I'm sorry that I do not have very many "before" pictures to share.   I didn't think to take pictures beforehand (plus, I think I would have been very embarrassed to show them off! lol).   But hopefully these "after" pictures (and my descriptions of the before state) will still inspire you to do your own deep cleaning, if you're like me and need it!

This is the only "before" picture I have (right now). I took this yesterday afternoon after I told the kids, "Go into your room, and take EVERYTHING out of all of the drawers, and under the dressers, etc...and throw them into the middle of the room."
Bonnie couldn't believe I was telling her to do this. She said, "WOW, mom, I can't believe you're LETTING me destroy the room!".  She and Noah excitedly were throwing everything on the floor before Caleb could even get in on the fun.  lol 

This picture is just when they were getting started!  And I just couldn't bear to take a picture of the WHOLE room...it was BAD.


I bought 30 MORE cardboard file boxes from Office Max two days ago, and brought about 10 of them into the bedroom.

I used one box for each of the kids short sleeved shirts and shorts. Sad to say, I had previously just left all of those in the drawers along with their long sleeved shirts and long pants, and this always has made it difficult for them to sift through and find the appropriate clothing to wear at any particular time of year.  

I also had a box for clothes that were too small for them, which we gave away through Freecycle this morning.

I had another couple of boxes which we filled with shirts and pants of each child which did fit them, but went over the limit of clothing which I was willing to put back into the dressers.

I decided to allow only 8 shirts for the boys, and 4 pairs of pants each, in their dresser. They also were allowed to have a few dress shirts which are hanging in the closet, and their jackets are hung there as well.

All of the kids socks and underwear are in the same drawer.

I let them all keep 1-2 pairs of pajamas.

The rest which I want to keep are stored away in individual boxes, in case the need arises for more.

Bonnie is allowed to keep 8 shirts, 5 pants, and 7 dresses.  The dresses are hung in her closet, and the pants and shirts are in her dresser.

I had so much extra space after this was over that I had two empty dressers!    I found a use for one of the dressers which was really great- I've needed somewhere to put all of our extra blankets, and this does a great job at that.   There are about 2-3 blankets in each drawer, and a few sheets and pillow cases as well.

The other dresser I decided to give away on Freecycle...it is a 9 drawer wooden dresser and I just don't have a need for it anymore (and don't want to have the temptation to accumulate again).

Here are pictures of Caleb's room after it was finished (I'll have to post Bonnie's pictures after I get my camera batteries charged again):


In the above picture you can see the bookshelf...I removed about half of it's contents and am giving those books away to freecycle.

 The green dresser there is the one where I have the blankets stored.    Noah's bed has two box springs supporting it instead of a bed frame because of how tempting it is for the kids to put things under their bed...that really helped solve that problem!  

Beside the bookshelf on the left is where the other dresser used to be. It's so nice to finally be able to see part of the dinosaur mural again. 

Oh, forgot to mention about the toys; I got rid of the great majority of them.  The ones I kept I had separated by categories into their own boxes. They are labeled and the kids can ask for them when they want to use a particular toy or set of toys.

By the way, I would have curtains on that window, but every time I put them up, the kids tear them back down. Any suggestions for helping with that?  I've considered just stapling them all around to keep them in place. lol

And here's how the room looks when you walk in.   To know what it looked like before, you'll have to imagine 5-6 large plastic tubs just FULL of toys.  Stuffed toys, trucks, cars, blocks, all kinds of stuff.   And usually there are 1-2 tubs just emptied on the floor by Noah, who just loves to help me out like that.     Some of the drawers were slightly open because there were too many clothes to fit inside them well.

The only dresser that has any clothes in it now is the one that is in the bed with the Wall-E cover on it.   There are 6 drawers, and none of them are stuffed full now.


Here is what it looks like inside Caleb's closet.  Imagine what it looked like before- there were lots of hangers, and lots of various clothing (much of it was my own old clothes that I am not going to be wearing anymore).  On the shelves, there were various toys, books, junk piled on it.  I pulled all of it down and started from scratch.   There are now  7 boxes neatly stacked on that bottom shelf, and there are a few dress shirts, pants, and jackets hung up on the rods.    On the floor it is now clean...before, there were tubs of toys and there were just toys scattered all over the place.  It was horrible trying to get the kids to actually clean up this mess every time they made it.  Now I don't have to worry about it...they can only get one box of toys out at a time.  Yippie!



Here's a closer look in the closet:


Less is MORE!