The ongoing battle in my house is that it is very tiny and can look very cluttered easily. I love my house and I’m actually grateful to have a smaller space. In the apartment that I lived in before I found my house, I had significantly more space. My closet in that apartment could fit a bed inside of it. I had a lot of things in my room because I had space and I was living with roommates. So I needed my room to be more than just a place to sleep. I had a little couch to relax on plus my desk. I wasn’t working from home back then, but I still needed a place to do some work.
I probably have more space in my house than I did private space in my apartment, but I also don’t have as much storage as I did before and there are some rooms that were being fully used by me at the old apartment. Mainly the kitchen and bathroom (I had a private bathroom which was maybe triple the size of my current one). And I did a lot of downsizing when I moved here, but I also kept some of the habits from my old apartment in my house. For example, I had the storage space before to keep things that I didn’t really use but might use again one day. And now I don’t have that space but I struggle with getting rid of things because I’m worried I will need it again and don’t want to have to pay for it again.
I have needed to get over that struggle and have slowly made changes in my life to work on getting rid of things. And when I got my new tv stand, I had to do a lot of work with downsizing again. I’m still working on finding space for some of the things I had on my old tv stand that don’t fit on the new one, but I have gotten rid of a lot of things that were taking up space. And I think that project really kicked off wanting to do this in more areas in my house. The problem with these projects is that when I’m in the middle of them it makes my house so messy. But I have been able to find little projects I can do without making too much of a mess.
The first area I tackled was my entry closet. This already has a lot of organizational stuff inside of it, but the floor was a bit crazy. This was such an easy fix because the main thing taking up floor space was the storage box with all the holiday-related decorations I own. I rarely need to access this box (I don’t always decorate for the holidays) so having it take up so much floor space was unnecessary. I found a place in my utility room that isn’t easily accessible but fits the box perfectly. So even though I will need a ladder to reach the box when I need it, that’s a much better place than somewhere that I use every day and blocking things I really do need.
And when I was in my utility room, I knew I needed to do a lot of work on that space. That area has become a catchall for lots of stuff when I don’t know where else to put it. I’m so grateful I have that room because it is a great storage area that is inside my house. I can store things in my garage too, but I don’t store a lot there because I have to move my car to reach it and it’s not inside. So if I needed something in the middle of the night, it’s not really convenient. I try not to have too much in my utility room, but it can easily gather stuff. And a lot of it is stuff I don’t actually need and might have forgotten about.
I found some health and beauty stuff that I don’t need or use like unopened bottles of lotion I don’t use anymore or unopened bags of cotton rounds (I use reusable fabric rounds instead of cotton ones now). This doesn’t need to be in my house because I’m not going to use them. So they went into a bag that I’m using to collect things I can donate to a charity that needs it. Yes, I guess I wasted money on things that I never needed, but that’s in the past and I’d rather find a place that needs them instead of keeping them in case I decide to use them.
My dad helped me create some nice storage in my utility room, but I haven’t been maximizing it for a while. I have a sink that doesn’t work in there, and my dad built a custom topper so it becomes a flat counter. That space was used for my wine storage and I had a wine bottle holder on there. But I haven’t had alcohol for a long time and that wine bottle holder was just being used for me to put other things on top of. I could find a much better storage holder than a wine bottle holder for things like tools and cleaning supplies. So I asked a friend if they wanted the wine bottle holder and they took it off my hands. My utility room is still a work in progress, but I’ve been able to get rid of so much and I’m finally able to see what organizational things I need to make it a more efficient space.
I’m going to start working on organizing my kitchen and bathroom next because I know I have products in those rooms that I don’t need. I know my pantry has stuff that probably is past its use-by date that I forgot about. I know I need to store my baking supplies in better containers instead of just the bags they come in. And while my bathroom doesn’t really have storage space where I can forget about things, I know that there are products that I see in there that I tell myself that I use that I really don’t. I will probably take those products out of my bathroom and store them in a bag for a week or so. Then I can see if I go into that bag to get it out or if I really have been lying to myself that I need them and use them. After that, I need to work on my desk but that is going to be a much longer process and will probably require more time to decide what I need to save.
Even with the limited cleaning and organizing that I’ve been able to do, I have noticed a huge difference in my house. Things are easier to find and I don’t feel like there is just stuff around me. I like feeling more peaceful at my house since I am here so many hours a day. And once I have things clean and tidy, I might look at more decorative things to add since I know I want some more personality in my space too.
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