I added some square footage to my home this week.
I get so used to shifting my hips this way or that to get by a HUGE SUITCASE that has been sitting in the middle of the bathroom for months . . . that I don’t even realize it’s there. It just seems like part of the house.
But then, when I finally put it where it’s supposed to go, it’s like my home has grown in size.
I can walk through (what turns out to be) a very roomy bathroom easily. No twisting or sideways-shuffling necessary.
My big project for this week was to clear the floor in my own closet. It’s a walk-in closet, but I hadn’t been able to walk into it in a very long while.
A very long while.
My closet isn’t visible to the general public (I’d tackle somebody before they got past the master bedroom door) so it didn’t make it to the top of my priority list.
But I finally realized the residual effect my horrendously messy closet was having on the rest of the house.
Visual residual effect.
Clothes hanging on doorknobs near the laundry room. In full view from the living room, where I DO let random people sit. Clothes piled on top of a chair outside the closet. The place where fine washables go to die overloaded once again.
And then there’s the master bedroom. It’s bad y’all. For so many (illegitimate) reasons. But one big reason is that I’ve been folding things I would normally hang because I couldn’t get into the closet to hang anything. I love hanging everything but pajamas and bathing suits, but since I was folding workout clothes (I’m still actually working out consistently) and jeans and t-shirts and such, my drawers couldn’t handle it. (Top left picture.)
Unfortunately/irritatingly, knowing that they should be hanging in my closet helped me justify sticking them on top of open drawers. I guess I thought it was a temporary solution so it was okay. Makes no sense, I know.
Overflowing drawers most likely/definitely contribute to overall master bedroom chaos. (Which I totally am not in the mood to reveal at this moment in time.)
So my point is that even though the closet isn’t visible, its lack of usability affected the entire house. In a visible way.
I mean really. Inside the closet, a few random hangers held a few random things I don’t actually like. Other than that, my clothes were elsewhere.
Ugh.
So I spent an hour-and-a-half clearing the floor. I grabbed my black trash bag, my donate-able Donate Box, and got to work.
And I ONLY worried about clearing the floor. That was it. I didn’t solve any problems. I just decluttered.
And now, I can tap dance in my closet. Except that I won’t. I have a handy-dandy tap floor for that.
And the floor being clear meant I could move the HUGEmongous suitcase where I store my out of season clothes back into the closet and out of the path to the potty.
And now, living without the fear of noisy toe-stubbing during middle-of-the-night potty-breaks . . . I’m enjoying my significantly larger, roomier home.
It’s just crazy how that works.
What have you been decluttering this week? Leave your story in the comments!