52 Weeks: Where Will You Start?

So I may be a little late to the game but one of my first blogs that I started to follow was I'm an Organizing Junkie and in January she started an awesome series called 52 Weeks of Organizing.  Each week she shares a new tip or project.  I love it.  Well, I didn't jump on board right away, but after having a spur of the moment yard sale this week, I am ready to jump in full force and make some progress on our house.

We moved in to our new house in November and having lived here nearly 5 months, I finally am starting to get a feel for the place and "how" we use each room (or want to use each space).  Now it is time to get our systems in place and find homes from some of the "stuff" that is sitting in the garage and front room.

Laura created a great checklist form to help me put my projects down on paper.  I am a big fan of lists (thanks mom) and love to check things off so this is totally up my alley.  Of course, I also know, putting it out there for the world to see is motivating...so here is my first 10 projects - no particular order.

Project #1:  Donate

Yard sale is over and now it is time to donate the remaining items.  Okay, a couple of them will go on craigslist, but the rest needs to go.  I will be loading up my car and heading over to a couple of our favorite charities next week.

Project #2:  Financial Papers

I was working on our taxes the other day and realized that I have a good 8 months worth of bills and "paper" that need to be organized and filed.  My goal for this week is to get through those stacks, sort, shred, file and officially close the door on 2010.  I will also get my 2011 files in order so we can stay on top of it better this year.  I know it is already easier since I have gone paperless on much of this already.

Project #3:  Decor Items

Our front room has been used as a staging area ever since we moved in.  This space was designed as the formal living and dining area - and we are NOT formal.  Our ultimate goal is to make this a family fun room with a pool table, table for games and crafts and more.  The immediate goal for this room is to sort through all of the home decor items in this room, find homes for them, store them for future projects or get them ready for a home decor swap idea I have.

Project #4:  Organize the Swimming Pool Stuff

With the weather warming up and swim season right around the corner, it is imperative that we get our swim gear in order.  I need to verify what we have/need for suits, towels, toys, chemicals, etc.  We also need to sit down and create some pool rules since this is our first year owning a house with a pool.  We need to make sure our kids understand the responsibility of being by the pool and have guidelines in place for when we have friends over.  This is a big project but one that we are very excited about.  We put the solar blanket ont he pool today so I am sure we will be swimming sooner than later as the Arizona sun is toasty warm these days.

Project #5:  Organize the Cupboards between the Pantry and Fridge

We have a great section of cabinets that are like bonus cabinets in our kitchen.  I want this area to be accessible to the kids to get cups, plates and things that they can use.  This is also our "bar" area where I need to finish repositioning the pull out shelf for the tall bottles, create a better coffee station and install some undercabinet lighting.

Project #6:  Master Bathroom

The master bathroom has a tremendous amount of storage that is currently A MESS!!!  I need a plan.  Not sure what it will look like just yet but these cabinets with no shelves need a purpose.

Project #7:  Command Center

The goal is to create a command center for our family where we keep our master calendar, important papers, a place to drop our keys and more.

Project #8:  Photo Management

I need to spend a day or two organizing all my digital photos, deleting the bad ones and then getting them ALL backed up (before I have a computer failure and lose them all).

Project #9:  Scrapbooking Supplies

These are sort of all over the place.  I need to get them all together so I can sort through them and get a plan to set up our new office/craft room.

Project #10:  The Office

The office needs a plan.  There is lots of stuff in there right now that needs to find a home or go away (I vote go away on alot of it but we will see).

Hang on, this is going to be a wild ride!