Project Tidying Up!

Meet my newest read…

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo

I absolutely LOVE a clean, organized and clutter-free home.  I can honestly say that I feel better, accomplish more and even enjoy life more when our home is clean.  And although I recognize that possibly more than most, there are times, a lot of times, when our house becomes one big ol’ pile of clutter.  Between our kitchen/bath company APF, Inc., two little ones, my blog, our house projects and just plain life, our house becomes a wee bit cluttered all too often.  And I know what you are thinking…  I see her house everyday on Instagram and it is always clean.  Well let me tell you…  It is easy to scoot everything to the side to get a quick image.  It is easy to make a bed really fast, fluff the pillows and snap the shot.  But a video of our entire home would be another story.  My blogging life is mostly to inspire design, inspire the use of color and help my readers to open up their eyes to the big world of design.  To create a space that speaks to them and their family.  Therefore, my images portray those “magazine worthy” aspirations.  Real life on the other hand is a whole new ball game.

For example, here’s our master bedroom…

And here’s our closet… and yes, I CANNOT believe I am showing you this!  I guess the “take one room at a time” method really ISN’T working!

Umm, yes, it’s a mess!  It was our catch-all for everything we didn’t know what to do with in our new home plus it’s our current storage closet since finishing our basement.  Funny thing is that this huge closet is part of what sold me on our home!  Hoping this clean-up will finally motivate us to remodel this into my dream closet.

SO…  on our 5 hour flight back from Oregon on Sunday, I picked up a book I’ve been dying to read, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  And as crazy as it sounds, I honestly do believe it could be life changing to declutter to the extent that Marie Kondo suggests in her reading.  So I have taken a pledge to myself and my hubby to start this process.  Would you like to join me?

Here’s the deal…  I read the book cover to cover and since I did not have a highlighter, I folded down a million pages.  And then even double folded when both sides were note-worthy.  Yes, I absolutely suggest you do the same!  See what I mean…

Dress / Boots/ Rug

First, yes the book is amazing and inspiring and makes me want to order a dumpster the size of South Carolina before I start this process.  HOWEVER, I am taking from it what I feel is most applicable to my life, my home and my personality,  No, I do not see myself greeting my home out loud when I get home every day.  No, I do not in fact see myself kneeling down in our living room and bowing down to our home before I start tidying up because my hubby will most likely commit me.  And no, I will not be thanking my clothes for their service to me.  I do however love her passion for what she does and I appreciate the fact that she shares this with the readers.  Much of what I do design-wise may be seen by some as crazy as well and I love that about her and her writing.

So, what did I take from the book (for Stage One)?

1. I need to throw away or donate a LOT because organizing my clutter doesn’t make it any less clutter-full.  Although I do love a cute organizer!
2. Rather than tell myself I’ll do a little a day, I need to just GET IT DONE because we quite possibly purchase and add more to our home than I am actually getting rid of doing “a little a day”.
3. I will have A LOT more time to focus on things other than constantly cleaning once we are officially de-cluttered.
4. Maybe, just maybe, when my family sees my RAPID cleaning and de-cluttering, they will be inspired to do the same.

For me, I would love to come home and not feel buried in papers, clothes and clutter.  I would love to have drawers that are empty, space for new purchases and a place for everything.  I would love to feel like I no longer need to spend most of my evening throwing things into baskets and boxes.  I would love to open up a closet and actually know what we have and what we need before I end up with ten of everything.  I would love to have time freed up to blog more, spend more time with my family and time to relax!  So, I have “taken the pledge” to tidy up our home.  SO what does this mean?

Monday, the day we returned from Oregon, I got to work.  With multiple trash bags in hand, I started with our clothes and layed them ALL out on the floor of our bedroom one category at a time…

What I loved about the book was the fact that she suggests focusing on what items make you happy instead of what you don’t need.  That really struck me because I always tend to keep things on a “what if I need it ONE DAY” thought process.  So this time, I would pick something up and think… would I be excited about wearing this RIGHT NOW?  If not, it went into my donate bag…

So this is JUST our closet.  Eek!  And here’s the result…

So yes, we still have a WAYS to go but it is SO much better and I am SO motivated to keep going!  Plus, I found so many things that I forgot we even had AND I found $60 in the pocket of a purse!  And the best part, we got rid of enough to completely empty out an entire dresser in our room (the one by the windows)…

This had been a goal of mine because I felt like our bedroom was full of furniture so I am so excited to have this side of our room opened up.  So what did I learn so far?

1. We buy way too much and throwing away so many un-used/barely used things has super motivated me to purchase less.
2. Although it is helpful to clean out one “category” at a time, I did find it helpful to throw away and clean up other things in our closet at the same time.  With the entire closet much cleaner now, I feel more accomplished.
3. With so much more space and empty hangers, I am more motivated to hang things up right away and keep the space clean.
4. It is very helpful to think of things as “appreciated in the moment” rather than feeling like they still mean something to you now.  That really really helped me in getting rid of gifts, clothing from when the girls were little and other meaningful items.

Let’s all tackle this together, one category at a time and encourage one another along!  I’ll be posting my before’s and the process and I would love to share some of yours as well!  So you tackle your closets and I will be moving on to all of the TOYS in our home!  From CLOTHING to TOYS!  This should be interesting.  I think I will send the kids away that day!  LOL!  Happy cleaning!

XOXO, Brittany Hayes