Tidying up and KonMari

[spotty_dog]

Day 21...I have begun talking to my house...

[Deebs]

You've been doing it for 21 days? Go you! I love the before and after pics. You inspired me to do paper on one floor of my house (I didn't even attempt to do all paper - I was afraid of how much I'd find to go through). Not exactly the order or exactly KonMari, but the same general idea. It all started because the papers were making me crabby. And, I did get rid of some manuals!


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[spotty_dog]

Yeah, this thread has been up since September 1, and according to Amazon I bought the Kindle book on August 31, so...

Yay for cutting down on paper clutter, every little bit makes a difference, huh!

[spotty_dog]

Pens and pencils, crayons and markers. OMG is it astonishing where in the house these can crop up. Especially crayons and those novelty pencils -- the ones with cute characters on them that get given out as a "healthy treat" all the time but that never ever sharpen properly? Gah. Definitely a point in favor of sorting by category!

Here comes some more woo-woo: after sorting out all the broken and otherwise gross crayons, I washed the big crayon carousel and reloaded it with the remaining crayons -- ones that have come from restaurants and those that were left over from school last year, as well as those originally from the carousel -- and they fit PERFECTLY. Exactly the right number of crayons remained. Konmari Magic?

[alison]

Lol, Alison. Step away from your house.

I just did C's clothing drawer, because she is outgrowing almost all of her 6-12 months clothes (tiny little bugger like her sister was at this age), and I've purged most of the stuff except for a few pieces of clothing that tug at my heart strings. Dh and I cleaned out our garage and donated a ton of stuff. I hate stuff/clutter, and have always regularly thrown out pens that don't work, pencils that I hate, and crappy toys/party favors. It's in the Japanese genes.

[spotty_dog]

Between the Japanese and the German influences in your house, I suspect clutter hardly stands a chance!

Cleaning supplies. Mmmm.



Most of this is staying. I might be able to part with the dried-out cleaning wipes, but you can take my multiple versions of all-purpose cleaners and abrasive cleansers out of my cold, dead hands.

[spotty_dog]

After:



This is everything, except for a small shelf of unopened stock. (The stuff on the washer won't live there, it's just for the photo.) Is it sparse? No. Is it easy to get to what I want and not too horrifying to look at? Yes! (And you should have seen the overflowing cleaning rags and the piled-up box of cleaning bottles I had this stuff in before!)

[scrub-jay]

Sparse doesn't have to be the goal! That looks fantastic. You kept the essentials. I love it!

[alison]

Wow! I'm impressed.

[Sheherezade]

The only thing we've done is our pantry. I can say it is life altering. Meal time, grocery shopping and meal planning has a system now and it's relieved a lot of brain power for me. No need to think or worry, it's all there with about 12 meal possibilities stocked at all times, and when the stocked item is used, I'm immediately replacing it.

Generally though, I'm a clutter girl. I love memories be stuff. My style is basically crowded British Museum-ish ex-explorer/Indiana Jones. It would give many of you hives. The Kon Mari bit about getting rid of books gave me the vapors. No sir! We built an f-ing room with wrap around bookcases and a library ladder! My books are my best decor.

So, this pantry, it's my only accomplishment in this arena. I had to share the pictures. This was done about a month ago, but still looks the same today.




Angie

[Deebs]

Soooo, does anyone else get palpitations thinking about gathering one category from all the rooms? I have this weird thing about completeness, so not going room by room kind of freaks me out. What if I de clutter all of MY cleaning products and then later find a stash in a bathroom I forgot? Seriously, the thought of that freaks me out. Maybe it's having young kids and feeling like they constantly undo any progress I make.

On a bright side, DH just brought up the need to pair down the toys, and HIS winter clothes. Honestly, this is a miracle. He's the kind of person that gets rid of one sweater and buys four to replace it. Honestly, his love of stuff is probably the biggest issue in our marriage. He's a slob. I'm so hoping when he gets a day off that he'll dive in with me.


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[spotty_dog]

[MENTION=953]Sheherezade[/MENTION], I love it! I think baskets need to be the next phase of my pantry organization -- I've gone to containers for many of my dry goods, but we have pretty deep shelves and things end up behind things in an awkward way.

I can't believe Kondo can live with only 30 books! On the other hand, she has a line in there where she explicitly says if rooms upon rooms of books bring you joy -- that's what you should have. The ones I let go of, I like to think it was in the interest of keeping the collection well-curated.

[spotty_dog]

Soooo, does anyone else get palpitations thinking about gathering one category from all the rooms? I have this weird thing about completeness, so not going room by room kind of freaks me out. What if I de clutter all of MY cleaning products and then later find a stash in a bathroom I forgot? Seriously, the thought of that freaks me out. Maybe it's having young kids and feeling like they constantly undo any progress I make.

I was just thinking today about how the incompleteness is a little weird. I showed the photo of the above-the-washer shelves, but the other side of the laundry room is still ridiculous. The room won't be "done" for a very long time. Still, there's something about the process that keeps the faith. The categories I've done are DONE. When I get to the others they'll be done too.

[scrub-jay]

We built an f-ing room with wrap around bookcases and a library ladder! My books are my best decor.

Angie

Ahh, that sounds amazing. *drool*

[alison]

As far as books are concerned, there are anesthesia books that we have that haven't seen daylight in 3 moves... I feel like they've each probably gone through another several editions, and we've still got them taking up real estate in our garage. They haven't even made it onto our shelves, because I'm afraid they'll kill us in an earthquake.

I'm all for getting rid of books! Except for mine. Haha.

Fun thread. I love seeing all the pics!