Some progress, finally!

Ali and I spent about 10 hours over the past three days cleaning, sorting, tossing, organizing her room. It's not perfect, but trust me, it's a whole lot better than it was at the start of the week! The last time I posted that she was motivated, it never went much further than carrying stuff from the livingroom to her room. I got real tired of not being able to see the floor in her room, and of being afraid I would break something every time I took a step! So we both decided to do something about it this week. The girl never realized she had such a big room, lol! Once we got everything cleared out, and the floor cleaned, she spent a few minutes bowling in her room.

Then we spent time over the next two days sorting through all the stuff we had moved across the hall, temporarily, to her brother's room (he's at Grandma's for most of the summer, so he won't have to deal with it--and we're doing his room next). We actually ended up with extra containers when we were all done. There are still a few minor areas that need some attention, and still a bunch of stuff to come up from the livingroom. But it's finally a room that I'm not ashamed of. She can't wait to invite over her neighbor friend to see it, lol. Now to make progress on everything else.

I didn't take any before pictures. I wasn't sure I wanted anyone to see what it looked like before (plus I really didn't think about it before I started digging in). But you really couldn't see much of the floor. Anything that was brought into the room, had just been dumped on the floor. Everytime she tried to find something, stuffed just got tossed around the room. Now she is determined to put things away when she's done with them. Plus there's the promise of a TV in her room again if she can keep it clean (which is another way for mom to keep the livingroom clean because she won't be hanging out there and making her mess).

The after pictures:

Ali welcomes everyone to her new room!

The reading corner and toys (a few books need to be put away, yet).

Half of the bowling alley.

Like I said, it's not perfect. Plus the dolls were visiting The Spa (the play sink) while their home (the cabinet) was being redone.  And we ran out of convenient places to tuck the containers away.  The room is big, but because of the sloping ceilings, we can't go "up" for storage.  Cape Cods are cute and quaint, but severly lacking in the maximizing-the-height-of-the-room-for-storage area.

The Artist in Residence, working on her Welcome letters for the door.