52 Weeks To A Simplified Home: Week 6 Update

Six weeks into this project already. I have to admit some weeks I don’t mind posting photos of my mess at all since it seems pretty reasonable. But then there are weeks like today, where I feel slightly embarrassed by my mess. However, perhaps embarrassment is needed if I am ever to cure myself of my piling habits.

This is the dresser where I store all my workout clothes and my workout gear. It is in my dining room of all places. Why? Because I use to workout early and my husband use to work late, so to avoid waking him up we both agreed to move my workout stuff to the dining room, and that is where it has stayed for years and years.

Why a dresser full of workout gear? Well, I do live in Indiana where it has been said that you can start your day in a winter parka and end it in a tank top and shorts. Because of the moody weather, I have workout clothes for rainy days, snowy days, cold days and hot days. I also have workout gear for running, biking and swimming.

Why all the mess of papers on top of the dresser? We don’t have an office in our home, so the top of the dresser is my filing cabinet. This is one thing I plan to change by the end of this 52-week challenge. I am hoping by tossing out the unnecessary I can make room for an office space somewhere that is big enough to hold all our papers and office supplies.

The junk beside the dresser. More office supplies, and more workout gear and a lot of other stuff that shouldn’t be there.

I started the decluttering process by putting the drawers on the living room floor. I then emptied out the drawers one at a time. I vacuumed the dust out of each one and placed only the items I really use back in the drawers and discarded the other items.

From exploding to lots of room. That looks so much better, doesn’t it?

By the time I was done, I had half a box full of recycling and half a box full of things to go to the thrift store.

I also filled up half a kitchen trash bag with trash. YIKES!

I forgot to take a picture of me decluttering the top of the dresser, but I did pretty much the same thing. I cleared it all off and emptied the containers one by one.

In the end, the area still looks somewhat cluttered, but it is the best I can do until I move on to other parts of the home and find better spots for some of the things that are here. Which is another lesson I am learning in this challenge; to make the best use of the space we have. We have only one closet on the main floor of the hom, and when I get to it, I hope to put it to better use to store things that we don’t need others looking at while having dinner at our home, such as sports gear.