Today I’m sharing an email conversation I had a while back. I asked the emailer if I could share since her struggle is one many of us have faced.
First Email:
Hi Nony!
I have watched your videos and ordered your books (and actually read them!) and have a project I feel totally clueless about. Thought maybe you might have some suggestions? ( I know you are busy so if you can’t reply- I will understand- but I hope you can.)I moved into this house 2 years ago and chose the small bedroom for me, giving the master bedroom (and bath) to my adult disabled daughter since she hoards (and no – not much I can do about that) and who has had her own place previously and DOES need her own space.
So I chose the small bedroom for me, even though there is a larger bedroom that I think would work better for me. It would mean moving the office/ junk room into MY old room by I’m pretty sure I could set it up so it works (even though it is pretty visible).
What I would like to do is to move me into the spare room. It would be WONDERFUL for me with a walk in closet and room to actually walk around my bed.
But I don’t know where to start.
The idea of taking everything out of the spare room and putting it into the living room (which is what I would have to do) then moving all my stuff into the spare room… well, how do I do that? I cannot do a HUGE project- just cannot.
I already know that quite a bit of stuff from the spare room could be tossed without me going into a conniption fit (I’m actually working on that!) but there is a lot of furniture and boxes in there.
If I could wrinkle my nose ( like Samantha on “Bewitched”) and have the rooms swapped – that would be wonderful! But alas- it’s not an option.
I can ask friends (or **gasp** – hire someone to help me ) but I’m not sure how to start. Or end.
I also am aware of the many things in MY current bedroom (with the tiny closet) that I could let go of.
Ideas?
Cleaning is the last thing on my list- so no worries about that stopping me.
Ok then-
Thank You!
My Reply
I think you answered your own question! You mentioned that both rooms have things you know you could get rid of.
It seems like the overall project is what overwhelms. Go ahead and declutter those rooms down as much as you can, and then reassess how big the project will be. At that point, too, you would likely be more willing to ask a friend to help for a few hours.
Hope that helps!
Nony
Final Email
Nony, how right you are.
I am smarter than I think I am. I just forgot! And I needed a reminder of what has already been working in other areas of my house (and life).
I re-watched one of your videos last night. (Thank you God for sending me Nony- who understands slob vision and how my “interesting” brain rolls- AND has figured out some stuff that actually works!) I told my self, “Self-you silly girl- just go in there and start tossing first. Then figure out what you want to do- maybe with less stuff the bedroom might work for you. Maybe you still might want to swap rooms (that makes my head hurt just typing that)-but if you do – you will have to have decluttered both rooms first and that in itself will make you feel better and be able to make a rational ( maybe….) decision – or ask someone better at arranging furniture than I – to help at that point.”
I also reminded myself “Bewitched” was a made up person- and had magical powers-especially in her nose. I am real and alas- have NO magical powers. Not even in my nose.
I’ve made HUGE strides in other rooms (not that a normal person could tell) – using what you advise- so will just do more of that. It works for me and DOESN’T make my head hurt (ain’t it awesome how that works?)
Chin up, chest out, music on.
Thanks Nony!
“Chin up, Chest out, music on!” What project do YOU need to tackle? Tell me in the comments!
I need to tackle my shed! It’s full of crap. Every year I talk about it but my talking is cheap and needs to be put into action!! There is always an excuse – “It’s too cold out and as soon as Spring gets here I’ll do it!” Then Spring came along but went right into mild weather and became – “It’s too hot out!”
I’ve talked to my husband about this numerous times as well. I know if we both did it together, would be so much more fun and it would get accomplished. I know the majority of the things in there would probably be thrown away as well. We’ve lived without the stuff for this long, we know we do not need it. And I’m sad to admit that there are things out there that I did want to keep that ended up broken because they weren’t stored properly.
Need to set a date on the calendar and just do it.
how timely! right now i am pregnant with baby no. 3 and i have following project that requires swapping stuff and some furniture between 4 places. it involves tossing an old stinking build in wardrobe from the spare room that is stuffed top to bottom, moving a giant shelf out of our bedroom and replace it with a clothes storage that works for us, and finding new storage spaces for some of the baby gear etc. so that involves storage room organization.
basically i will turn the spare room into an guest room – art room/study combo for the kids so that all the art junk is out of the living room. the room so far is the official guest room, in real life known as junk room. it has some of our clothes in there too, because we have no hangers in our bedroom. our bedroom has an open shelf that is perfect for the art room/study but is full of books, office junk and random other stuff. i hate this stuff in our room.
i want to replace the shelves with a storage solution for our clothes. plus we need a dresser and bed for the new baby who will sleep with us for the first year or so… basically i want all our clothes in our room, plus some baby essentials, nothing else.
i looked at this project for a feew weeks now, planning in my head what should go were, how to organize it all so it makes sense and works… feeling somewhat overwhelmed, but i kept telling to myself ‘do the easy stuff first!’ (nony, thanks for the voice in my head!) so i decluttered. i already decluttered a dresser that has now an empty large drawer, i have an now empty antique chest that will be turned into my home office, i have another dresser that has an empty drawer but needs some repair… today i tossed a huge box of junk from the giant junk wardrobe… and i slowly get the feeling that this will be done and it will be awesome!
My project to tackle is moving my son into the bigger bedroom from the smaller bedroom, since his older sister moved out and left a ton of stuff behind,,ugggg. We live in a 3 bedroom trailer house so there is no storage…so its kinda one of those “out of sight out of mind” deal with it later things. lol
Mine is the ‘tool room’ which is the back bedroom… my issue is my wonderful husband whom I adore who never ever puts things away in the same place twice and will dump everything on the floor for ‘later’ when the proper place is less than a foot away…
Sigh… I guess I can’t organize around someone who won’t…
This post has been just the inspiration I needed to get started! 3 years ago we bought my parents house and have cleaned it up. In the process, our basement has become a huge, gross storage area. Since we’re trying to add to our little family it’s time to get that space cleaned up and usable. I too have no idea where to start! I’m so overwhelmed by the size of the project that I just never want to start! Now I know that I just need to start getting rid of stuff, and go from there.
Thanks!
So proud of you for figuring it out! Just get started– that is the hardest part. Then you can see the light shining on the next step. 🙂 Love your catchy saying– “Chin up, chest out, music on!”
😀
I need to do SOMETHING with the craft room/office. Over the last year or so (or three?) it’s become a catch-all until it’s not functional as anything. It’s a huge mess. It’s almost impossible to put anything away in there because I have to climb over all kinds of other junk to get to where I need to be. I don’t even have time to do the crafts anymore, so most of that stuff should just get put into “permanent storage” until we move or the new baby gets to an age where I can think about anything other than nursing and riding roughshod over a pack of toddlers. And the rest should be ditched. Heck, it should probably all be ditched. If I ever get back to it, I can spring a couple of hundred $$ for new stuff and still call it a bargain in terms of time/energy saved!!! Because, the reality is, if I pack it up today, I probably won’t look at it for 10 years. *sigh*
Oh goodness! For a couple of small projects I could address a couple of piles in my room (drives DH crazy!) then (if I wanted to be crazy about it) I could go through the pantry and de-clutter expired things and maybe group like things together.
I did talk to DH this week about pulling everything out of the hall closet to re-assess what we need/use vs. what can be gifted or donated.
I have several problem areas.
First of all, and maybe the easiest, is my master bedroom. I have decluttered, and continue to do so as there are still items that can go. But, the real problem here is that I have no storage for the things that really should stay. I have one small nightstand and an armoire that holds my TV. That is it for furniture other than the bed. No bookcases in my entire house, no linen closet, no shelves, no dresser, etc. I am single and it is only by decluttering that I have realized what a lack of furniture and good storage I have – and I have room to put those things, just not the budget.
Another problem area, and the one that bothers me the most, is the great room floor. Now, it is not cluttered so that isn’t the issue. The problem is that I have two litter box avoiding cats (who have been vet checked and had multiple attempts at training from not only me, but the vet, too) and they have ruined the carpet in there. There is a basement below, so the floor under the carpet isn’t a slab where I could just pull the carpet out. My goal is to replace the carpet with vinyl luxury tile, the ones that look like wood, but are 100% water proof, so I can just mop. Even though I clean the carpet very often (3-5x a week), I just can’t get the stains out and it is terribly embarrassing. Anyway, it is slow going saving the money for this project (and I’ll have to have someone install it, too), but it will be a HUGE sigh of relief when/if this gets done!!!
Finally, there is the basement, most of which is empty, but I have 2 very small cluttered spaces down there -the closet under the stairs and a teeny tiny room that is maybe 5′ by 10′ and a third bedroom that needs decluttering. There are things that can go, but I am currently physically unable to get them up the stairs and out of the house, so they wait. However, the real problem downstairs is that, since I wasn’t using the space and had turned off the central heat, I found mold growing on several walls this spring. What a nightmare! Turns out the builder took some very cheap shortcuts that have really caused bad problems. I have ripped out the carpet in most of the spaces affected and used mold killer on the walls several times and have now turned back on the central fan, added a space fan AND purchased 2 dehumidifiers so I am hopeful that it is under control *fingers crossed*. But, in order to erase it completely, I need to have several areas of drywall ripped out and new sheets of special, moisture resistant, drywall installed, but, again, have to wait until the budget allows.
All of this makes me feel very down about my home.
My basement is where all of my stuff goes to hide. I’ve been plugging away at it a little at a time for the last month or so. All the totes and boxes to go through are just overwhelming. Then lugging it all to the car to donate. I’m doing a box a day and when the donate pile gets big enough I haul it up to the car. Then I start all over again. It’s so disheartening an liberating at the same time. I’m getting rid of a ton of stuff.
Garage. We need to tackle our garage … more. The couple of sections we’ve done have hardly made a dent. Just thinking about it makes my whole body slump.
Also, yard. We’ve got shrub & tree stumps to remove before transplanting other shrubs away from the house. That’s going to be a months-long project.