Wonderful news!!!

What a marvellous blessing and gift for your daughter -- a true room -- her own "world" and "space"!!!! So important for a child! And you showed such love and caring by adding things like curtains and stands for her guitars!

Yes -- clearing out one room CAN lead to so many other things that have to hauled away!!! So refreshing!!

Doing the Wild Happy Dance for you!!!!!

Dancing ..... Dancing ...... Dancing......

Ann,

Congratulations on a successful Blitz Day!!! Dance of joy from me... admitting defeat on the old bedroom set was a MAJOR accomplishment!! You did good!!!

I'll bet your daughter is relieved to finally have some breathing room.

I spent a busy day yesterday clearing out our storage area. It is very small, but with everyone getting scout/camping gear in and out it was getting less functional.

Took the old artifical tree to the thrift store. I had purchased totes with red lids so even though they are stored toward the back, anyone can now see which container holds the holiday decorations without having to read box labels.

In our previous neighborhood I did an annual Halloween party for around 60 people. I really hated giving up those boxes of decorations, but I'm not going to be doing those anymore and it was time for them to go to some other home.

Now, if the trash pick-up was only sooner so I didn't have to trip over those bags in the garage.

Gloria

Teacats, funny you mention my daughter's room as a sanctuary-all day yesterday I kept thinking how as a teen, I would have loved to have something like what we were creating! I never had a room of my own growing up; there were six kids so it just wasn't possible. I can remember trying desperately to carve out some private space in our laundry room and once in a closet(!). Not to sound too pathetic because we always had what we needed, but I truly feel how important her personal space is for my daughter. Plus, now that she is 14 there are many, many moments when it is a pleasure for the WHOLE family for her to have someplace to go :).

And Julie, you are right on target-I kept feeling like such a wasteful idiot for having bought such a wrong bed. I still won't break even but with what my sister is paying me for the old bedding the money hit isn't all that bad-and it really helps her since she needed a new bed anyway. And now the room looks so incredibly better, there is just no comparison.

Today I kept things moving: my daughter and I finished going through her closet and drawers and that yielded 2 more huge bags for Goodwill and another large sack of trash. As per a tip I read here on OTH, I even took everything out of the closet, exchanged all the nasty dry cleaner wire hangers for plastic ones, and then we arranged her clothes by function. After that I primed and painted the bookcase. She had picked out a very royal blue for the color and at first I insisted on white (my preference). But I"m glad I gave in-she really loves the color and hey, it's her room. I"ll give it the final coat tomorrow and then the room is really done.

Whew.

Ann

I couldn't believe I had carefully boxed and stored things like old mattress pads that don't fit our beds

Sometimes it's that, at the time, they *did*still fit the beds, and when that changed, you didn't run around finding all the stashes and throwing them out. Reality hadn't caught up w/ them, bcs they were in the time warp, or something.

Congrats! And I hope your DD really likes it.
And wise you are to give in to her royal blue. If it turns out you were right, she will have learned something. And if you're not right, she'll use her bookcase more bcs it's a color she likes.

Way to go, Ann! I bet your DD will love her new clean, decluttered room!

I've had mini-successes with my DD (10), who insists she has to keep EVERYTHING. Lately she has been willing to part with quite a bit, so I've wasted no time packing it up and putting it in the Goodwill pile. I surprised her with lantern lights from Marshall's that she displayed on her wall, and this seemed to inspire to to clean some more. Funny how since this has all happened, she has been spending a lot more time in her room!

As for too-big of beds, I am kicking myself for doing the same thing with DS. My BIL had a queen-size bed he needed to get rid of and he really wanted DS's twin bed. Somehow he talked me into trading beds with him. As soon as that queen bed was placed in DS's room, I knew I made a mistake. Meanwhile, DS has fallen in love with his huge bed, so no way does he want to go back to a twin. I've basically just not dealt with it since then. Fortunately, this is my neat child, whose room is always clean, bed is always made, and there is never any clutter. So it could be worse.

Glad you made the change!

Sheryl

Wow, you have been bursting with energy! How did you do it? How did you get on such a great roll? Congrats on such a productive day.

Foxy.

Well -- I feel so strongly about a working on a home that works for everyone -- and in return seems to just love us back! (yes -- really!) Your daughter now has a corner of home that belongs to her -- and it is a wonderful thing to have at any age!!

My favorite book right now about home and what it means:

"Feeling at Home" by Alexandra Stoddard -- published by Morrow.

The secondary title is "Defining Who You Are and How You Want to Live"

In her books she includes many many quotes about home, life and living well.

She talks about how important family, order, beauty, color, light, etc. are to her. And how she changed her homes and life to better use her time.

Just an example:

"Honor to the House .... so that there the intellect is awake and reads the laws of the universe, the soul worships truth and love, honor and courtesy flow into all deeds. Emerson"

"You will soon find that your joy in your home is growing, and that you have s ource of happiness within yourself that you had not suspected."

Elsie de Wolfe

Great job! She will appreciate it. And if she enjoys her room, she may even take better care of the room. My DD (also 14) used to be a packrat and just could not clean her room. When we painted the room, all of the sudden she didn't want STUFF in there and really started keeping it clean. Now she regularly vacuums (without me asking) and keeps it clean, neat, and doesn't keep much extra junk in there. She says she likes it organized. So funny!