Dream On - Princess Room

Beware!

What you are about to view is the opposite of the Princess realm. And there resides this little marker wielding beastie and her two sisters. Don’t know what it is that she enjoys so much about inking up her body. Should I be worried about Hope being a future tattoo covered rebel?



What this picture doesn't show you is the appropriate slogan on her shirt which reads, 'If you hear me say Uh-Oh! It's already too late!

Nonetheless, her latest journey through the marker drawer convinced me to downsize our art supplies. Good-bye markers. I don’t think the kids will suffer too much this summer without markers. Sure we still have crayons, colored pencils and pens but those have now been sent off to the out-of-sight, out-of-mind Top Shelf. That, and since there is now a plausible hope that it might stop raining I can always send the kiddos outside to graffiti up the neighborhood streets and sidewalk with colored chalk.

So I focused my de-clutter war on the girls room. And it was a hard fought war. See, when three little princesses share the same room, well let’s just say they turn into little divas. Each has her own little hoard of toys that are not to be touched upon pain of slow torture and lots of high screaming. And since I didn’t want them to torture me, or blow out my eardrums, I decided to leave them out of the battle.

At the beginning of the year we got Hope a trundle bed that fit under her sister’s Bunk Bed and we were able to say good-bye to her crib. But pulling out a bed every night and putting it away in the morning, well that routine lasted about two weeks and then we got too lazy and it basically sat in the middle of the room and took up all floor play space.


We also installed a good closet system in January that allowed us to keep all the girls clothes in the closet, thus freeing up the dresser for toys.

But it wasn’t working as you can see from the pictures. So this Mommy Cleaning Machine loaded up…

And...

Sent into Oblivian...

* Two bags of trash.

* A Dresser and a large bag of items for the thrift store. I mean come on, there were some items like the bedtime slippers that have been worn once in maybe three years. Sure they are cute but nothing but cute clutter.

* A huge laundry basket of dirty clothes. (o.k. that didn't go into oblivian - just the laundry room to be added to the mile high mountain there.

* And a large box of items that just don’t belong in the girls room.

I did have to purchase some under the bed storage boxes in which to put all the B.A.B. clothes from out of the dresser. But all in all, I think I’m happy with the simpler, less work, princess room.

As I de-cluttered I realized just how many unfinished projects there are. But before I start them I really want to simplify my home. Once I hit every room and the dreaded, can’t walk through it to save your life, garage; and then I’ll go back through every room and decorate. And in the case of the princess’s room… maybe I’ll try and finish the closet mural I started 9 years ago (wow, that long ago, really?)

Maybe, I'll even hang some blinds that work. And wouldn’t it be nice if they had some cute wall art with matching bedspreads? Someday….

But I won’t let that distract me from the task of overcoming my clutter creep.

Next week…..The Hypocrites Room. My bedroom. Oh, the Horror! How can I tell the children to keep their rooms clean when mine is the messiest in the home? So that’s where I’ll focus my next small battle with the clutter beast.

And yes the three Princesses were tickled pink with their clean room and didn’t even notice all the junk I threw out on their behalf. Whew!