We are knee deep in projects all around the house.
It’s funny…remember when I told you about my year of rest from projects? It felt sooo good, to simply live in our home and not work so much on it. Everyone is different, but I’ve recognized that I must create space for us. We don’t enjoy project after project after project…I start to feel frazzled and undone and, for the love of everything holy, I’ll feel that way plenty without doing it to myself.
Ya know what I mean?
So we work on big projects for a month or so, and then we rest and play and cook more dinner and rent more movies. Matt and I see every movie that’s released, and the kids get me up in the playroom to paint, glue, and color on all the white surfaces up there.
I’m also getting better at stopping amidst the project–to prolong it for a day or so, so that I may keep my sanity while sipping more coffee and actually putting the laundry away. Sometimes, I tend to try to knock out several small projects while the large one is in progress. While the guest bathroom tile is done, and walls are planked (can’t wait to show you!), there is still lots of caulking and painting and installing trim to do.
Which means there’s a giant mess in the bathroom and the hallway and the guest room. To keep from feeling swallowed alive by it, I worked on straightening and reorganizing our kitchen desk area the other day. That’s our drop zone, and man, it’s the bane of my existence. It STAYS messy, despite whatever system I implement and no matter how many talks we all have about keeping the paper to a minimum. So I found a solution that worked for our paper-piling family.
I cleaned out the bottom drawer and dumped the paper there. Yep.
Organizers everywhere be dismayed.
But really, that’s a simple solution for us–in go the papers to be filed for the year. Those papers get transferred to a small file box at year’s end. Done. No hole punching, or separating them, or anything else I’m not going to do.
Hi. My name is Shaunna and I enable paper-piling.
I did also bring home these seagrass baskets from our shop, because our small desk felt so cluttered with several containers sitting on it. This way, it’s just the one basket sitting, and the rest hanging out of the way. And that beautiful painting was done by the lovely Karen from Classic Wall Finishes…I’m so in love with her and sister, Patty, so I love hanging something so special in the center of our home. P.S. Karen painted the painting with Chalk Paint®! Isn’t it so dreamy?!
I’m off to totally reorgaznie the playroom and art/school supplies.
Because that totally makes sense. I definitely shouldn’t go on and paint the bathroom and get it done already.
Nah, it can wait till tomorrow.
P.S. Those baskets are not listed online, but if you’d like to grab some for your messy areas, email us at orders@perfectlyimperfectblog.com or call 334-482-0215.
Well, then call us partners in crime because I ,too, decided last year that I would just use our bottom desk drawer to house the impossible pile. Every. single. day. our 9 year-old would bring home folders of little things she scribbled on, colored, glittered, glued and cut out. Lord forbid if we were ever caught disposing of such treasures (we learned the hard way on that one), so what else is there to do? Each school year I plan to pile up all the lovlies in said drawer and then transfer them at the end of the school year to a labeled folder for that year.
Sanity restored. ;0)
I couldn’t possibly keep everything my children make. I photograph the work with my phone, then keep only the best ORIGINAL WRITING AMD ARTWORK.
Oh I love this! I noticed a couple years ago that no matter what I did to “get organized”, I still maintained those certain habits–and paper piling is one of them. I now have a basket in the laundry room for the paper pile. Now it’s not out in the open, and I don’t hate myself for breaking a system that was never going to work for me. It’s about finding the flow of your actual family, and working with it.
Anna
I love the little baskets! And I love the painting. I found Patty through your blog because you had recommended her and I’ve been buying paint from her now for more than a year and she is truly so wonderful!
And as far as the paper piling goes, hey, whatever works for you and keeps the desk clean. I hate paper piling. I hate cluttered desks. So if one has to give – go for the paper piling, as long as that desk stays clean. I know. I’m Monica from Friends 🙂
I feel so much better knowing that YOU… even you are a paper piler!!! Because
I always feel like such a failure with all that paper- now I am convinced that
all those people whose homes look too neat to be lived in; they MUST be paper pilers as well, they just have a bigger drawer than I do.
Thanks Shaunna!!
Hmmm… I have the ” Leaning Tower of Piza Pile of Paperwork” ! 😉
I often organize my papers in Ziploc bags. They don’t fall out like a file folder. You can label them and they are clear so you can see what they are instantly.