I have a house under there?!

Maybe it's because my husband has been bugging me about it.
Maybe it's because I FINALLY have time off from school.
Maybe it's because I've been watching episodes of hoarders all night.
Maybe it's because I am avoiding my last bit of homework due before spring breaks starts.

Whatever the reason, I decided that now is a good time to clean out my guest room. Or rather, what used to be the guest room. For the last 8 months it has been the guest room/dumping ground for random stuff/room where Gary sleeps during the day because it is farthest away from the noise in the living room/all around disaster area.

Not that it always looked this way...it used to be nice-ish. Of course, the only picture I could find of it semi-done is one I am stealing from my SIL's blog (thanks Linds!):

That was when we had a queen bed in there, and the only real function of the space was for guests. That was a long, long LONG time ago (this was when I first found out I was pregnant, sooo...December of 2009? Yeesh.)

Now, I am NOT proud of this, and in fact I'm pretty darn embarassed, but please bear in mind that most of this mess happened when I was 9 months pregnant and while I had a newborn. Please, please, please don't judge me. Please.

Yeah, sign me up for Hoarders already. It's bad. It has completely overwhelmed me. But today is the day that changes. Today I start anew. I have a favorite cleaning method where I set a timer for 10, 15 or 20 minutes and pick one area to hyper-focus on for cleaning. I gave myself 15 minutes tonight, but ended up cleaning for an additional 10 minutes, but I got a good start on the room. And just to pat myself on the back, here are some before and afters.

 

In the process I filled two bags of garbage, got rid of a ton of gift bags from my bridal and baby showers, folded and put away my vintage bed linens into the dresser, found the missing breast-pump box (I can FINALLY get that back to you Amy! I know you really need it asap, haha!), put the last of the books onto the bookshelf we moved in there last month, and realized that I REALLY need to sell a bunch of my vintage stuff including that great mid-century style coffee table with the smoked glass top...so sad. I love this thing but it just isn't practical with a baby and two rambunctious dogs. And I guess I still have a piano bench even though we gave our piano away. Huh. 

So now that I have completely shamed myself, what about you guys? Anyone else working on their Monica-closet? (Does anyone else get that reference?
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