Decluttering

(sorry but my blog is undergoing some construction--no time to fix it so you'll have to excuse all the ugliness until I can clean up around here)

I spent the weekend organising and yet our house is still a mess. I'm sure it will be this way until we move in December. My project is to to reduce the number of boxes we have in the basement down to half, --mostly things from our Mexico move never opened. The good news is that I found so many boxes of art supplies it made my week last week! Every time we took apart a room to renovate I'd box them up and then lose them in the basement somewhere so I'd end up buying new stuff and starting over again. It was like Christmas finding and organising all those boxes and the kids loved digging into it all. I think there's at least one more box somewhere.

I've been emptying the kids rooms too in preparation for the move. There are a lot of baby things that we don't need anymore¨*sniffle* so that really cuts out the clutter. I've reread some books recently too that really inspired me to ruthlessly declutter--Clear You Clutter With Feng Shui and Amanda Blake Soule's book The Creative Family, (great book by the way). I like what she says about looking at toys for your kids --"do the toys around you evoke a feeling of beauty?" I noticed oddly enough as I separated things from Charlotte's room that most of the toys that didn't inspire me or evoke a sense of beauty were actually gifts or hand me downs. I do usually buy inspired things like wood toys, books or art supplies for the kids, but it's the "everyone else" factor that gets in the way. It's all well meant and I love the family for the act of buying the gifts for the kids but there's a feeling of responsibility with a gift to keep it even if I don't like it or need it. I certainly felt that as I wondered what to do with the things I'd put aside. All this has me inspired to try to make more gifts for the children that we know and offer them art supplies or special books or well thought out wood toys for their gifts. (by the way for the friends reading this blog I'm not talking about YOU--your gifts were kept!)

The other thing I did was replace all the plastic bins with baskets and what a world of difference that made. The room felt so much better. It was suddenly lighter and airier. I think kids need to be surrounded by beauty to appreciate life and I'm dedicated to getting our whole home in that same order (even if I have a looooong way to go). The little people spaces are a good start though.

I'll post the finished room when I get the last details done and get the new bedding.