Dogs Don't Eat Pizza

Welcome to Thirty Days of Gratitude, Tidying Up Edition! Although today is November 2, it’s the first real day of Thirty Days of Gratitude Tidying Up, because yesterday we were recovering from Halloween! (And I was definitely grateful for the extra hour of sleep!!)

Today, my focus is our family room and the closet in the family room. The family room and its closet always seem to be a mess. The closet was literally overflowing with stuff. I’m going to start with the family room, then get to the little closet under the stairs.

This is the “before” of our family room, taken the other day:

There are pillows everywhere. My kids have said there are too many pillows on our couch, so they end up piled up on the brown chair. (I might have a slight pillow hoarding problem.)

There are remotes in the Coke crate, where they belong, but several out of the crate, too. There’s a blanket flung on the couch. You can’t see it in the above picture, but the DVDs are a mess and there are some stacked on our media cabinet, instead of inside, where they belong.

Here’s what I did:

1. All remotes back in the Coke crate.
2. Checked under the couch cushions for anything and vacuumed there. I found a magic wand under one of the cushions (no, sadly, it didn’t work).
3. Vacuum the rug, including under tables and chairs.
4. Go through the dog toys and toss the old, ratty ones (they were Bear’s anyway).
5. Organize the DVDs. I like them alphabetized.
6. Remove some of the pillows from the couch and store them in the room.

Here’s the “after”:

I changed out the side table in the family room. Before, the one in there was too small and too low. Now, this table – which was my mother’s – fits better here, and the smaller table that was there is now a night table in the guest room.

DVDs are now organized and alphabetized (yay!):

And Hank went through his toys and kept only the ones he loves.

Extra pillows are now in this trunk/table that was in the guest room. We can use the trunk in the family room for storage and extra seating.

Now, for the closet. This is a little closet in our family room that was carved out from the space under the stairs.

I know – it’s such a small little closet, right? Um, well…here’s what came out of it:

I’m surprised Harry Potter didn’t come tumbling out of it with everything else.

(I forgot to take a “before” pic of the stuff actually inside the closet because I was so excited to get everything out of it. The stuff fell out of the closet every time we opened the door!)

I added hooks to the closet wall for Dear Husband’s guitar bags. They now hang on the wall, instead of being piled up on the floor.

Our board games are now in this closet – rather than in the kids’ hallway lockers – so that they are in the room where we use them most.

I am grateful that the family room is tidied and organized because we spend so much time in this room. It’s great to have space for everyone to relax, without clutter (clutter = stress for me). And I’m grateful that the closet is now cleaned out and organized because (1) now things don’t fall out of it when you open the door and (2) the games are in the room in which we use them!

Are you joining in this year’s Thirty Days of Gratitude, Tidying Up Edition? What did you clean/organize today? What are you grateful for today? Share in the comments!