Are you familiar with Intervention, the disturbing A&E show where people confront their addictions with the help of their friends and families through drug and alcohol intervention?
Last week, I staged an intervention. For myself.
My catalyst was a visit with a dear friend in California over Spring Break. She is admittedly obsessive about tidiness and the result is a beautiful, orderly home.
And then I returned to mine.
While I get a passing grade for cleanliness I am a beauty-school dropout as it pertains to organization. Before my bags were even unpacked, I resolved to make a change. I started by moving our storage cubby of toys in the family room upstairs to the children’s bedroom, ridding the entire main level of toys. What I didn’t post on Craiglist, I donated to A.R.C, recycled or threw in the trash.
But it didn’t stop there. Our home has limited storage space and the root of our problems can be found in
The Room of Doom. Most houses have one. You know: the place where you dump every random object you can’t be bothered to put away. Ours is our storage room. When we finished our basement two years ago, it became the resting ground for not only food items but building materials, party favors and the odd cat or two.
My husband and I have been resolving to clean it for several months so I decided I would surprise him by tackling the onerous task myself. How delighted he would be to arrive home to such a great surprise! It wasn’t easy but I was a woman on a mission. After several hours, the difference was staggering.
The Shameful Before:
The Glorious After:
Jubilantly, I hauled numerous items to the garbage and loaded two overflowing donation bags in the trunk of my SUV. There was another large bag near our front door so I decided to close the garage door and haul the other bag from the front.
The only problem is I had forgotten that I had left the trunk of my SUV open.
An open trunk + a closed garage door = a scenario you do not want to envision.
Let’s just say my husband held a different kind of Intervention when he returned home.
Do you have a Room of Doom in your house? Do you consider yourself to be an organized person?
Author: Amber Johnson
Amber is the founder and editor of Mile High Mamas, travel writer and former columnist for The Denver Post. She is a passionate community builder and loves the outdoors. She has two awesome teens and is happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin.
Karen Jones
LMAO. Seriously. Our room of doom is our den. I can’t wait until IKEA comes to town so I can buy some serious shelves and organizers. For now, it is definitely the pit in our house.
So, what happened to your garage door?!
Amber's Crazy Bloggin' Canuck
Fortunately no major damage was done to the tailgate or the garage door. I did, however, call Jamie en route home and warn him not to open the garage door as usual because the tailgate was perched on it. Through some VERY careful maneuvering, it came away unscathed. 🙂
JoAnn
Oh no! I thought you were going to say you’d thrown away/donated something uber-important on accident. 😉
I grew up in a house where my mother never threw anything away. She came by this naturally, as my grandmother suffered the same claim to fame. This has triggered the opposite reaction in me, and I break out in hives if there’s too much stuff, even hidden from view.
This being said, the only room in the house that gets out of control is Claire’s room. I hear the “don’t stifle her creativity” voice booming in my head, and I turn a relatively blind eye, letting her “organize” as she sees fit. But after a while, I snap, and we do a massive clean/organize. It takes a few months for the poor little dear’s “treasures” to take over before we do it all over again.
One Mom's Opinion
I have a small room in the basement. I have shelves that are organized with suitcases and such. I also have a hanging laundry line that is maybe, 6 feet wide. I hang up a great deal to dry and ironing and getting everything put away quickly is a problem. I should just put everything away in our closets wrinkled, but I can’t bring myself to do that. So, I routinely have several baskets of clothes to iron and put away. Everything else in the house is organized well, but this one area of my home is a constant issue.
Tina
Room? I’ve got an entire basement like that. You did that in only a few hours? I may need to put some umph behind me and get going. You room looks great!
Amy
There’s a great website called FlyLady.net. She helps you to declutter in just minutes a day (key for us busy moms)! She has a great system! She also helps with moving strategies, how to pack, etc.
Holly
Heh! We call ours the Room of Doom too. It’s moved from room to room as we’ve added kids to the family, and right now it’s the office. My problem is that it’s mostly my husband’s stuff, and when I try to clean up he gets extremely upset. So basically I just have to live with the junk, or live with his anger.
Amber's Crazy Bloggin' Canuck
Glad to know I’m not alone! I’ve actually heard of Fly Lady…just haven’t motivated myself to check it out because that would require getting organized. 🙂
Amber's Crazy Bloggin' Canuck
Holly–The only stuff still left in that storage room was my husband’s (that I did not photograph). He has yet to install all the baseboards in our basement so I gave him two months to finish it off and rid our storage room of his clutter forever!
Monica Turner
I’m totally obsessed with those hoarding shows. I’m no where near that bad but I could totally relate when Carrie Underwood went on the Ellen show and said her husband has clutter everywhere.
http://ellen.warnerbros.com/videos/?mediaKey=9cb6b969-afc3-48cf-a3a5-4dd97aebaa1e&isShareURL=true
Aubri
lol the same thing happened to my parents when they finished the basement. The ocd in my longs to organize the storage space all the way from Georgia.. 🙂
Seaside Sue
The room looks great! How is your bedroom closet! Where are pics of the SUV?
Amber's Crazy Bloggin' Canuck
Geez, I just cleaned up the storage room and now you’re needling me about my closet? 🙂 LOL
Susan
What a beautiful looking storage room! You have inspired me to tackle my own room of doom in my basement. Hope the car/garage didn’t suffer too much damage from your whirlwind of decluttering!
Tiffany
I always find watching an episode of “Hoarders” really gets me motivated to purge!! After being on a holiday where I lived out of 1 tiny carry-on suitcase for 2 weeks I realized how little I actually need to live a fun, productive life. Spring is finally arriving up here in Canada (Woo Hoo!) That means time to muck out the drawers, cupboards, closets, garage and “storage” room. I LOVE spring!!
serf rett
The sad facts are the shop has begun to overflow into the house…
Lori Lavender Luz
Color me impressed. You ready to take on my house?
I’ll make sure to disable the garage door.