Getting rid of stuff. It seems like such a small task, until you realize that you have more stuff than you remember. Things tucked into this drawer, in this closet, in this box under the stairs, etc. The stuff multiplies and you wonder how you could ever have accumulated that much stuff and not noticed.  It came on in a slow creep and took over every drawer, closet and box.  Last year I started a decluttering project and was determined to blow through it in a month.  and we all know how that turned out

The first was my closet:  here

and then I realized I needed to do more:  here and here.

The satisfaction that comes with having less is crazy high.  It sounds odd, but its so true.  Months ago I did a day in the life and it became glaringly obvious (to me) that my life almost revolves around cleaning.  Say what?!  That is not what I would like to put the majority of my time and effort into.  First step is acceptance, and I have finally accepted.  Ha!

As I have mentioned before in the above links, I went through the rooms in the house once and then planned on going through again.  It has morphed from decluttering to purging.  The second pass has happened and I am still not completely happy with the results.  I am closer though.

The amount of items that I have donated is staggering but even worse is the amount of sheer garbage I had in the house.  Ex.  Out dated school docs, broken toys, games with missing pieces, etc.  Ouch.  I recycled what I could and then the rest was tossed.

Just last week Dave, the girls and I went on a mad scramble to clear out the girls’ rooms.  For the school year of 2015, we are hosting an exchange student from Thailand.  This was a very last minute placement with us, hence the mad scramble.  Jules and Jane decided to share a room and give O (our student- named as such for the purposes of this page) Jane’s old room.  Combining the J’s stuff back together after a year and half apart was a lesson in ‘let’s not turn into hoarders’.  I regularly go through the J’s rooms in order to clear out old paperwork and such….but this time was different.  Everything was looked at and decided upon.  The J’s successfully moved in together and there is even room to spare…..SURPRISE!  O has her room all organized and looking good as well.

Dave and I have made a few small changes as well.  We have painted our room (and a few others) Cotton Cloud in Clark+Kensington’s Satin finish from Ace. The lack of extra stuff around has made it pretty easy to keep clean.

Our dining room also looks waaaaay better with the new paint and the purge.  Harriet is more concerned about whats going on outside.

All in all – a pretty good showing for the work put in.  I am going to go through my office a third time and see if I can be even more brutal.  Update ya on that later 🙂 and I will also include a better run through of the paint updates through the house.