My first “before and after” quarantine project!

On March 10th, my office closed indefinitely and all employees were told to work from home. I was thrilled to give up my commute and spend more time at home with my family during this crisis.

I also had big plans for organizing my home. I thought to myself ‘FINALLY! I’ll have time to declutter and reorganize. I can cook three healthy meals a day, get some much-needed exercise, and lose a few pounds. My house will be so clean, and my to-do list will pare down to a few items.

So, how is going? Honestly, not so great. Things were promising to start. I cleaned out the toy closet in our bonus room (see photo). My kids are 19 and 16 years old and have outgrown the games I was inexplicably holding onto like Hullaballo and Chutes and Ladders. I gave my sister-in-law a bunch of Disney movies and kid-friendly musicals on DVD. My six-year-old niece is a big fan of Mama Mia and – thanks in part to me – she knows all the words to Dancing Queen. The closet has since been repurposed to house bulk items from Costco, cleaning supplies, and my growing collection of jigsaw puzzles.

I also started reorganizing a spare closet in my bedroom and came away with a lot of old clothes and a pile of books to donate. I threw away about 20 magazines that I thought I would read in-depth but never got around to – but I went through each one first and tore out articles I plan to read later. Somethings are hard to give up completely. I even organized random photos and threw away the duplicates.

Side note: Why in the world did we ever print doubles of photos? What a complete waste of money!

I have other quarantine projects to tackle, but I’ve put them on hold for now. This is mostly because I’ve come to realize that keeping up with laundry, cooking, and cleaning takes a lot of time in itself. And if I don’t do it, no one else will. Am I right? As I write this blog post, I am staring at a sink full of dishes and the dryer buzzer just went off.

Four months into this quarantine and I am now lowering my expectations. I may never get to cleaning out the dining room breakfront or the kids’ closets – a task I have been putting off since 2015! I do have a life to live, and the books on my nightstand are not going to read themselves! So, I’ll move the attic cleanout to the first snowstorm of the year and give myself a well-deserved break.

What household projects have you completed during the lockdown?

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