A couple of weeks ago I took my son on a day’s odyssey to IKEA and we came home with STUFF to organize STUFF that we have that always ends up everywhere. It was a big investment of time and money, for sure, but I’m super happy we did.
I think I have cleared out STUFF in my mind a gazillion times… each time I see an item that we don’t use I think to myself that we don’t need it and it can go… but then I invariably don’t take action and there it sits…
- Clothes that don’t fit properly.
- Toys that get minimal play time.
- Furniture that has some sort of sentimental attachment.
- STUFF that we paid good money for, so don’t want to give it away because it’s like throwing money away.
I aspire to a minimalist house. I really do (and yes, I am aware I have a 4 and a 2 year old, so you can stop snickering!). I do know how to get there but it’s the doing of it that seems overwhelming… oh, wait, I’m not supposed to use that word anymore!!!
Okay, I gotta admit to myself that I keep seeing the project as a whole, imagining the finished outcome, and then it’s hard to figure out where to start. It’s that looking at the end that starts those feelings of overwhelm…
So, the starting place is little… take it one step at a time. One thing to give away at a time.
And, it took me a couple of weeks to assemble everything, but now I’m super excited to have:
- drawers under my desk in my office so I don’t have to run across the room for a stapler, and I have a spot to keep my laptop and miscellaneous purses.
- drawers for art supplies for the kiddos so they can grab paper or markers for example and know where to put them away.
- a chest for the dress-up clothes that get used ALL the time and had a history of sitting sprawled out on the living room floor 24/7.
- bins for toys in my daughter’s room so she can help put her own things away
- a toy kitchen with cabinets for the toy food that gets used (a replacement for the toy piano that doesn’t get used)
So… I haven’t actually gotten rid of more STUFF yet, but at least what we have isn’t falling all over us. And the purging will come next as the space opens ups.
Oh! And extra bonus! I realized how to solve the art issue too… I had been planning on taking pictures of all the art and then eventually making a book from the pictures. But why create another project for myself in the future? So, the new game plan is to display on the wall, and then place into sheet protectors (I have a lot of those for sheet music that I’m learning), and put into big fat three ring binders (I have a lot of those cuz I used to keep all my accounting paperwork in them!). I’m super happy to say that as a direct result of organizing the art supplies and dress up clothes and toy food, I was inspired to finish this project… and the three ring binders are full of great art to peruse, and are easily accessible to add more as our prolific artistes express themselves.
We will get there!