Thoughts on Simplifying

This year Project Purge has been more about getting rid of the big things as opposed to the smaller and less noticeable items. Sure, I've had the large amount of bathroom items (41) or movies (26) that have left in one fell swoop but the majority of items are going one at a time in a bigger way that is causing me to stop and take notice.

On the first Saturday in April, we ripped the carpeting out of our bedroom. This was a spur of the moment thing fueled by an obnoxious odor that only got worse the more I shampooed. We discovered that the previous owners may have used the corners as restrooms while being forcefully evicted from the home. My pet had an accident in that area and as soon as I began to shampoo, the odors started.

Anyway, as we removed the carpeting, we also removed items from our bedroom. I gave a dear friend a huge trunk we were using to store blankets and moved the blankets into a tote that fit under the bed. I removed a lot of miscellaneous clutter from our bedroom as well. The eucalyptus swag above the bed and the basket of fake greenery are both gone. They were dust collectors and we have allergies. They had to go! This led to rearranging wall art and purging a few older framed items there as well.

That night as I climbed into bed in my bedroom that actually had wall space visible, I realized how much I liked things simple. The next morning, I cleared all of the stuff off of my dresser except for one lovely faerie. Everything else was gotten rid of or in the case of my large jewlery/chest, moved to another location. Empty space is making me happy.

A few days later, I removed the huge laundry baskets and got one smaller one. This gave us more space. I looked around and realized how nice my bedroom looked. Even with the paint splattered parquet floors, even with the blase paint color, even with my mismatched furniture, the room is calm. I love it!

The attached bathroom got a makeover on this Saturday. We were given a small rolling cart like one would use in a kitchen. One wheel was gone so we removed all 4 casters and made it into a small cabinet for my bathroom. This allowed me to move the larger unit out of the bathroom (an old entertainment center). I was able to reorganize the stuff and actually ended up with more counter space! It's a wonderful thing!

This means two larger pieces have been removed from my home. Two items. That isn't much really but it is HUGE to me!