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Our Life-Giving Home: Month One PERSONAL

Personal

February 12, 2019

What does a life-giving home mean?

Simply put, it’s a home that we have created that is life-giving. It’s a place that brings us joy, peace, happiness and rest. A place that is filled with items that are of importance and meaning, not of clutter and junk.

It’s sort of ironic that we’re starting this project now in the year of Marie Kondo and her joys of simplifying. Maybe she did have something to do with the start of this project, but nevertheless, we’re excited!

While we only have a “plan” of doing it for only six months, we’re okay if one month for a bigger room turns into two. The month order follows this:

Month One: Living Room/Hallway Closets/Laundry Room

Month Two: Kitchen

Month Three: The Master Bedroom

Month Four: The Office

Month Five: Workout Room/Extra Bedroom

Month Six: Bathroom

Now, without giving too much length to this blog post, let’s get into our recap of showcasing the before/after’s of our life-giving home month one!

Michelle’s Life-Giving Home Month One Recap

One of our goals this year was to organize each room and take our time while doing it. For me, I found a lot of my inspiration through a few blogs that I love to follow as well as Pinterest.

Cleaning and organizing actually make me really happy! I realized that a clean home just makes me feel joy and peace. As I began this process I really took the time to find out what about each space made me feel unsettled.  My biggest challenge was my hallway closet and the hutch in my living room.  Each was overflowing with items I had “stuffed” in there throughout the years.  I also realized that my hallway closet had not been painted since we moved into this house! I don’t even want to tell you how long ago that was…so when removing everything from the closets the first thing I did was give it a good coat of clean white paint!

It really was easy to discard items that we no longer used or were products that had expired. Trying to find the right storage was a bit more tricky. But waiting until I had everything clean out of the space gave me a better idea of what I truly needed.

When going through DVD’s (um yes even some VHS tapes), remote controls, etc. I really took the time to think about if it was something that I still needed, used or sentimental value and if it was not, it was donated to  Goodwill. I found this to be difficult at first but once I started it got much easier! If I was unsure of something I sat it off to the side and then came back to it. Mostly I went with my first reaction when I saw the item and I have to say that so far I don’t regret anything I gave up!

As I was cleaning out my living room and hallway closest I would come across things that didn’t belong there. I try to put those things away from the best I could knowing that soon I’ll be going to those rooms and organizing them.

There were times when I felt I wouldn’t make it in time but by setting a goal, making it a priority and having some to hold me accountable all helped!

Going forward one thing that will be important for me is to make sure that I keep my living room, hallway closets and laundry area clean while I delve into the next section of our monthly organization, and that is the kitchen, and I can’t wait! If you don’t hear from me soon I’m lost in the back spaces of my cabinets, come save me!!

Sara’s Life-Giving Home Month One Recap

I cannot begin to describe to you how refreshing it is to start off the year with a goal that doesn’t have a single thing to do with business. Every year I personally set goals for myself to reach, but M and I have never set personal goals together! Of course, we talk about our personal goals together, but this is the first year where we are setting out to do one at the same time!

I honestly was excited to start off with any room, but to tackle my laundry room and my main master closet was awesome! I’m actually glad we didn’t start off with the kitchen because that’s like the “danger zone” and I know that’s gonna be taking a long time. (Get ready for ninth 2 recaps coming soon!!) But, the laundry room and the master closet was probably the two most used places beside the master bedroom/kitchen/living room.

The easiest place to start was the laundry room – I knew exactly what to do and what I wanted to order. They’re not drastic, picturesque, changes however they are changed I can see day today! I cleaned EVERYTHING down, from top to bottom. I changed the light bulb out that had been out for probably a year. #reallife I ordered a new bin for Cali’s cat food that was smaller and more functional. I also ordered the laundry dispenser from grove.co to help clean up the bottles (and soap dripping)!

I forgot to photograph my other small closets before and after, but it wasn’t as dramatic of a change like my master hallway closet! *insert gasping emoji* Seriously, this transformation makes me SO excited to organize and clean my kitchen!! Before I even went in for it, I made a *rough* plan of action and that was such a good way to start!

I won’t even give you ALL of the details of cleaning it out, but I listened to many sermons while doing this and it gave me the motivation to make it through without giving up halfway! Honestly, just check out the before and after! *insert heart eye emoji*

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