OK we want to see what you got done while the forum was closed. Post your pictures here by this Saturday, August 16th to be considered for the prize(s), including one we promised will be "Made of Awesome!"

Ok Ladies ....... this is what I was able to accomplish during the lockdown!! Hope you all see it as being the success story that I do!

I took the original shots from my original post here

http://twilightmomsforums.freeforums.org/let-s-clean-house-enter-the-contest-by-9pm-est-today-t10666-15.html
(8th post down)

And I posted them alongside the "after" shots .... I realize this is a lot of pics, and I'm sorry for that -- I just try to be really thorough! And I'm so pleased with the way it all looks now!

Typically -- the before is on the left and the after is on the right.

My daughter's room is so much neater and more organized now -- and its has stayed that way since this was completed! In my Kitchen, I even rearranged the cabinets top and bottom to make them more organized! Wish i had thought to take before pics of those! And in my bedroom, moving the furniture around made a huge difference!

I hope you were all able to get great results as well!



My Daughter's Room







My Kitchen






My Room

Holy Crow you are amazing. Look at the differnce! Amazing!!

Very impressive! And it truly must feel great to come home to your new rooms Great job!

You did an amazing job! Could you come over and help me w/ my house? j/k. Seriously, bravo to you! Now that I've got all 4 books read I made myself a promise: I promise to not re-read the series until my house is cleaned and organized! I'm itching to start over and read the series again so, I better get to cleaning! Cheers to you!

wow!! that is awesome.. you can definitely see the change.. congratulations!!!

WOW!!!

I bet you feel LIBERATED!!!

Job really well done!! Hopefully you're now sitting back and enjoying your read!!!

WOW! That's a wonderful difference!!

BEFORE:We begin our tour right here at my desk, where I have been much of the time since February (when I signed up for TMs.) Notice the SM collection on the shelf- along with piles of "other". General disarray atop.
AFTER: I still spend a lot of time here! Now, however, I can see the things I love best: my basket of scripture quotes, my pics of my daughters and SM in KC, and my mementos from the KC BD release party. Bookshelf on the side is organized, and only my favorites remain. The pile of coloring books, markers, paper, etc. around the corner is now organized in an appropriate storage container.


BEFORE: Next stop, the dining room, AKA, It Doesn't Have A Home So Toss It In There. Notice the purse is at the ready for another EW-seeking adventure today. Yes, the tablecloth is still in fall colors. High School musical decorations left over from daughter's birthday party in May. Hutch stuffed with things I want to lock away from little fingers.
AFTER: New table cloth (and you can actually see it!), party decorations down, hutch cleaned out and now housing dishes. I've found a new hiding spot for the keep-away-from-kids stuff, which is good, because they can get the hutch open now anyway.


BEFORE: Closeup of the "moved out of my office at work, haven't moved into new classroom yet" pile. Evidence of between-jobs status.
AFTER: the pile is gone. It's been sorted; some went to storage, and some went to my Jeep, ready to go for my first day of the new job: tomorrow.


BEFORE: An early attempt at organization of scrapbooking materials, gone way wrong.
AFTER: Upon closer examination, most of that stuff was in the it-doesn't-have-a-home-so-toss-it-here category. Now its home is the trash can.


BEFORE: The kitchen. Donuts left out from nutritious breakfast; assorted junk mingled with dirty dishes. I used to cook here.
AFTER: check it out: I have counter space!! The food is in the pantry, the dishes are done, and the other junk has been chucked out. I was so proud I gave you a closer look.


BEFORE: Here I redeem myself by showing that the burners on the stove are actually exposed for occaisional use. Yes, that's the fridge under all that at the right.
AFTER: look; more counter space!! And you can tell what color the fridge is. Yes, the top is not cleaned off, but I'm working with a small kitchen here. I must use that space for storage.


BEFORE: These are of the sunporch/playroom. This attack happened in late May. I tell myself it's been too hot to go out and deal with it.

AFTER: We took advantage of a cool rainy day last week to dig this room out. Some of the toys went in a stack in the corner, and some went to storage, but some got boxed up to be donated.

I told dh what I was doing, and he evidentally decided to take advantage of my motivation. He suggested that we go ahead with the ceiling scraping/wall painting in our kids' rooms while I'm still on summer break.
Of course, to paint/scrape, we have to move all of the furniture out. Which means the toys have to be picked up, too.
Woe is me, I have more evidence to submit to the court:


BEFORE: Youngest little monster's room. Not so bad, right?
That's because the kids are hardly ever in there. No room to play.

AFTER: This is what it looked like after we dug it out, moved the bunk bed in, and rearranged.
UPDATE: now it's been painted (even the ceiling) and re-carpeted. This room will be a playroom when finished; we still have to replace the window and the trim. BTW- the furball sneaked into that pic!!


BEFORE: Eldest little monster's room. Remember, there is a genetic predisposition. . .

AFTER: (well, it's still in progress. . .) The ceiling has been scraped (the cottage cheese looking blown-on ceiling stuff was coming down), and I painted the ceiling and walls, then added a border. The floor isn't done; waiting on carpet installer. This room got not only cleaned, but a makeover! I'm especially proud of the clouds I freehanded on the ceiling; way beyond my normal artistic capacity.

UPDATE: carpet installed; and look, you can still see it!


BEFORE: Before we can move stuff out of the bedrooms we have to tackle this.
It's the behind-the-couch heap. (Hey, whoever is running away screaming- I hear that!)
AFTER: no more heap. The space is temporarily housing a dresser and toybox, etc. from the bedroom that is being remodeled.

I cannot tell you how glad I am to have all this accomplished before going back to work.
Thanks for the motivation, ladies. I owe the lot of you a debt of gratitude.

YAY! I can post!! I've been waiting since late last night... well, I went to sleep, but this is the first thing I checked when I woke up (much earlier than normal; DH lets me sleep in because I have baby duty at night, but I peeled myself out of bed for this).

Hats off to you ladies who took on more than one room. I had just the one room and it was a serious ordeal. I'm not sure I could have taken more than that. You guys are awesome. Those pics are so nice to look at, aren't they? They're just so peaceful. I know I kept cycling through my photobucket album, looking at the before and after, for a good five minutes... aaaahhh.


So, the before pics. I changed the album name, so the links won't work in the original thread, but if you change the album name to just "contest" in those links, you'll see these are the same pics, same filenames.







It was REALLY bad. I mostly never went in there unless I absolutely needed something. It was my sister's lair. (She truly lacks the "let's put things somewhere besides the floor" gene, and she'll be the first to tell you.)


So, the AFTER pics... I promise you this is the same room. The desks and the white drawer thingy are still right where they were.














PHEW.

The closet still has boxes in it--the stuff on the left is mostly mine, the stuff on the right is my sister's. There's not much to be done about my sister's stuff, she has enough stuff for her own apartment minus furniture. When she leaves, that half of the closet will be bare, and the brown cabinet thing under the window will leave with her, as well as her computer and computer desk. (AND whatever mess she makes between now and then... sadly, I can guarantee this room will not look like this in a month.)

We traded the twin-over-full bunk for a twin frame, kept our own twin mattress from the top bunk but gave them the full mattress in return for the twin boxspring. I don't have a girly twin sheet set yet. The white furniture is my old furniture from my mom's house, except for the white piece right by the window; that was my sister's from my mom's, but she's going to leave it here when she leaves. My grandpa and I painted it white just a few days ago and he delivered it last night. It smells like paint still, blegh.

So. Yeah, just one room, but it sure makes me happy. I'm so thankful for the motivation! When my sister leaves I'll turn it completely into a room just for my daughter. (We co-sleep right now--though she has a toddler bed in our room, she won't have anything to do with it; so she doesn't really need her own room just yet, even though her toys wax and wane across the living room like an ocean tide.)

Can't wait to see more pics!! (And still can't stop looking at my own!)

IsabellaCullen, you are amazing! Can you please come over to my house?

Okay, here's what I got done.  You will surely remember my "dust"


You remember the laundry and the toilet tank resting beside my bed


Well check this out.  Yes it's the same room.  I scraped the popcorn off the ceiling, painted and, well, just folded the laundry and made my bed.  We also changed the furniture up a little so.  Look, NO DUST!


Yes, I picked a paint color for the bathroom after TM was taken away from me and I did a faux finish that took me forever even in this small space!  Glad I had the time, I'm no Esme!  So the bathroom before with an unusable tankless toilet waiting for me as I lose myself in TM . . .


and after.  I love it even if it's so small!


And now let's tour the play room.  It was a jumbled mess.


I discovered that we can let go of unused toys and everything else found a place.


And the view from my front door has been greatly improved!


I can't post this without acknowledging my husband and his help with moving furniture, putting the toilet back together (even though he broke the bowl in that process and had to get a new one, it's his crazy vampire strength!), hanging the light fixture in the bathroom and the ceiling fan in the bedroom, and watching our little bloodsuckers while I painted, cried at the paint color, cursed the day we accumulated so much stuff, and most of all, read Breaking Dawn! Oh, I just got all mushy! He even thinks that I'm branching out in my choice of reading material . . .


For the record, the living room looks the same. It's not messy, I just like the idea of discouraging people from disturbing me while I'm on TM! It's so good to be back.

Everyone's pictures looks amazing!

Okay, someone remind me how to upload my photos. My brain on Twilight has no room for memory of these things.

Wow. You ladies are great! You all did such great jobs! Congrats.

I should have done this. *sighs*

Most of us upload our pictures to Photobucket or a similar website --- then we copy the IMG tags into the posting area ....