spring cleaning party: clean sweep photos. (updated!)

i've raved about simple mom before, and i'll do it again. simple mom is greatness!

i have had her "spring cleaning whenever" e-book for a couple months. and while i love it, and i can totally tell it would work, i haven't gotten up the motivation to begin the process. until now. tsh and her readers are participating in a 10-day spring cleaning party, complete with before and after photos of every step for those bloggers among us. i do things so much better in groups so this is just the motivation i needed.

i checked out some of the before and after photos in the comments from today's first step, the clean sweep, and i have to say, i beat everyone by a long shot.

tsh is so funny with "see? i'm a real person! i have clutter!" uh, a kleenex and one stray sippy cup is not clutter. bless her sweet little heart.

these, mine, are SO bad. and i'm only sharing the communal spaces. the master bedroom? oh...my...goodness. but we'll get to it! that's the point of this, right? not shame, but motivation and a new (cleaner, straighter) start.

so, deep breath. and go...

living room: explosion of toys and yet-to-be-folded laundry.

the living room: the addition of a husband makes it oh, so much more inviting! :) i took my "coffee table" out of there just to see what i thought. i'm not against coffee tables. but i didn't think what i had going on was beautiful, and it was always covered in mess. so.. i took it out. thoughts? also, do my trying-to-be-artistic shelves come across that way? or do they just look junky? closer pics might be helpful.

hall bathroom: not too bad. except for my lunchbox is in here...???

hall bathroom: not that much difference except for the lunchbox and the makeshift purple hand towel/bath mat is gone. oh, also i took out the faux plant. i didn't hate it, but i didn't love it. it was there for lack of a better option, i guess. sorta like the coffee table situation. like it better with or without?

we even have clutter in the tub! oh. that's the babies. (terrible photo, sorry.) we could probably stand to lose some bath toys though. sheesh. there's hardly room for the kids in there.

kitchen table: etsy stuff and lots of tea stuff waiting to be put away.

kitchen table area: ahhh.. much better. except i hate, HATE that electrical outlet that's way up high on the wall. this is the only place we can plug in our cable modem, and the big black plug makes me HATE the location even more. ugh. any creative ideas for hiding that?

kitchen counter/sink area: dirty dishes, open cupboards, more etsy stuff and other randomness.

the kitchen: funny how pictures make you notice things you don't notice in real life. like how i should keep the front of the fridge clean. and clean off the top.

the idea of the clean sweep step is to clear surfaces, throw away trash and move things to their proper home. tsh also says to decide quickly about things you come across as far as whether you'll keep them, sell them or give them away. her mantra is if you don't need it or find it beautiful, lose it. it's a pretty liberating exercise, i'll say.

on to the living room... there are many dust bunnies about to meet their maker.