Home Organization: Living Room Chapter 1

Last week our house-wide organization extravaganza began with the kitchen cabinet and moved on to the bathroom cabinet and hallway closet.  If you think that's all our little house needed to get in tip top shape then you be crazy!  Our house is out of control and there's not one room - let alone one corner - that doesn't need some attention, so I'm hitting one place at a time and moving throughout the entire house.

My next battle was against the side of the living room nearest the entry door, which is visitors' first impression.  The trouble spots is a chair and two cabinets - our tv stand and our entry cabinet.  Unorganized is a understatement.  The tv cabinet holds our dvds, cable box and blu-ray and the drawers are a mix of junk that we just shove in there because we don't want to take the time to find a more appropriate place for it.

This guy is the main offender.  Really, ever since we moved from Seattle in 2010 we haven't utilized it - we stuck a bunch of random things in there to move and that's where they stayed.  It's full of useless papers, things we don't use and don't plan on using and god knows what else.

I worked through the cabinet one drawer at a time.  I used a trash bin, a bag for donations, a bag for things to keep that needed to find new homes and our home filing box to organize through the clutter.  I was amazed and a little embarrassed at the random junk we were hanging on to.

This extremely stylish wallet (I know you're jealous) hadn't been used since 2007 - according to the stack of receipts and paystubs.

This pile of memorabilia - while sentimental - is still just a pile of junk (aside from the football medal, of course.)  Unfortunately, I couldn't bear to get rid of these memories so I stashed them in our keepsake box.  "Hello, TLC Hoarders..."

Obviously a little piece of me died when I threw this card in the trash.

After all the cleaning and reorganizing only 5 items remained in the cabinet.  I'm sure there is a useful way we could utilize this, but I'm at a loss.  Any ideas?  Plus, this little cabinet really needs a facelift.  Any tips on how to remove glass rings?

After the entry cabinet was in orderly fashion I moved on to the chair.  This chair is one part coat rack, one part desk and one part trash all rolled up into a ridiculously messy chair.  Clean up was easy - the hard part will be keeping it clutter free.

The tv cabinet was the last to get any attention.  It definitely was a mess, but it was a manageable mess.

I designated one drawer to be a game drawer.

And another to hold our family yearbooks.

The movie cabinet was an easy cleanup.  I organized the dvds into categories like tv series, comedy, drama and kids.  I put the movies we watched most requently in front for easy access.  Then I elevated the back row so we could see what was back there by stacking the dvds on an old shoebox.

While this corner of the room is no longer lacking in the organization department, it is sorely lacking in personality.  Luckily this week+ of being sick has given me the time and motivation to finally get some projects done.  Stay tuned!

The rest of the room got a huge toy & book purge, plus we cleaned under/behind our Manstad sofa and in the chaise storage compartment to complete the whole room deep clean.  Those simple steps and this room feels so much more relaxing.  I can't wait to tackle the rest of the house!

So what tips & tricks do you use to get and, more importantly, stay organized?  I need all the help I can get!