Anyone here ever read any of Sandra Felton's decluttering the house books?

Flabuless Mama

Postpartum Mama trying to conceive
She is the founder of Messies Anonymous, and wrote The New Messie Manual, Messies No More, and several other home organization/decluttering books.

RawrGirl is undoubtedly a Messie, and has been cleaning and organizing the house as exercise to help her get back to goal.

Anyone else find maintaining a clean/organzied house difficult?

Anyone else trying to give their home a declutter makeover whilst losing weight?

RawrGirl has never maintained a clean/organized house her whole life, and in little less than a year, her son will be off to college and she and Prince Charming are moving to the mountains. And she was looking at pics of apartments in the mountains and they were so beautiful (and clean and clutter free) and she imagined she lived there, and the peace and tranquility of the mountain view from the living room windows and balcony...and then she suddenly realized that if she didn't get into the habit of keeping a clean/organized house here, she won't magically do so just because she moved.

So RawrGirl started 2 weeks ago, and is doing the Mount Vernon method, though not in order as suggessted. She's been at it for over a week,and has maintained every things she has cleaned and decluttered thus far.

Anyone interested in redoing their house and want a buddy? Feel free to post your progress in this thread. :)
 
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Progress So Far

2/3 of the Kitchen -- that sounds so strange, lol, but RawrGirl has cleaned and organized the cooking counter and cabinets, and the breakfast bar (which has always been cluttered with clean pots and pans, but can now be used for breakfast and lunch. The 1/3 left is the counter with the sink where the dirty dishes go and the tupperware cabinet. Plus still need to do the outside of the fridge (the inside completely organized, as well as freezer).

Living Room -- Completed last weekend, including new curtains as a reward (first few years had no curtains (just the blinds) and last year or so just had bedroom curtains hanging.

Laundry Room -- Completed last weekend. And looks beautiful. Bought a 3-sorter hamper and a drying rack for sweaters so they don't need to be spead out all over the washer and drying for days and needing to be turned.

Dining Room --Completed. Last weekend: dining table (had become a dumping ground for mail and pantry items. This weekend: buffet

Stairwell -- this weekend: after 5 wonderful years of marriage to Prince Charming, printed out wedding pics and bought beautiful frames and hung them all along the stairwell. Still need to buy a railing though...it was taken down to get the washer and drying up to the laundry room, was never put back up, and then got broken. *sigh*

Den/Office -- WIP. Sorted through the file. Cleared most of the desk. Boxed up books that wouldn't be read again before the move. Still have quite a bit of organizing left to do though.

Master Bedroom -- WIP, did all the laundry last weekend including folding (unheard of). This weekend, put the folded laundry away. Have made the bed every morning since started 2 weeks ago. Have summer clothes to pack up, and other clothes to hang. And top of dresser. And closet. But drawers are done. And Prince Charming's drawers and closet are done.

Upstairs Loo. Almost done. Everything is clean, and she bought shelves that go over the sink so now the counter isn't all cluttered. :) But still need organize the closet. Still need to buy new shower curtain and rugs (plus the rubber backing on the old rugs is now stuck to the tiles so that has to get scraped up first. Then need to find rugs that won't do that anymore. *sigh*

Guest Bedroom/Storage Room/Gym: Major work in progress. This room is full of books -- boxes of books, and boxes and boxes full of other stuff, and a huge collection of empty boxes for packing. And RawrGirl's weight machine is there too. Sometimes she has to move boxes just to get to it, but the room is cleared enough now that there is a big space in front of it. Her goal is for the rest of the house to be completed as soon as possible. But the goal for this room is Christmas when in-laws are coming to stay for 10 days.
 
Making a Home for Stuff

RawrGirl is also packing as she goes of anything that she knows won't be used between now and the mve. And she is taping index cards to the box which list what's in the box, and numbering the boxes and cards, and then keeping another copy of the numbered index in a index card case so she knows exactly where everything is and won't unpack something until she knows it has a home.

Stuff not having a home has been the reason RawrGirl's houses have always been so cluttered. Sandra Felton mentioned that Messies just don't think of things like naturally organized people do. RawrGirl had no closet for brooms and mops, so they just leaned against the wall. No place for mail so it just piled up on the dining room table. Kitchen trash can was always overflowing. Etc., etc., etc.

Sandra Felton says Messies just live with it due to low self-esteem, and that one must repeat the mantra: I am worth it. I deserve a nice home.

So RawrGirl has been repeating this over and over again.

And she's come up with great ideas. Examples:

First, she bought an outdoor trashcan so the kitchen trash can be put right out when full. Then she put a small trashcan under the sink. And then she put the kitchen trashcan in the pantry (it has shelves, so it wouldn't hold the brooms and mops, but the space between the bottom shelf and floor is big enough to the trashcan).

Then she put up screws on the wall across from the pantry, and put plastic tie thingys on the brooms and mops so they could be hung up.

Oh, and she bought lights for the closets so she can actually see what was in there.

Anyway...just stuff like that. It seems so simple really, and embarassing that she never though of this before, but she just accepted living in dark closets, not having space for stuff, etc. It just never occurred to her to really study a situation and to invent a solution to it. *sigh*

But never too late to start, right?
 
The kitchen is now complete. RawrGirl spent the last 3 hours scrubbing EVERYTHING -- stove, sinks, refrigerators, backsplash, counters, cabinets. Fortunately, teenage son scrubbed the floor (that's one of his very few weekly chores). And it distracted her from snacking. :D


So now, RawrGirl has to maintain the whole kitchen and not just the 2/3's that had been cleaned 2 weeks ago.

She can do this. She knows she can. She is worth it. She deserves a clean kitchen.
 
We moved house after over 30 years in the same one. Declutter wasn't the word. We found things in the attic and cellar we thought we had lost years ago. We had 3 boxes: Keep, tip, charity shop and when each was full it went straight to its destination. Towards the end, when we went to the tip the staff were saying ' Hello again!' It's a lovely feeling though isn't it..? When you have a good sort out?
 
RawrGirl purged the trunk of her car today.

The car is new for RawrGirl (it's a 2002), and AMAZINGLY she has kept it spotlessly clean since she got it a few months ago. After being a courrier for 11 years, she practically lived in her car and it would always look like it. And even after she left that job, her car has always been a mess. But somehow or another, she vowed that this one would always be clean and she has maintained that.

The boot...is another story. RawrGirl has a job now where she goes to 5 different shops a week and puts up merchandise (and bags up merchandise not being sold). These bags of stuff end up in her boot because she can't mail them back to the company until they total 10 pounds or more -- which is abut 4-6 bags. Add in that RawrGirl hates going to the post and so she waits until she has about 3 or 4 boxes full of these bags. On top of that, she gets several sheets of paper (order, invoice, receipts for order, etc) for every store each week, and she has to keep the receipts (8.5 x 11 paper) for every order (1-2 orders per shop/5 stores a week) for 30 days. RawrGirl is not organized, and so they are kept for months and months. Add to that, that she needs spare strips, and fixtures, and magnets, and poles and suction cups, etc. to put the merchandise on in the stores. All of this...plus her work tool kit and crate (full of other stuff she needs every day that attaches to the trolley -- stapler, duster, clip board, bags, allen wrench, scissors, 3-way divider, etc., etc.) Naturally, all this belongs in the boot...along with oil, jumper cables, etc.

Naturally, RawrGirl's boot is (was) a diaster.

So she found a lopng narrow box for all the fixtures, threw out all the receipts save for Octobers (they went back as far as April before she stopped looking), she found the file folder she had bought to keep them organized (the only papers in there were November 2013 -- which shows how long she maintained that). Threw out everything she didn't need.

The boot looks lovely now.

Hopefully this time RawrGirl can maintain it.
 
Rawrgirl, I don't mean to be rude or intrusive but I wondered if there was a particular reason why you always write in the third person: Always 'Rawrgirl', never 'I' Is it copying a particular style of writing you like? Or do you find it easier to talk about yourself using the third person? Please don't be cross with me

LOL, RawrGirl gets asked this alot.

RawrGirl is in love with the character of Hercule Poirot, who often refers to himself in the 3rd person. RawrGirl finds this good fun, and since it would be quite odd to speak that way in real life, she limits herself to Minimins. :D

Hercule Poirot: No! Lieutenant, you lie to Poirot. You say that you were in the barracks by midnight, but Poirot has proved this to be false.

Hercule Poirot: I haven't given up, Mrs. Folliat. I will not give up. Hercule Poirot will *never* give up.

Hercule Poirot: The question is, can Hercule Poirot possibly by wrong?

Hercule Poirot: So, we have played, and Hercule Poirot, he has won.

Hercule Poirot: It is the subject matter, George. It is distasteful. Poirot, he has seen much evil in this world. It should not be the subject of such mockery.

Hercule Poirot: If you are to be Hercule Poirot, you must think of everything.
 
You and me too! We have the box set of all the David Suchet Poirots and Joan Hickson Miss Marple. They never fade. I also love the Margaret Rutherford Marples, but she aint a bit as described in the books. Personally, I wish I has as many little grey cells as Poirot. It would make life a tad easier for old 'Not too bright Tas'

What did you think of the last episode, Curtain?

RawrGirl personally found it very out-of-character for Poirot, particularly because he was so upset to let the "killers" go in Murder on the Orient Express.
 
What did you think of the last episode, Curtain?

RawrGirl personally found it very out-of-character for Poirot, particularly because he was so upset to let the "killers" go in Murder on the Orient Express.

Didn't think much of it at all love. You are so right, completely out of character. Remember how he stalked off, after MOTOE? Face hard as stone. No, I was disappointed in it, and how they had aged Arthur Hastings and Japp.
 
So...RawrGirl has worked on house all day...5 hours. Several things checked off her list.

Bedroom -- closet, floor, bed, clothes, top of dresser and lightstand, etc.

Hall -- boxes of books, cleared/packed tons of clutter on shelf and chest.

All the fingerprints around light switches and surrounding walls in living, dining, kitchen, and den.

Dusted living and dining room, including where the ceiling meets the wall.
 
Either Sandra Felton's book -- The New Messies Manual or The House That Cleans Itself by Mindy Starns Clark. Both are excellent and have basically the same advice, and both are written by someone who was once overwhelmed by clutter and learned/taught themselves how to maintain a clean house (rather than someone who is naturally born a clean/organized person).
 
RawrGirl is still pluggin away at the house.

The charity shop picked up 4 boxes and three bags of stuff, so now they are finally out of the living room.

Tupperware cabinet is done.

And yesterday worked on the spare bedroom that's been nothing but storage. RawrGirl is hoping to have it cleared before the inlaws come to stay, and then hopes to turn it into an exercise room. RawrGirl doesn't like to exercise where someone (husband or teenage son) can just walk in -- particularly for yoga as RawrGirl is very inflexible and uncoorinated and would feel stupid, plus she would like to get back into belly dancing and wouldn't want teeneage son to come in, and whatever her routine is is a surprise for Prince Charming anyway, so doesn't want him to just walk in. The weight machine is already in the spare bedroom, so it seems like a good (and private) place to dance or do yoga.

Still have the coat closet and a few more walls to scrub, and now the den is a mess because all the Christmas stuff is in there (to help clear the spare room).

Lol, RawrGirl is getting tired just thinking about it all.

*sigh*
 
RawrGirl is still pluggin away at the house.

The charity shop picked up 4 boxes and three bags of stuff, so now they are finally out of the living room.

Tupperware cabinet is done.

And yesterday worked on the spare bedroom that's been nothing but storage. RawrGirl is hoping to have it cleared before the inlaws come to stay, and then hopes to turn it into an exercise room. RawrGirl doesn't like to exercise where someone (husband or teenage son) can just walk in -- particularly for yoga as RawrGirl is very inflexible and uncoorinated and would feel stupid, plus she would like to get back into belly dancing and wouldn't want teeneage son to come in, and whatever her routine is is a surprise for Prince Charming anyway, so doesn't want him to just walk in. The weight machine is already in the spare bedroom, so it seems like a good (and private) place to dance or do yoga.

Still have the coat closet and a few more walls to scrub, and now the den is a mess because all the Christmas stuff is in there (to help clear the spare room).

Lol, RawrGirl is getting tired just thinking about it all.

*sigh*

Going by your photos, you don't look old enough to have a teenage son... damn you. I 'm envious!
 
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