and size. How does this happen?

well, i sure hope they've not figured out how to procreate! could be in store for the Whisker Rebellion...

p.s. had to look up what a pizza rocker was/is... hmm. useful if you make a lot of pizza. we don't really have room for things like that here.