Apr
19

My Exciting Grocery Posts for the Week: THE MESS REVEALED (Share Yours Too!)

By Laura · Apr,19 2011

Let me just say it again:  NOBODY gets to go into my storage room.  You have no idea how shocking it is that I’m slapping these pictures all over the Internet.  Ask anyone who’s ever been to my house.  That room is OFF LIMITS.

After you see these pictures, some of you are going to shake your head in dismay.  Or you might giggle because you’ll see that Laura actually has a bottle of vegetable oil in her food storage (it was for a science experiment, I’ll have you know).

I have several excuses for how scary this room is, like:

  • This room is unheated, therefore freezing during the winter, so ain’t no way no how I’m going in there for longer than the time it takes to grab something out of the freezer or throw down an empty box.
  • Our recyclable items hang out in here waiting to be taken to the recycle center every few weeks.  (Yes, we have to take all of our recycling to a recycle center – it doesn’t get picked up here.)  This clutters up the room very quickly.
  • The boys go into the room to get one box out of our pile of boxes so they can make a project, but they usually pull from the bottom of the pile, making all of the boxes fall down.
  • It’s a storage room.  We don’t live in there.  I can close the door and walk away and forget about it.

Here’s the view when you first walk into the room.  Don’t you love how UGLY the front of my big freezer is?  That’s how I got it for super cheap - the poor thing was ugly.  :)  Putting an ugly freezer into my ugly storage room just makes sense, don’t you think?  It was a great price, and it works just fine – ugly door or not!  (Notice how I’m trying to distract you from the mess of the room by pointing out my freezer door?)

Here’s a closer-up picture of the food stash, and jars, and Walmart bags of canning rings.  Now there’s a beautiful organizational method:  throw all unused canning rings into a Walmart bag and toss it onto a pile of bulk food.  Adorable, tidy and practical.  Yeah, right.  (This is why we’re organizing this week!!!)

Here’s an even closer-up picture of the big shelf of food.  And ice cream maker.  And pressure cooker that doesn’t get used because I’m afraid of blowing up my kitchen.

Have you seen enough?  Well…sorry, there’s more.  If you turn around and look at the other side of the storage room, you’ll see this:

You know, when you go through six to eleven dozen eggs each week, you do accumulate a lot of egg cartons.  Those need to be returned to our friends with chickens.  And then all that other stuff really needs to be sorted through and taken to the recycling center or given away or thrown away or put away.

So there you have it.  My mess revealed. 

And here’s what I’ve decided:  If I’m going down…I’m pulling you all down with me.  :)  I wanna see your messes too…it’s only fair, right? 

Take a picture of the biggest messy spot in your house (or the one you want to tackle this week).  Post it on your blog if you have one, and come link up here.  Let’s make this the hub for all messes everywhere, shall we?  Show us your before pictures so we can all commiserate on how messy life gets.

On Friday (the 22nd), I’ll post my “After Pictures”, along with another link-up so you can show us your finished CLEAN and ORGANIZED pictures.

Just think about how many of us are going to get a scary mess under control this week!  It’s inspiring, isn’t it?  And yes, just a little bit intimidating.  But c’mon…if I can do it, so can you!  Show us those pictures!

(If you don’t have a blog and want to email me your before and after pictures just for fun, I’d love that too!)

So do tell…what’s the messiest spot in your house?

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Comments

  1. Tammy Fowler says:

    Everyone has their own level of organization. I was really expecting much worse. I hope you get it get the way you like it. I looking forward to seeing the room on Friday.

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  2. Sheri says:

    Our terribly ugly refrigerator (in the garage) was saved by my little girls and some leftover paint. It now sports a rainbow, flowers, and handprints. Your boys might have a lot of fun decorating yours. :)

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    Theresa C Reply:

    That is a GREAT idea! Cute :)

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  3. Sarah says:

    I added my sewing room. Maybe this will give me a little motivation to clean it up!

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  4. Sumer says:

    before my hubby built storage shelves in my laundry room, it was very scarey. Just a pile of tubs and boxes, really… the room started out with intention of being the CRAFT room, but it turned into the CRAP room. :\ ;) I’m working on purging and reorganizing it, though.

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  5. Sheri says:

    I love it! My storage room often turns into an “enter at your own risk” kind of place, and my sewing room right now…you don’t need to worry about entering at your own risk, since it’s almost impossible to actually enter at all! Life just gets crazy sometimes!

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  6. Laura, I expected worse too! I linked up my office desk post, which was my messiest by far so far. Although this next week on my Minimalist Monday post, I’ll be showing my laundry room, which was almost as bad :)

    Dr. Laura

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  7. D says:

    We have an old bus that is our store house because our house has no shelves, closets, etc. to store stuff in and on. I feel more normal seeing your store room.

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  8. Jennifer says:

    Oops… posted this on the wrong post, so here it goes again:

    Laura, I had an ugly freezer once. I covered it with pretty contact paper. Then it was a pretty freezer. I hated to leave it when we moved. It took me 5 years to get a new freezer after that – just got it two weeks ago. My new one is pretty and white and shiny, but there is a part of me that misses my ivy-covered freezer. Just thought I’d share the idea, because somehow covering an ugly freezer with contact paper seemed like it might be right up your alley! :)

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  9. April Smith says:

    I have to work tomorrow (I’m a substitute teacher !:), so I thought I would go ahead and post my “after”…hope yours lasts longer than mine did!

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