I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on here yet, but about two weeks from now my brother is making the 1,200 mile drive from his current home in Minneapolis to our home in Colorado, and he is moving in with us for a few months! Tommy is 9 years younger than me so he was only a 3rd grader when I graduated high school and left home. I’m so excited to get to spend some serious time with him now that we are both adults! He graduated from college over a year ago with his construction management degree and has been working for a contractor in MN, but he has always wanted to live in Colorado, so my husband offered up our house for the summer. If he wants to stay longer than that we would love it – he’ll just need to find his own place to live at that point. 😉 We are hoping that between my husband and my father-in-law’s companies (concrete & construction) that they can keep him busy this summer, so it should be a win/win for all of us. Lots of quality time spent with my brother and we will get a good employee to boot!
At any rate, you’ll probably recall that our kids share a room because we have thus far been unwilling to give up our guest room / office space. With Tom moving in, we had to get the guestroom closet cleaned out and the room organized so that it can feel like his space while he’s here. He’s already getting kicked out to the living room couch when my parents visit in June and my BFF & her husband visit in July, so we figure we should make him feel as comfortable as possible when it is his room!
I took these “before” pictures last January when I was 40 weeks & 1 day pregnant with Harvey and deep into my #WhoNeedsIt obsession. I obviously never got around to posting about it. Ha! I actually did do a semi-decluttering of the space while I was on maternity leave, but of course a lot of stuff has gotten shoved in there over the past year, so it was time to really hit is hard again. Here are the before pics:
And here is my ghetto Paint explanation of the layout (I’ve literally never used this program before, so be kind *grin*). it’s not at all to scale, but you’ll get the general idea. The closets on the right run underneath the stairs that go to the upstairs, so the first game closet has the low sloped ceiling from the stairway.
And here are the afters!
Not bad for an afternoon’s work, eh? 🙂 Obviously the kids will still be going into that room for access to their toys (we have a tiny living room as well and I’m not willing to have all of Stella’s art supplies and baby doll stuff strewn about all the time), but I think it will work well. I love the feeling of an empty closet & knowing that family is coming to town soon!
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Here are a few other #WhoNeedsIt (Decluttering) Posts you might be interested in!
Challenge 1: Fess Up
Area 1: The Master Bedroom
Challenge 2: Get Real
Area 2: The Bathrooms
Area 3: The Kitchen Drawers & Pantry
Challenge 3: Start Small
Area 4: The Master Bedroom Closets – Stage 1
Challenge 4: Return to Sender
Area 5: The Guest Room Closets
WOW. I’m impressed. And inspired! I’m assuming you actually got rid of stuff, didn’t just shift it around to some other place. I’m looking around my office and my fingers are itching to start tossing!
Ha! I was going to ask this too!
I have a few areas that need me to apply my own freaking project to. Geez! I would be ashamed of my before pictures at this point. I have gotten much better at not letting crap creep into the house, but lazy in the maintenance part. Mrrrrrp.
Yep! A few things just got put away in their correct places, but a lot of stuff got brought to the thrift store. Yahoo!
Nice job! I was wondering about your brother coming to stay with you – that sounds awesome to have him around for the summer and get some quality family time. I’ve loved having my brother back in KC and I’m sad to know in a matter of a few weeks, or maybe as long as next spring he will be moving away probably for good. You killed it on the closet organization! I feel like I need to start doing that in our house now before things get out of control like our old house.
I’m SO excited to have him around!
Definitely good to get started now because it’s easier to maintain than have to deal with it when it gets out of control.
Nice organizing! You should see my attic now that it’s been a few month post de-cluttering. *shudder*
Our kids share a room too. It’s going pretty well so far except we have to keep the changing table in the living room!
We have a changing pad on top of their dresser, and I can’t wait for Harvey to be potty trained so it can be just a dresser again 🙂
I was so weirdly excited for you when I saw that your brother was coming to stay with you 🙂 How fun! FWIW, I could never do that, but I know you’ll have a blast hahaha 🙂
LOL. I think it’s going to be awesome! We’ll all have to learn our boundaries and give each other space from time to time I’m sure.