Since my birthday was Sunday, I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on my project. But I really wanted to do something which would have an immediate impact. Even though I’d devoted time and energy to these spaces already, I let them get away from me. I’ve realized that long after my project is finished, I’m still going to be contending with the challenge of maintenance. For some reason I thought I’d get rid of stuff and the house would take care of itself- but that isn’t going to happen. Having fewer things will make a huge difference, and has already made the process easier, but upkeep-free isn’t going to happen.
Last week I posted a photo of the inside of the closet. The last thing I wanted to do was empty it, but it seemed like the best approach.
I gave away some excess coats and gear. We have a staggering number of reusable grocery bags. I’m not sure how we ended up with so many, but because they are flimsy I decided to keep all of them. But I decided to store a bunch in my car.
Here’s the empty closet. It’s a deep closet, with two bars, so I put lesser-used items on the back bar. Usually I put our winter coats into bins but I think this year I’ll try moving them to the back bar. It’ll save time and hassle.
This was the finished closet: 
The basket on the floor has our hats, gloves and scarves. It’s smaller than the previous one which I just gave away.
I also reorganized this cabinet, which had gotten overrun with junk:
The bottom shelf has home improvement supplies, the middle shelf has office supplies and stationery, and the top is for flashlights and umbrellas. For now, I’m content with an empty shelf though I think it might be a good place for Emma’s art and school supplies as their current spot is a little too small.
I’m still catching up on my other decluttering tasks, and hopefully I’ll have some progress to share Wednesday!
Looks like you gave away a TON of stuff! Good for you!!! And yes, even once you have thinned things out, there is still the ongoing process of maintaining. Which is why I`m still finding things to get rid of, some being things I really like, but I just don`t want them enough anymore to do the ongoing maintenance I mentioned. You will find the more you get rid of, and the more consistence you are with keeping up, and just giving you house a quick straightening each day, the more you will find that you don`t want, simply because it isn`t worth it to you to have to give up more of your free time to do the actual straightening. Think of all the books you will have time to read :)!
You are doing so well, an entire empty shelf, I don’t think I have ever had one of those yet! Happy Birthday also, hope you did some nice things as well as decluttering, although the end result of your decluttering effort is certainly nice, a reward in itself!
Great job! Decluttering my closet was one of the most rewarding decluttering tasks. You mentioned maintenance of decluttered areas. I struggle with that as well and have tried a number of things to get into the habit of keeping them uncluttered, but I haven’t found anything that sticks. It is much easier, though, to get everything back into shape now that I have less stuff. So even though it doesn’t stay clean and clutter free, it only takes about 30 minutes to go around the house and get it back into shape. Keep up the good work!