Before the Before And After...

This is actually the second time I have re-done my utility room. It is an odd little room, which serves as a pass-through from the garage to the kitchen. On one side is the laundry area and the other side is anybody's guess. I would love to know what the room's original intent was. Somewhere along the years a closet was added, a door to an existing closet was taken away, and the door leading into it has apparently had a door swinging both ways over the years and now has none. It left an odd little room full of nooks and crannies. When we first got the house, the laundry room side had old white tile like a school and the other side had original 1968 linoleum. It was a sight.

It was, of course, the room that we dumped everything in when we were unpacking. After all, you can close the door on it and insist that guests not go out there.

But I was part of a Yahoo group arranged by Mrs. Catherine at the time. Here is her site--I find it very inspiring. Her sidebar alone could keep me busy for days! There was a de-cluttering challenge going on in the group at the time (and I have done Flylady in the past as well) so I attacked that utility room. Here are the before and after pictures of that horrible room of our house. This is for all those poor souls who google "how to be a homemaker" and find my blog. It happens every week. Now they will know once and for all that they have NOT found the answer. But if they are trying to learn how to be a homemaker....they can certainly learn right alongside me!

This is the laundry room side. That's the door leading to the garage on the left. Don't talk to me about that pile of clothes. We had just moved in, remember?

Here is the other wall of the laundry room. I don't have "after" pictures of these but remember them. Because tomorrow you will be blown away with my home improvement talents.


And here is the other side of the utility room. See? I told you we threw everything in there. That's Gallon Gal on the wall. She's an excellent way to teach liquid measurement, by the way.


And here it is after I decluttered last year. I moved our camping table in for my sewing machine. Looking good, right?

That blue curtain on the right is a little cut-out that I stored extra clothes in. You can also see the closet without a door on the left. Here is the before...And the after...

Much better.

Our shelf of craft junk before (it's in the other cut-out)...

And after...still full of craft junk.

So I thought this was really good enough. I mean, after all...it's a utility room for goodness sake. But then one fateful day last month I was sitting at the kitchen table and looked off into that room and had an inspiration. I had a dream...of having a place to pay bills and keep all my office supply stuff in one place. A dream where laundry, and sewing, and craft junk, and bills could all live peacefully in one little utility room.

Tomorrow I'll let you know how that came out.