Yes, the other red curtain finally fell.

And I didn’t put it back up.  (The first red curtain story is here.)  Instead, I finally gutted & reorganized the laundry room.

I actually never thought this would happen.

No, really, I didn’t.

That room has been an absolute disaster for a long time.  Like, since we moved in three years ago.

Where’s the “before” picture?

On the stolen laptop’s hard-drive, of course!

Bummer.

I know.

You could look through your blog’s photo archives and see if you saved it here, you know.

Oh, I could!  Let’s see if I find anything.

BEFORE!

Wow, that’s pretty bad.

Yes, it was.  And *that* was already after the tackle-the-project was underway.

Why was the laundry room such a mess, though?

I don’t know.  I’m a lazy procrastinator and I don’t like to tackle big projects?

Nu-uh.

Oh, wait, you’re right.  That was the old me.

The new me LOVES tackling big projects.  For the most part, anyway.  Not that I’ve come to the point where I love the work part (although I am beginning to like it, actually) — it’s that I love the happily ever after part.  The “wow, this is amazing” part.  The “holy cow, it actually worked” part.

Yes, that part.

And here it is!

Half of it, anyway.

(Many thanks to Kailee, who with her amazing furniture-organizing skillz & her big, beefy “What do you mean wait for John? I can move this” muscles helped to make this happen last week.  She is for hire, by the way, for folks in the Salt Lake & Utah counties.  I highly recommend her.)

First you go through the baby gate...

(Note how Freedom is crawling now.  The before picture was taken in that army-crawling-window.  Aww…)

Then you go through the doorway where the red curtain used to hang...

Watch out for that blue “ghost”!

And… what is this?…

Then you walk over freshly-vacuumed floor that used to always, always have junk all over it.

TADA!!!!

Excuse the stuff hiding not so stealthily on those cupboards.  The boxes gathering on the left are proof I *am* getting rid of the excess.  Slowly but surely, it is happening.

I need a better place for our dehydrator & juicing pot. (Hang the pot from the vaulted ceiling in the junk game/tool closet?)

The bags on the right are our “go bags.”  You know, the bags you grab if you have to leave in an emergency.  Diapers, change of clothes for everyone, snacks, water… I’m still trying to figure out a good place for those guys too.  And this reminds me, it’s past time to restock them.  We try to do it every General Conference weekend (a nice, 2x/yr landmark for us) — but it didn’t happen in April.

But there you have it, folks.  To your left would be all the matching dressers w/ the hanging clothes above them.  To your right is a (cough, cough) mess, but it’ll be cleaned up soon.  Ish.  Behind you… is… what’s left of my big “go through all the boys’ clothes, organize, streamling, vac-pac ‘em” project.

(groan)

Friends with kids… Help!

What do you do with the clothes-too-small? Especially the ones you know you’ll need?  Like if you had, say, three little boys within four years of each other? And then, let’s pretend you have no garage or attic to stuff these bad boys into? (The boxes, I mean, not the children, silly!)

Creativity’s clothes are easy.  I learned my lesson when we moved here three years ago.

<flashback!>

We had that many clothes (see that huge pile of boxes?  Go on, scroll up.  Yes, THAT MANY) just for 0-24 months girl clothes.

!!!!

The stash had been hiding in our attic in Washington for 2 years.  Doing nothing.  I still feel the guilt.  We could have outfitted probably three little girls.  I felt sick.  It (almost) all went to a women’s shelter, and then I felt better.

Now I keep the super-sentimental clothes (made by Zannie), and the rest all go to my cute nieces I have.  Or that darling neighbor up the street. Pretty much everything of Creativity’s fits into one bin half the size of those.

Hey, Szalinski, where’s that shrinking machine?  I’d love to just zap those boy-clothes-boxes and store them all in a ziplock baggy.