There has been a lot of talk among my friends, both in-person friends and Internet friends, on the subject of decluttering. It seems that nearly everyone struggles with accumulation of junk in various spots in the house. My friend Nichole, who has actually seen my clutter-filled house in real life, and I decided to make a bit of a weekly challenge out of decluttering.
The rules:
1) Agree on a spot to tackle. (We have many to choose from.)
2) Take a before picture. (OUCH.)
3) Declutter.
4) Take an after picture and blog about the experience.
Today's spot: the bedroom. Nichole tackled the top of a dresser; I'm tackling my desk & surrounding areas. As painful as it was, I took a true "before" picture. The only thing I moved was my desk chair, to get it out of the way so that you could see the full extent of The Clutter.
Exhibit A. Here we have, in no particular order:1) a toy horse, tiara, phone, clippies, and other kid-things
2) a laminated machine that cooled off long ago and should have been put away long ago
3) various books, notebooks, schoolbooks, etc, that do not belong on my desk
4) three balls of yarn and an almost-finished knitting project
5) a laundry basket & hamper full of clean, folded clothes that just need to be put away
6) lots and lots of other random junk
You can't even see the spot on the other side of the desk. Trust me, it was piled high with boxes, kids' outgrown clothes, and blankets that needed to be folded & put away. I couldn't even open my closet door without kicking stuff out of the way.
And so, here is the after. Much better, no?
I must confess that not all of that clutter has found a proper home yet. I have more to deal with, and I'll be working on that throughout the day. But look! You can see my ugly desk! (It'll have a facelift someday, but until then, it's sturdy and functional.) I would love to keep my desk in this clean and shiny condition, especially since it's what I see first thing every morning.What's your worst trouble spot? Want to tackle clutter along with us?
3 comments:
It looks great! I ended up throwing away a good bit of the stuff from the dresser.
You just saw a pic of my laundry room and work bench. This is nothing! lol.
We have way too much stuff which clutters up our space (including furniture) so we're making a real effot to sort piles as we unpack for Godwill and World Relief. (Yes, some of this was done before we moved but at the end I was just throwing things into boxes.) We really have way too much stuff and we're not the neatest people in the world so it really starts to take over. My biggest clutter area is usually the bathroom. Before I know it, half empty bottles and products we never use are taking over. Before we had our own master bath but now we won't so we're really going to have to watch it.
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