Project One A Day : You've come a long way, baby...

There was a time not too long ago, just five short years ago, that I lived in a 2,200 sq. ft home.

A home I filled to it's gills. A garage you could not park in. So much stuff that at one point I did not

have one storage unit but two. It seems like decades ago now but it wasn't.

I had 12 Christmas trees. Twelve. I had two living room sets. Two. The house was never clean.

It was too cluttered to be clean. I could clean it and two hours later it looked a train ran through it 

because nothing had a home. Nothing had a space which it was always put back at. 

Why?

Because there wasn't a space for everything. There was more things than spaces.

Fast forward to today...

1200 sq. feet. 

Van parked in the garage.

No storage units.

But still letting go of that lifestyle. Still feeling a bit cluttered. There is however progress being made.

For this month I had a few projects outlined that I blogged about at the end of April. 

I did keep a close tally of what left the house. But I have to be honest, we replaced some things, so

some new stuff came back in. As well as bought things to replace appliances we were no longer using.

However, all in all, I think we did a great job! Let's see how I did on our list

 

May Declutter Projects
Over the fridge cabinet - I have no clue what is in there - DONE!
Pots & Pans - Might do tomorrow??
All clothing (whole family) - DONE!
Kids Bathroom - DONE!

And how about a tally of how much left this house?

May Total : 412

Wow! That number still shocks me. It shouldn't but it does.

And to answer the burning question, yes the Thanksgiving decorations were purged. Heavily. 

Barely one box left of those things. But I kept what was special to me and let go of the "things"

that was there just because I paid money for them.  There is still a great deal of items to be gone

through - a box of silver knick knacks just off the top of my head. So I am fairly confident that June's totals will be just as high. I do however want to make more project goals, as I found the 

accountability to be extremely helpful.

June Declutter Projects

Silverware Box

Small Appliances

Gaming Systems and Games 

 Linen Closet

 

Project One a Day : April 2012

 A little background on this project. My hope is by removing clutter and items 
in my home which hold no value to me, that my family is able to live 
a more simple life. We are able to focus on the Lord more, be more grateful for 
His blessings and to get off the roller coaster of excess that Americans indulge in. I post monthly, sometimes weekly and sometimes daily. How do you like that for well thought out? ;)

I spent much of April either packing for a trip or on said trip. 

So there was not a lot of purging that normally has been going on.

But still there was more than enough.

At least one very full trip to Goodwill for donations took place.

And there is plenty more where that came from.

I am beginning to realize that even though we do not

buy things like we have in the past, there is still things coming in.

For instance, while on vacation my children were given large

amounts of hand me down clothing. Which was needed and 

we were extremely grateful!
But that means now we need to weed out clothes that do not fit.
And there is a lot. Well, I think it is a lot. My teenage daughter would
kindly disagree with you. She does not share in our less is more idea.
Go figure.

I would say just by guessing this month we let go of approximately
200 items in our home. That is good progress and one would think
there is much more to do. Oh, but you would be wrong.
Have I mentioned there are nearly 6 large Rubbermaid totes full of
Thanksgiving decorations in my garage?
Thanksgiving.
Yes, there is so much more to let go of.

This coming month of May instead of focusing on how much is going
out when clearly there is enough to meet the 30 or 31 items monthly
goal, I am going to focus on areas. Ideally I should do the whole house
in the month of May but let's be honest here....I home school and my
hubby is gone offshore long periods of time, leaving me to be a single
parent half the year. I don't want to overwhelm myself to the point I shut down.
Which I do when there is too much to do.
I shut down completely.
So, instead I thought I would post a list of a few areas I wish to declutter
in the upcoming month. Hopefully this will help me be accountable.

May Declutter Projects
Over the fridge cabinet - I have no clue what is in there
Pots & Pans
All clothing (whole family)
Kids Bathroom


I will be checking in mid month to tell you how it is going.
I will try to keep better track of how much is leaving.
We are moving in less than 10 months and I really don't want
to drag most of this stuff with us. Clean slate and keep what matters!


March & April Total Items :
500+

 

Project One A Day : March 2012

Alittle background on this project. My hope is by removing clutter and items in my home which hold no value to me, that my family is able to live a more simple life. We are able to focus on the Lord more, be more grateful for His blessings and to get off the roller coaster of excess that Americans indulge in. I post monthly, sometimes weekly and sometimes daily. How do you like that for well thought out? ;) 


Well this month has been amazing in clutter freeing. I have let go of so many things, I lost count. Pretty sure just in one closet I donated over 30 items. And I am not even half way done. My van is always loaded with donations looking for a good home.

This project also has forced me to look at what I use in my home & wonder if I should be or if there is a better way. One area that keeps coming back is using plastic in the kitchen. It has always bothered me but in a way that was never to the forefront. Now, during this month it has moved to the front of my brain which means if I don't focus on it, I will be dreaming of Ziploc for like forever. Stuck on an uneven board trying to balance is my desire to rid plastic from our home but not to drag home tons of items after purging so much. Obviously I need to use something in place of the ziploc bags in my home, but I don't want clutter. It has been a conundrum. Until it was suggested I use my awesome collection of canning jars. BRILLIANT! And I don't feel bad about thrifting more because they serve multiple uses in my home (i.e. holding my homemade toothpaste, making candles in them, storing food, sorting craft items). Right now, I have no added to my stash.  I vowed to use up what I had first before adding to my collection. Which is hard for me because I am a jump in head first type of girl! I will be making more posts about this in the future.

An area we worked on this month so far has been my daughters closets. They are 10 and 14. For a year they had their own rooms for the first time in their sibling lives. It did not work. We had girls who were more disconnected to each other. So, this past week we moved them back together making the spare room a craft/play/school room. But my word, what these girls collected in a year! 3 days of complete chaos when we merged their rooms. I have pictures but almost scared to show them. Plus I don't know how to take them off my iPhone and put them here. There was about 200 things donated, 50 things tossed because they were beyond repair and tons & tons of paper, junk and SCHTUFF tossed or recycled whenever possible. And we haven't even got to the teenagers make up stash y'all. That one is going to go over like a fart in church, I promise ya. She doesn't wear much or even wear makeup at all often but she likes to own a lot. Ahem. Issues over here, issues. I can tell their room is going to be one that will go into next month getting it pared down.

So those are our areas of progress this month. We also managed to get our trash down to one can a week and upped our recycling to two cans a week. Which made me happy for a whole 3 minutes then I realized I should be buying LESS packaging, therefore creating LESS recycling. Sigh. I can never let myself be happy with anything, I swear. Again, we will be talking more about that in the coming months.

Have you tried to simplify your life this year? Have you got fed up with excess? If so, post in the comment section your story or better yet, your blog so we can be inspired too. You can also follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #SheddingExcess. Let's share and encourage one another! :)