De-Clutter Update

In It’s All Too Much, Peter Walsh advises starting with the biggest disaster area in your house and focus on getting it done, so you can feel a sense of accomplishment. Well, aside from the garage, the biggest disaster was Brother Bear’s room.

Now, I’m just a natural-born organizer, so the idea that there could possibly be a human being on the planet who does not “grok” the concept and process of organization, much less that that human being could possibly live my MY home, is beyond my ability to comprehend. However, I honestly seek to be as understanding and helpful as possible to those poor individuals not born with the Organization Gene (or, alternatively, bashed upon the head by the Organization Fairy at some point in their life), so this time around I was determined to AID Brother Bear in the organization process in the hopes he would get a sense of how HE would like his personal space to be from now on. I won’t bother to describe what we were starting with, but let me just say we’re tackling this one stage at a time.

Progress! We can see the floor!

Stage One: Determine zones. Per Walsh’s advice, I had Brother Bear decide what he wanted each zone in his room to be used for, and I used masking tape and a sharpie to label each zone. Really. I kid you not. Top bunk is for sleeping, bottom bunk is the Secret Spy Fort and appropriate accoutrements. The shelf is divided; stuffed animals on top shelf, then books, then electronics, then the Blue Man Group keyboard. The top surface of the bed-side table is designated for the lamp, picture, and books currently being read; the drawer is for current Guinness Book of World Records projects (longest rubber band chain, and most bottle caps collected); the lower portion is for more books (yay!). The table is for Projects I Am Working On (LEGOs). The top of the dresser, next to the aquarium, is for Model Display.

Project Assembly Zone

Stage Two: Bed, bookcase and bed-side table. Remove everything that does not belong, clean up and replace everything that does. The laundry alone took most of one day.

Stage Three: Tackling floor space. This took the better part of two days, and required the purchase and labeling of storage bins. Bins and/or stacking drawers (which will eventually be located in the closet) designated for: laundry; hats, helmets, and masks (really); outdoor, sports & weapons (really); small toys; Bakugan; writing stuff (go figure); and dinosaurs. Also, dresser drawers were labeled: undies; PJ’s; jeans, shorts & sweaters; swim & uniforms; costumes; and more costumes.

Critical Decision Number One: Since there were no surviving fish in the aquarium, Brother Bear decided to transfer to the two snails to other household aquariums (of which we have several), and remove and store his aquarium to make space for more display room. He has a lot of LEGO creations to display.

Stage Four: Master LEGO sorting. Under all of the Stuff strewn about the room, there was a three inch layer of LEGOs. Up till now, Mama Bear has been the Primary LEGO Sorter. I’m a little compulsive about this, however I have now officially turned the reins over to Brother Bear, and he spent a good deal of time (3+ hours) sorting loose LEGOs into our stacking towers (which I had originally envisioned, implemented, and sorted LEGOs into). Brother Bear now has a firm grasp on exactly how much time and effort it requires to keep 20Billion LEGOs properly sorted so you can find the one piece you are looking for quickly and easily.

Stage Five: The Dreaded Closet. Sigh. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day.

Pretty Much What The Room Used to Look Like.
No, I Didn't Put The Sign There