Yesterday I got to help a friend "gut out" (her words) her daughter's room.

View from the doorway before

View from the doorway after

I think we all assume that at a certain age, our children are capable of cleaning their own room. We ask, bribe, threaten, what-have-you to get them to straighten their rooms and keep them in some semblance of clean. Then when we can take it no more, we decide to clean it ourselves. This friend called me because she was overwhelmed just stepping in the room. After we cleaned it you could actually feel that it was lighter.

We started in the closet, and just went through everything. The whole room only took 3 hours because this friend was not being sentimental and made decisions very quickly. It was great!! She had actually set aside different drawers for certain items, so once we had the closet cleared everything went a lot faster since it had a place to go to.

Closet before

Closet After

2 lessons I took from this room are:

1. Don't underestimate children when it comes to "stashing". Check every corner, under the bed, in the closet, behind the door, etc. These kids are creative, so get creative when you check their rooms.

Dresser Before

Under the Bed Before

(I actually had to pick the bed frame up to move it since the little girl had stuffed it to the gills)

2. When your child runs out of socks, don't buy her more. Make her clean her room instead. My friend and I must have found at least 20 pairs of socks in her child's room. She had just bought her all new socks because her daughter couldn't find any to wear.

Left side of the room Before

Left side of the room (and dresser) After

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I used to love watching the old "Cheaper by the Dozen" with the father who was an efficiency expert.

So here is my small contribution to the world of efficiency....

I don't know when or if I came up with this, or saw someone else do it, but ...

I was tired of cutting my kids food, especially syrupy pancakes and waffles that never would cut nicely. And I was tired of not getting to eat my own breakfast until it was cold. So instead of cutting them after they have syrup on them, I tear them into bite-sized pieces before hand. It may not be as pretty, but it's faster and the torn pieces are easier to pick up with a fork.

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