Less Cluttered Home: Week 4

You know I love a good challenge. It helps me keep motivated and accountable. There was a cleaning challenge that I wanted to do, but couldn’t get started before it ended! Then I saw Stephanie’s 8  Weeks to a Less Cluttered Home. 40 days. That’s it. Go through the house little by little, area by area (which is awesome when you have little kids).

Here is the goal of the challenge: To spend 30 minutes or less each day working on a specific area of the home and to find 10 items to get rid of each day. I’m aiming for 5 items instead because we actually don’t own too much due to the fact that I hate shopping (oh, you didn’t know? :p hehe).

I swapped 2 days. Day 19 and 20 were supposed to be kids’ dressers, but I did our closet/dressers instead. Next week, I will be doing ALL the kids’ clothes! Yikes!

Day 16: Magazines and newspapers.
I’m finally getting rid of some more bridal magazines (After only almost 7 years of being married and helping friends coordinate their weddings! They were all freebies from vendors or events.) And I have lots of free subscriptions to parenting magazines too, so I’m getting rid of a year’s worth. Friends of the Library, here we come! We actually go there at least once a month to donate a magazine or two. The girls were also willing to part with some of their High-Five magazines. We will probably take pages out to send to our Compassion child. No newspapers here, so that was easy. 🙂 Most of the new magazines that I get, I pass on to someone else after bookmarking the articles online onto my Pinterest boards.

Day 17: Decorative items in living areas (living room, family room, dining room, kitchen).
I have no sense of style whatsoever so our home is not really decorated. We have no decorative items in our living area. We actually need to do the opposite of declutter for this part.

Day 18: Furniture. Walk through the house and, room by room, assess whether there are unnecessary furniture items that can be removed. Either move them into your “stuff” storage area today OR make a list of the items that need to be dealt with as you prepare for your garage sale, donations, etc. at the end of the 40 days.
We’re cheap “frugal” so we don’t have unnecessary furniture items. Bummer for the burglar who breaks in to steal our stuff…ha! We don’t have anything of value. Just beds, kitchen table/chairs, desk, other various chairs, a bench, a glider/rocker, and a couch….and a crib that REALLY needs to be put away since it hasn’t been used in over a year and a half!

Day 23: Clothing – Master bedroom closet.
Day 24: Clothing – Master bedroom dresser(s).
So, have I told you that I really hate shopping?! No? Well, I do! Once I buy something, it becomes my favorite article of clothing, and I pretty much wear it until it has holes. Sometimes I wear it even if has holes…only if you can’t really see them. Even through college, it would drive my mom crazy and she would still buy stuff for me. Anyhow, I went through my closet and dresser, and I’m donating 20+ items!…and yes, some of it is from college days, which was 10+ years ago!!! So, now I’m left with limited choices. Who wants to teach me to thrift? 😉 Norm is pretty good about getting rid of an item once he buys something new, but he was still able to get rid of a few items…old basketball jersey, sweater, and some old pants.

It’s not a huge difference, but you can see we took the extras out…there were bags of hand-me-downs from my cousin for the girls, but it won’t be another 2 years before Melody can even fit the clothes. Moving it into the girls room to work on this week… I have too much black and gray clothes. :p The huge hamper came as a set as a wedding gift. It currently holds maternity clothes.



Declutter pile

To review, here’s my goal: declutter 5 items a day. Cleaning and organizing will come after the challenge is over. 🙂 Please don’t judge the cleanliness and organization of my home yet. :p

I found a cleaning challenge to do after this decluttering challenge ends! 🙂 And once that ends, I also found an organizing challenge. They are past challenges, so I won’t be participating at the same time as anyone (like this, the decluttering is going on right now), but if anyone wants to do them with me, let me know!!!