New series: Simplify…your home, your time, your life

As you have probably realized by now, I am on a mission this year – to get my home and life in order!  I have recently made a huge change from working out of the home to working at home and that has inspired me to finally strive to be the woman I have always aspired and wanted to be.  You know, the one that welcomes a neighbor inside for a quick chat (and maybe even a cookie!) when they unexpectedly knock at the door (and doesn’t run and hide upstairs until they leave because you don’t have makeup on and aren’t even dressed – not that I have ever done that, of course ;)  Someone who ministers with the gift of hospitality on little notice, not requiring a full day of cleaning before they can invite someone over.  Someone who manages her home and time well and keeps priorities of family/home balanced with work. 

In order to even start to accomplish some of those things, I have got to get my home clean, clutter-free, and organized.   I am reading several books on the topic right now – The Money Saving Mom’s Budget (who deals with goals, and organization in the first 2 chapters) and Organized Simplicity.  And I am gaining a lot of insight and inspiration!

So here is my plan (and if I type it out and hit publish, I HAVE to do it!)   I am going to follow along with the plan Tsh sets forth in Organized Simplicity and clean and organize my home in this order:

Week one

1.  Living Room

Week two

2. Kitchen – refrigerator/freezer and pantry

3. Kitchen – cabinets and counters

Week three

4. Bathroom(s)

Week four

5. Kids room (since I don’t have kids, I will be tackling my craft room – oh my, I promise some of your kids rooms are 10x’s better than MY craft room!))

Week five

6. Master bedroom/closet

7. Entryway and Coat closet

Week six

8. The paper monster/office space

I also hope to share some time-saving tips with you, and ways I am hopefully learning to simplify and gain balance (wow, that is a daunting task as I feel like I have a long way to go, but I did say learning not mastered!) 

 And I would love to invite you to join me!  If I can get the linky tools to cooperate, I plan on having a link-up party along with each project listed above so that you can link-up your before/after pictures and progress too.

So if you are up to the challenge, get to work on your living room this week and come back on Friday to see my before and after pictures and link up yours!

If you need a little help to get started, here is the method I will be using to clean and declutter each space:

• Remove all items possible except for the furniture, rugs, and curtains.
• Do a thorough cleaning – dust, vacuum, mop, clean blinds, clean baseboards, etc.
• Then I will re-evaluate each item as I put it back – do I need it?  does it belong in this room? do I like it?  do I use it regularly?  and is it helping me live simply?    Don’t get me wrong, my room will not be bare from décor because I do love my decorations!     But I am hoping that it will look clean and fresh and lovely, while still allowing me to keep it clean in little time.

(One more thing – if you have found something that has helped you to organize, declutter, minister in hospitality, plan meals, manage your time, be a good home manager, balance life’s priorities, or anything like that –I would love to hear about it and even consider sharing your wisdom in a guest post.  If you would be interested in guest posting on one of those topics or anything else – send me an email at christina@thefrugalhomemaker.com.  I know some of you are probably much better in many of these areas than me and I would love to learn from you!)

{cj}