Organizing

Controlling clutter and organizing the house seems to be an on-going battle for me. You too? It's like we finally get things under control and the way we like it and then we make a change & it's all chaotic again. Such as organizing the pantry the evening of R's bday and now it's as messed up as ever! How DOES this happen? Who makes these messes? Okay, okay...don't answer that! Also this has been underway all of 2008 with the potential & cancelled move, then the renovation, then the garage sale, then changing W's bed...whew! We are still in need of unpacking some boxes & replacing the items into the house, plus finishing organizing R's new bedroom and creating what I like to call the Multi-Purpose Room (aka...guest room/office/etc room)
So to add to the chaos because we must like things being upside down, this week we had our master closet redone and my favorite husband started digging up the front yard as we are removing most of the lawn.
Back to the closet, that's more exciting to me, our's is small with alot of wasted space so we had the Storage Works people come in, assess, and re-vamp. Even better was that it wasn't nearly as expensive as we were expecting. Wuhoo!! I can't wait to have some free time (maybe on Sunday?) to put everything away. Right now the closet is lovely & empty. Our room is not so lovely, and not so empty. R couldn't fit into his playpen due to all the clothes, even if he desperately tried to!
The other steps we have taken to clear our home of unnecessary, unused and not so loved STUFF is by hosting a successful garage sale, donating sale leftovers to the Diabetes Association (and they pick up for free!!!) and then I've been "mack-tacking" boxes that are now being used as toy organizers. W loves his "vehicle box".
This gal's blog always has lots of tips & ideas. The recent toy organizing using clear plastic drawers sounds great to me. We shall see if I endeavor that route or adapt our fancy boxes somehow.
What are your organizational and de-cluttering strategies and tips?