Last weekend, I decided to start tackling our disaster of a basement…
I started breaking down old boxes, and tossing away anything that was old/broken/etc. It did take me a few hours, but by the time I finished just this side of the basement I had thrown away over 100 items and I swept/mopped the floors. There’s still a lot to be done, but overall I was very happy with the progress made in one day!
As of today (January 26) there are over 200 items out of our house since the beginning of the year!
Count: 236/2019
After this picture was taken, the lamps and stool were both moved and that cardboard box was broken down and placed into recycling.
This is entirely Christmas/Halloween/Easter decorations….. I might have a bit too much of that stuff…
I almost never wear heels, so I will probably end up selling quite a few of those pairs at some point this year. I did move a few pairs straight into a tote of things to sell, but I was more focused on picking them up off the floor than I was on going through them…
As I mentioned in my last post, I’m on a quest to rid our house of at least 2019 items during this year. That equals about 5.5 items leaving every single day – which is a tough task!
I knew there would be lots of days where I didn’t mark off anything from my chart, but other days with huge progress. I decided to start in the master bathroom, this storage shelf in particular:
(And yes, that tin actually has Quality Street in it…this is right beside my bathtub, and everyone needs snacks while they soak in the tub haha).
The first thing I decided to focus on was that tiny little plastic container on the bottom. In case you can’t tell from the picture, it’s filled with lip glosses/balms. Seriously. How many of those does a person actually need?!
I started smelling them all, and anything that didn’t seem right, or I knew was old went. In the end, I threw out 32 items that day:
Did these 32 items make a noticeable difference in my decluttering efforts to make our house look better? Of course not. But it only took a few minutes and I was able to mark off a full row on my decluttering sheet – it was quick, easy and has motivated me to keep going!
As of today (January 11th), there are 82 items gone from our house! It’s still all small items, but it’s progress! Here’s to keeping it going!
Ah yes, January – the start of a new year, and all those stupid “new year, new me” posts on social media. The time of year when everyone is making resolutions about how to make themselves better – how often they’re going to take selfies of themselves at the gym (I’m fairly certain that’s about 75% of all people do there), what delicious foods they are going to eliminate from their lives – and it’s also the time of year when fast food locations put out great deals to entice everyone to break their new diet haha.
There’s zero point in me making a resolution to go to the gym more (not going to happen), or to eat healthier (you should see the stash of snacks I have in my makeup cabinet beside my bathtub….) – but I have decided that 2019 is the year I finally finish unpacking all the boxes from our move into our house (which, you know, happened back in 2015…) – and in the process, de-clutter all the unnecessary items laying around. I found a great website – Nourishing Minimalism who has a great challenge to get rid of 2019 items from your home during 2019. I definitely do not see myself becoming a true minimalist, but it would be nice to not trip over things all the time, and live a slightly more simple life.
So, I signed up, and printed off my free chart. I also printed a second chart, and marked “Incoming” on the top of it. I figure it won’t make much of a difference if I do manage to rid my home of 2019 items, only to replace it with that many new things. So my goal is to come as close as possible to filling the outgoing chart, while keeping the incoming chart at a reasonable number – I haven’t decided on a hard number yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure that out as the year goes on. The only rules – food doesn’t count, and neither do prescriptions. However, I am counting items such as hand soap, shampoo, etc since we have an obscene amount stockpiled in our basement – my hope is to actually make a dent in our reserves…
I guess we’ll see how I actually make out on this challenge, but I am going to try and post regularly to keep myself focused.
