Buried Skeletons

A couple of weeks ago, I told the boys that they must clear out the spaces under their beds.  Though their rooms often looked fairly tidy, the reality was that (for months) they were continually shoving things under their beds and pulling their blankets over the sides of their beds so that the mess couldn't be seen!  Matthew, in particular, was challenged in this area.  It was a little frightening to see how tightly packed things were under there.

Over the course of three days, they (often with me) spent hours digging through the stuff in their rooms.  My main object was that they clear every single thing out from under their beds - storage was why we'd bought them each a large shelving unit and a bunch of baskets.  I'm ok if they want one box under their beds to store extra teddies, but that's pretty much it.

I couldn't believe all of the junk they found under there, and all of the little treasures they found that had been lost for long periods of time.  They unearthed beloved audio CDs that had been missing for months, hundreds of pieces of lego and several completed lego projects, a long-overdue library book that the library had put a 'lost' tag on, at least a few dozen books that should have been shelved on our own little library, fifty-five wooden blocks that were supposed to be in Lizzie's room, part of a tea set that also should have been in Lizzie's room, about a zillion partially-completed craft projects, marbles, games, pens and markers and paint sets along with wads of craft paper and glue, and oh, the garbage!

I wish I'd taken pictures under their beds before they started cleaning.  It was something to behold!

(below)

The before picture...taken about halfway through the clean-up process after they'd 'gutted' pretty much everything that ever looked tidy!  Horrible, isn't it??

(below)

The 'after' picture...and although this picture looks similar to pictures in the past when they've covered up what was hidden under their beds, in this picture there is not a single thing under either bed!  There's still some work to be done, but it's about 1,000x improved.  And, for the past couple of weeks they've even been able to maintain their room in a similar condition to what you see in the picture below.