In lent we followed the 40 days meme, and tried to remove one bag of stuff from the house every day. I have decided to try and continue this between now and christmas. my ‘zones’ i am going to work on are the playroom, the dining room, the conservatory and our bedroom [in that order]. Some of this is just re-organising, and some identifying of stuff that neither children will use now or ever, and some things that I just should get rid of rather than holding onto forever. [difficult for me, as with books I remember reading them, and crafting the various splodges with the girls] . I know many of my friends are similary afflicted with groaning houses, and others have managed the art of zen wrt tidying and storage. I am just hoping for somewhere where there is a place to put away everything at the end of the day 
day 1 – playroom bookcases
started with an easy win, looking at the jigsaw cupboard and was ruthless [tho putting sb's bob the builder jigsaws into the 'yardsale' box is hard]. over a large amazon box of things to rehome to other people or for yard sale [planned objective, money to kids ]
Flushed with the success of that I reorganised the foreign language shelf – and found the 1000 words in french that i had planned to send with SB to france. BB is adamant that she isn’t going to learn a foreign language. It is v hard when she is adamant 
Still having a bit of time, I reorganised BB’s home ed bookcase – top shelf is reading books [easy side] middle shelf is easy to read and high picture quotient fact books, and the bottom shelf has big fact books – dinosaurs, flap openers and first encyclopaedia. I am hoping to persuade her this year to read more fact things now she really is a reader. ANyway, some easy readers for rehoming/yard sale
Day 2 – playroom alcove right
quick win today with the playroom alcove on the right. Have sorted out the craft kits into ones still with stuff to do, and a shelf each for BB and SB. [sb's are on the left alcove] . have removed assorted tat from the shelf above the craft kits so can display pottery. Whilst tidying, we found a few glass optical discs. [convex] . we tried to burn holes a la toy story, but it didn’t work.
on a roll whilst BB barked minecraft recipes at me 
I sorted out years and years of varied magazines, keeping those she or I wanted to and discarding the others. so lots of RSPB magazines, british wildlife and kids national geographic in a box, and nicely organised are a year each of DIG, Yes, Know, click, animal planet, aquila and a bit more of BB’s dinomite . On that shelf also is the certificates folder – i have filed in it all those i have found; the ticksheets folder – saved in the past in case LA required evidence but now consigned to the recycling; folders with the odd scrap of paper in – also recycled. SO I have a box of magazines and paper for recycling . With the shelf of SB’s crafts, that makes 2 shelves of left alcove done.
Day 3 – playroom shelves – modelling and building
OK, so nothing actually going out here. just reorganised so can find stuff/see what we have and so that things suitable for young visitors are on a shelf together. However, we had a standoff over organising the lego. last time dh and i spent hours putting all the sets into cokourmtched sections of really useful boxes. unfortuntely this apparently has made the lego unplayable with. it is not there to design tuff from imagination, but to recreate time and again the boxes, and this is now much harder as it is all mixed up. [TBH said at level of extreme shriekage] Unfortunately, the outcome is we are going to build everything and not break it up till all built, and then store in labelled bags in boxes in their sets … This effectively takes the dining room completely out of action
Love your tidy bookshelves
Jasper’s pretty adamant he’s not going to learn anything most of the time 
We should live closer!