Organize your life

This year two of my kids are leaving home. My house is small, it's 81 square meters (900 square feet?) and we have four kids living here, one dog and 12 cats. Now Sharon has already her own place and two (Michal, Sarai) are leaving. This will give me the chance to give Yael a larger room, get my studio in Yael's old room (2.50 by 3 meters), we will move our bedroom to Michal's old room and our bedroom will become part of an enlarged family room/dining room by breaking a wall.

We live in this house for 18 years now. We were busy raising the kids, didn't have much space to move around or doing anything fancy with the house, but now with these new opportunities and with me losing my job last fall, I will be able and have time to set and reach some goals hopefully.

• Renovate
• Repair
• Replace
• Declutter
• Organize
• Maintain

House of Grace is having a series of blogposts challenges for organizing your life, with some great tips

I made a what to do list in word and a what to get list in word. The What to do list has all the things I have planned to do this year, 2011. The what to get list is the list of supplies I will need.

I will do the things on my what to do list as opportunity arises. Meaning, I can't paint Yael's new room as long as Sarai still has part of her stuff there, so I will do the things that I can do already.

As soon as I have finished one of the things on the list, I mark it with a "v".

This is what I have achieved in January 2011 and marked on my list.

This is my kitchen. Oh the horror and the shame, all the clutter everybody is leaving, plastic bags hanging from the doorknobs, the horrible outdated spots above (only one works because it's a energy saving lamp and way too bright), always dishes drying on the countertop, as in all the 23 years of marriage we never got a dishwasher. Last week however with our wedding anniversary my mom gave us a dishwasher!

This is what I did:

I decluttered the granite top.

An electrician removed the spots lamp and attached the new Ikea lamp.

I removed the plastic bags hanging from the lower cabinet door handles (one for organic waste for my compost bin and one with empty catfood cans for the recyle bin) and made the lower left cabinet into a recycle station, with large plastic bins, one for organic waste, one for cans, glass bottles etc.

I emptied all the other lower cabinets. Removed the doors. Than had one complete cabinet cut out (my kitchen was custom made 18 years ago and it is not made of seperate cabinets but made in one piece). The corner cabinet had to be cut in half and than a new board was placed to close it and support the granite top. Part of the old door was used to close the space.

Than called the technician of the dishwasher to install it (if you do this yourself, you loose the warrant). And voila, new dishwasher, new lamp and decluttered countertops. I made a start!

Here is the before and after.

Linking up: