Facing the dumping zone

My house is filled with dumping zones -- places where people conveniently drop things when they come into the house.  It seems that every room has some kind of drop spot.  This is not-so-organized behavior.

Today, I am facing one of those rooms -- our music/office room.  Right now it is filled with clutter!  I'm going to tackle it and make it the lovely, usable room that it ought to be... instead of the room with the closed doors and fear of something escaping from it!

My to-do list:

1) Make a plan -- there's nothing quite so aggravating as getting into a project and then realizing that you don't know where you're going with it!  And, that is par for the course for the not-so-organized!  I have thought through where the major pieces of furniture will go and what will be stored in them.

2) Take action -- here's my steps for the day:

• Take out the trash!  Grab a grocery sack, or a kitchen garbage bag, or even a bigger one if you need to, and start tossing the things that you know need to get OUT of the room right now!  I'm going to focus on the floor and the horizontal surfaces.
• Move the small things out of the way.  For me, that means hauling them into the next room, which happens to be my living room.  I'm prepared for the reality of this -- my living room is going to be a disaster for a few hours!  It's OK.... there is a higher purpose.  Just don't leave it there overnight, or it might put down roots!!
• Move the big furniture into place.
• Replace the things you want to have in there.  Everything should go to a) Goodwill or other charity, b) the trash, or c) the room where it actually belongs.  I will be taking some of my music things to school, and that will clear some space.

We lucked out and found two bookcases (with cabinets on the bottom) that matched our current bookcase.  Ours was a little smaller, but we just put it in the middle to make it symmetrical.  It worked like a charm.  We purchased the bookcases at our local re-sale shop for a fraction of their original price.  Here is a glimpse of the end result.  (Note: my dear husband secured the cabinets together and also secured them to the wall.  They won't fall over unless the house falls down!)

3) Finish-up -- I'm not quite sure what all this means, but today I think it will mean making sure that my poor living room doesn't become the next dumping zone and that things are dusted and put back into place.

For the not-so-organized, this was a big day.  I'm imagining that I'll have more projects that have to do with keeping this room humming along nicely.  Thanks for joining me.  Good luck with your spare room project!  Let me know how it goes for you!