52 Weeks To A Simplified Home: Week 49 Update

Wow! Week 49. I cannot believe that I have almost made it through this challenge. It has been a tough one for me. My discipline has been stretched to the max, and I can honestly say if it wasn’t for all the people that I know are following this challenge I probably would have given up–but I am so glad I haven’t.

Our home is far from fully decluttered yet. Stay tuned for a new challenge that I hope will keep my readers pursuing a clutter free life (it is the 30 times 12 challenge you can view it here) and me -however, there has already been so much progress made, and our home now feels bigger and brighter because of it.

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What you are looking at is a pile of sheets and blankets from the linen closet. I took before photos of the closet itself, but for some reason, they didn’t load to my camera card.

Anyways this is yet another re-declutter project. For the month of December, I am concentrating on going back and decluttering some areas that got re-cluttered as of late so that the home looks neat and tidy for the extra guests we get at Christmas time.

Now our visitors don’t look into our linen closet, so I guess this week the re-decluttering was really for the sake of my sanity. My kids put the sheets away, and I have given each set a plastic bin with a lid to make it simple. Well, at least I think the system is simple, but the kids seem incapable of grasping the concept even though the range from 13 to 19 years of age.

I was ruthless with the sheets and found another entire box to give away. It is hard to believe that two boxes plus a bag of sheets that had holes in them came out of my linen closet this year.

I wish I kept an accurate count of how many boxes I have donated this year and how many bags I filled with trash. I am sure that I have given away at least 40 boxes. As for trash, I didn’t have as much, but I guess the total is about 12 bags worth.

Here is what the top half of the closet looks like. The boxes with lids have a fitted sheet and a top sheet. The white washtubs hold pillow cases. We all have at least 2 to 3 pillows each in our family. I sleep with 4. Kind of extreme I know but I like two under my head at least, and another between my legs and the last one is either under my head or tucked in the small of my back.

Here is the bottom half of the linen closet. Notice the empty shelf. I ended up placing a laundry basket on it and am going to make it the place where everything from next year’s decluttering project lands each month (here are the details on that project).

The bottom of the closet has some baby linens and blankets we use from time to time when we are asked to babysit a little one -it also holds our air pump, emergency flashlights (yes I know they are kids ones but they are so long lasting).

The bottom container is full of blankets my husband and I use on the couch downstairs in the family room whenever one of us can’t sleep. They are handy to grab here without bothering anyone.