Today, on the 22nd day of 31 Days, I’m keeping it real. I’m giving you the opportunity to practice choosing to NOT judge me. :-D!  I’m giving you a glimpse of the messes I have been working on.

The thing I have found: when trying to clean up one mess, I make another. usually the cleaning up, organizing, re-evaluating mess is worse than when I started.

Have you ever noticed that? Have you noticed when there is something ugly inside needing to come out, it gets worse before it gets better. Ugh!  So glad God is in charge of the purifying process. I’d chicken out of the final firing, I’m sure of it.

So, here are my house messes I’m working on getting in order. Right now I can’t find the kitchen pictures. I will, but for now you get the living room, bedroom, old “office”, and new shelves. This office mess is the accumulation of an insane campaign summer, recoup time, then tearing it apart as we started school. My goal was to get our living room, 2 desk areas, and an office into our 1 living room. {Besides just the “a place for everything & everything in it’s place” idea.}

Please don’t judge me [seriously]. Yes, it is bad. Which is why it was so overwhelming to tear into. I knew it would get worse [way worse] before it would be better, and it would take hours. days. weeks. before it ‘felt’ right or comfortable. We are so tightly shoe-horn packed in I always have to measure first, but sometimes it’s just too tight to be feasible.

My desk/office {3’x4′ corner of my living room} at the end of the campaign….

The ‘new’ living room {14’x14′} with 2 desk areas and office space…. not done, but getting closer…. {example of measuring but too tight of space. See my desk chair on the far right? Yes, it fit. Yes, I could sit at the desk. Buuut, I couldn’t stand in front of the chair to reach and turn on the light (I’m 5’1″)….but to move the desk the 2″ further from the wall, I had to move the couch 2″ to the left. To move the couch, the rug had to slide over 2″. To slide the rug, the trunk had to be off it, there isn’t enough space over between the bookshelf, blue chair and end of couch for the trunk…. When the living room floor is only 5′ wide – can you imagine how much stuff had to move to be able to move the trunk? That is why it takes so long to get all the pieces of our home puzzle in the right place, facing the right direction, in a way all 3 of us like.}

What the living room re-do did to our bedroom {13’x14′}….See off to the left in the above picture? Ya, that would be a beautiful roll top desk under those stacked books….after a month the books never looked any different, so I realized it was going to have to go. It just couldn’t hold or organize enough in my space to make it work, no matter how much I love it….. {perspective: door on my left, closet behind me, daughter’s bed to my right, sewing to my right front of picture, my bed straight ahead behind pile/under stacks of books.} In case you are wondering – yes, apparently, I have a book addiction. so does my son. so does my daughter….. hmmm.