Project Simplify, Week 1

Simple Mom is one of the blogs I enjoy reading regularly.  There's a spring cleaning series going on there now called Project Simplify.  Now, I totally believe in decluttering.  One of my favorite aspects of my library career is what librarians call "weeding" or "deselecting" - basically getting rid of out of date, unused, or, especially with children's items, ripped or otherwise trashed books and other stuff from the shelves.  I also believe that my stress level goes up exponentially when I'm surrounded by clutter and too. much. stuff.  

That said, in this house I've had a lot of trouble with clutter and things being out of place or having no place at all.  Matt would say we also have too much stuff.  I agree!  I don't think we adequately downsized when we moved from the 5 bedroom, 2.5 bath house in NC to the first house here in GA or to this house, which I estimate is half the size of the aforementioned suburban dream house.  And we've since added a kid and about a bazillion more toys and clothes.

I'm so happy to be living in a small house now.  But a good spring cleaning and decluttering has been long overdue - I know we have been holding on to things that need to go, and that could do someone else good.  So I'm doing the Project Simplify task with joy.  This first week's task was shelves and drawers.  I decided to work on our office/craft space upstairs.  It was a disaster, partly because I'd just switched a bookcase that was up there for a cabinet that had been in our dining area and nothing had found a home there yet.

Before - the cabinet at the top of the stairs and a lot of junk on the floor 

After - just the cabinet - no junk!

The desk/shelving unit in the center of the space.  Yikes!

The desk/shelving unit after.  Much better. 

 I did not have adequate time to go through these boxes and sort and get rid of stuff.  

Thankfully, they were fairly organized to begin with, and I can go through them later.

My sewing area before.  

Matt had just added the black shelf above the sewing machine.

Sewing area after.  

Cadence sorted my buttons by color and I put them in old baby food jars.  

I spray painted the jar lids white.

This is the random leftover stuff that still needs action.  The blue box in the front with the pictures on it?  That's the working pile for the girls' baby books.  I've been trying to finish them FOREVER.  I think that will be my task for week 4 of Project Simplify: That put-off project.