Decluttering, an embarrassing post.

Sheets

As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm in a decluttering phase of life, a good stage to be in I think.  A couple days ago when this got started, I ordered three books from the library on organization, I got them today and lay down on the couch at quiet time to read one.  So I started reading, got inspired, got my butt up and went to work!  I started with the linen closets, which if you know me at all you know they are an overfull mess of unfolded stuffed in there sheets that fall out when you open the door.

Towel closet

I forgot to take a before pic but here are the after pics, there were two garbage bags full.  At least 30 pillow cases, probably 20+ sheets, a few blankets, and other oddments.

Linen Closet extras

I haven't had a queen size bed in 5 years, I just now got rid of the queen size sheets.  And who needs 40 pillow cases?  To be fair, these were all given me a year or so ago, I just never passed them on to the thrift store like I should have the day after they were given to me.  I ended up keeping like 10, don't know why, I guess it is nice to have extras, the kids do like to play sack races with them sometimes.

Clothes shelves before, I told you it was embarrassing...

Then I moved on to the master closet and the rest of our clothes, I got rid of the chest of drawers years ago and put up a shelf system.  This fixed the problem of me just stacking clothes on top of the chest of drawers, I assumed that I could at least stack them semi-neatly on the shelves more easily.  But no, they'd end up a mess there as well, husband would always need the bottom pair of jeans of the stack and mess up the rest of the stack, and then I'd just throw the clean folded ones on top of the messed up stack and make it worse.  Problem is too much clothes, of course.  

Clothes shelves after, much better!

Not that I can any where near place all the blame on him, but my husband's pretty much only flaw is that he doesn't like to get rid of anything.  He's ridiculously sentimental I guess, or something, personally I think having 25 t-shirts is too many, and that's undershirt quality t-shirts, not nice ones...  Anyways, so since I wanted to get rid of something, I got rid of most all my crappy around the house work t-shirts, I'll wear his instead!  Then I went through and organized everything, put away my "skinny" clothes and summer clothes.  But to keep harping on my husband, not that I should, the bottom shelf and half of the next shelf are his clothes.  I have a tiny stack of shorts, one of pants, and one of jammies.  He's got five of pants and one of shorts.  I do laundry every day, who needs 5 pairs of jeans and 6 pairs of khaki's?  Especially when he has only 4 pairs of work pants and manages with that working 5-6 days a week!  AHHHHHH, okay, I'll stop, I need to stop, I have the best husband in the world, and I have wayyyyyy more flaws than he does, it's just so much easier to harp on someone else than yourself...

















I didn't take a "before" shot of the closet, it was pretty stuffed, here's the "after", all the coat hangers on the left were in use before, woohoo!!!

After a partial culling 

Then I got started in the kids room, we built shelves covering three walls quite a while ago to house our massive book collection and Chris's massive junk collection.  Okay, that's not nice, his massive "collectibles" collection.  I hoard books, that's as bad, maybe, no actually, it's not, I refuse to say that, at least I read the books, the stupid junk just collects dust and is ignored.  But then I don't really read the books, most of these are only good enough for a one time read, so "out the window go the books, out the window go the books", I doubt any of you will get the reference, most of you won't have seen Paint Your Wagons, but you should, you definitely should!  My car is again stuffed to the gills, well, just stuffed with stuff to go to the thrift store.  Five black garbage bags full, and 6 boxes of books, so far, I ran out of boxes and energy so the rest will have to wait for another time.  That poor room needs massive organization, to throw three kids and their stuff into a room already full of books and junk... Bad idea, but really we didn't have any other options.  Oh for a larger house!!!  Well, it'll sure seem larger when I get done, I just have to pray my energy and drive holds out until then, I can't stop halfway there!