Before and After

Well, I'm finally posting the before and after pictures of my back room. I've only been working on this room for about a month now, and finally finished it sometime last week. Ahhh.....

I'm beginning the tour with the least noticeable change. This is the game shelf. Oh, by the way, some of the original pictures were taken with the camera turned longways, except I forgot that on Blogger, I can't rotate the pictures. Bummer. That means that some of the pictures, you'll have to turn your head to get a good view. Anyway, back to the game shelf. This was the first place I worked, mostly because it was bothering me the most. This was actually on my list for last summer's jobs, but unfortunately, I didn't get to it. So, here I was, again this summer, facing the game shelf. So, I began here and the very first day, I got rid of at least 12 games that were missing enough pieces so we couldn't actually play the game. A couple of them were games that were mostly in tact, but we never, ever played them. Thus, out they went. I filled a construction grade, 30 or larger (I'm not sure) gallon bag with games and out it went into the trash. Here is the before and after. It doesn't look much different, but believe me, it is.

Ok, actually, these two pictures are the after photo first and the before photo second...did I do that on all of them???

Yep, I did. Argh. Anyway, here is the kid book shelf. Unfortunately, the little table is in the way, but compared to the before picture, you can see the difference. I did take a bunch of books off and gave them away, and I even threw some falling-apart ones away. Hey, that's big for me!! lol I also organized the shelf and notice the top of the shelf. BTW, the big blue bins to the left are the kids' school boxes. Each homeschooled kid gets a box to keep all their books, supplies, notebooks, etc. in. It helps keep the overall room organized, even though the bins are big and ugly. Oh well, you can't have it all.

Now, this one has a HUGE difference. Ahhh.... I just love this one! This is the bookshelves I have along the back of the room, under the windows. They have just kept getting stuff piled on top and on the shelves. As a matter of fact, it was getting so loaded that we were starting to cover up the windows!!

After.....

Before.... Isn't that just amazing???
This is the final one. This is a bookshelf I have on the left side of the room and the small shelves along the back windows. I've had it turned sideways, but a friend suggested I turn it forward. Here it is sideways, piled with way too much stuff that's been collected for years. I completely emptied the shelf and cleaned it (as I did the others), then threw out a ton of stuff and gathered enough giveaway books to fill a whole box. I was happy to find many friends who wanted all the books and didn't have to throw one of the good ones away.

Before.....


After...hey, I got this one in the right order!! lol

I am completely amazed at the transformation in my back room! It looks sooo much bigger and is so decluttered it's really exciting! We have room to move around and it's all organized. I love being in there now! I found a new place for my scrapbook stuff (in another, less obtrusive location within the same room) and I will be able to get to it easier, as needed. Even though it was very difficult and frustrating working on it (and actually starting to work on it), I'm so happy it's done and so pleased with the outcome. I knew I would be when I finished, but it was just that darn getting started that was killing me.

I still haven't gotten to some of my other summer projects, like the garden, cleaning the windows, doing some scrapbooking, weeding the front flower beds, but the big one is done and these others are mostly small enough that I can do them in spurts, as I have time. So, overall, I'm very happy. I can't wait for you to come and see it sometime!!