get rid of all my clutter

Preparing for garage sale next week. Did a mega purge of son’s room, books…toys…and clothing. At least 5 boxes of stuff to sell, and haven’t even started on the playroom yet. His room can still be further de littered especially on the shelves, but I am satisfied with the purge.

Glad hubby didn’t look at what we were getting rid of, he is too sedimental.

Went on a rampage this afternoon and took out 2 full bags of kid clothes- gone. I can tell I need to do more, but I am getting my declutter groove back on!

Future decluttering targets as follows:

kid clothes
kid books
all other books
adult clothes
shoes
toys
magazines
refrigerator
pantry
makeup drawers
large downstairs closet
garage
kitchen cabinets
laundry room

Time to purge my son’s books….dad found great deals over the last few years on books at second-hand stores and they have multiplied. My son is a bookworm and he has read most of them and outgrown many. Last year we had the best success at the garage sale selling children’s books and toys, so we will be doing this again! I need to box up the ones to sell and store them in the garage in a pile marked “garage sale.”

Paper paper everywhere, on the counter and on the chair…
in places it shouldn’t be, in every room…it’s bugging me!

Wage a war, I must…I must….
Or with all this paper my house may bust.

Mr. Mailman, please understand,
all these ads and catalogs are unplanned…

To recycling it all must go,
for it is time for me to just say “NO”!!

Got rid of a tub of baby clothes….slowly letting go. Lots more, but for right now we have no babies other than a 7 yr old, so giving them away!

I found a box full of magazines I have been hoarding in those magazine storage things, and I really have no room for them, nor do I look at them a whole lot. My next step is to go through them, cut out what I have been hanging on to, and purge this down to 1 or 2 magazine holders max. Space is too precious.

I have observed, clutter indeed has a psychological effect that actually causes clutter to reproduce on an hourly basis. Through my moving experiment, having a “show home” and putting all clutter in my storage shed or getting rid of it caused the other residents in my household to all pitch in and keep things neat.

That has changed!! With the chaos of moving, I have discovered just the simple addition of a pile of unpacked cardboard boxes in a corner can make clutter reproduce hourly. The room fast becomes a pig sty in less than a day, which even includes dirty dishes, kid clippings (shredded newspaper or “art projects”), remotes everywhere, blankets, DVDs, wires, computer parts, and the like. Then it is all downhill from there!

I need to work very very hard to reclaim this. I was down sick last weekend, and this weekend just reclaimed my kitchen…and made it look “perfect” in attempt to get others in the mindset.

I also noticed with the toys, somehow too many ended up unpacked and in the play room, so it has been a daily explosion up there…the kind you can’t walk into. My strategy? Pack up some toys….that’s the only help. Clutterbugs need controls in place or it only gets worse, me included!!

you have to move it all somewhere….with the moving thing, we filled sooo many boxes and made sooo many u-haul trips it wasn’t even funny. Unloading the truck 2 nights in a row at 1 am, and dropping a bottle of our most expensive wine on the new garage floor brought a lot of things to light! Plus, we still have the storage unit, and it is half-emptied. Knowing I have even more in there makes me sick….even though most of it is books.

Clutter is plain and simple, a burden. And you definitely feel the weight of that burden when you have to move it. Goodwill will be seeing many more donations in the coming month from this home!

More pics of the accomplishment!!

Not perfect, but presentable….all in preparation for the house showing!