Why We Sold Most Our Toys

A child's job in the first several years of life is play. Naturally, parents and loved ones want to cultivate this important skill by providing plenty of interesting play-things to kids. Toys are also how we show affection and love, especially if gifts are our number one love language. There are countless beautifully organized playrooms you'll come across online that look like enchanted wonderlands. They're filled to the brim with organized bins of toys for every age and stage and season.

Thing is, in the almost seven years I've been a parent, I've grown to resent toys. I feel like a prisoner to them. First, I'll admit we're lucky to have the means to provide a good number of toys (and find them cleverly through second-hand shopping, etc.). And our kids have been the recipients of some very nice things over the years. But -- in the process -- we've amassed this huge collection. We've tried weeding. We've tried rotating. We're tried creating a sort of enchanted wonderland to encourage the critical skill of play.

What's been the result?

The kids ignore the toys most of the time. 

Except when they decide to throw them around.

We're left cleaning them out of every corner of the house. 

And the kids don't help.

Two of my simplification goals are to spend less time cleaning and to have my kids be more self-sufficient. So, this isn't going to work! I didn't plan it this way, but this post is going to be a three-parter.

In short: We decided to get rid of most of our toys last week. 

And my definition of "most" or "pared down" may be different from yours. In my eyes, what we did was quite radical, and it took me several years to work up the courage to make this step. After wading through a living room of toys, cleaning them up, and realizing that much of the stuff I'd been organizing had been played with very few times, I went to the local moms buy/sell/trade group and just started listing like a crazy person. Many of the items were snatched up within 10 minutes.

Other things, we took to the Salvation Army. And we're still finalizing the process today, as my basement looks like this:

What we're keeping:

• Play kitchen
• Play food
• Grocery cart
• Wooden register
• Mega Blocks
• Waffle Blocks
• Magnetic blocks
• Legos
• 3 baby dolls and a few accessories, like diapers and a couple outfits
• Ada's American Girl dolls + accessories
• A streamlined play cart that I'll get to later in the week
• Play doll house
• Musical instrument bin
• Sensory bean bin
• A set number of loved stuffed animals
• Fabric doll house for Ada
• Fabric Sesame Street doll house for Eloise
• A couple Sesame Street figures, puzzles, etc.

And I think that's mostly it. No, it isn't zero toys. It's not even just five toys or whatever minimalist goals I've run across other places online. But it's SO MUCH LESS than what we had. We had two 9-cube organizers that were bursting at the seams. They're both gone now and being used in other parts of the house as dressers. We had several large storage bins full of random toys. They're empty. We had a closet in the basement with leftover toys that didn't get much play -- it's empty.

What we got rid of was a lot and included several Little People play sets I had picked up second hand over the years. Many dolls that weren't getting any love. Tons of toys that were either broken or missing pieces. Lots of Barbies, Disney princess, and other character type toys that don't totally meet our interests. Gosh, there's a lot more and this process is continuing today, so I hope to share a fuller list on my next post (and edit down the keep list above), as well as how I sold or got rid of them. I've made nearly $200 in the last week, which is great.

How many toys do we hope to end up with? That's hard to say. I am thinking even fewer than we're keeping now. I feel that what we've done is just the first step, but already the girls are responding well. So, yeah. This is a huge topic. I'll devote the week to it, but if I get too in-depth today . . . I'll get bogged down and never publish!

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Airing My Dirty Laundry

My friend Taylor said something that really resonated with me last week. It was something to the effect of "organization doesn't need to be pretty" -- and she's absolutely right. I think I've been caught up in the past when I'd be trying to clean. Maybe all the stuff was put away, but the room I was left with wasn't exactly Pinterest-worthy. Despite the accomplishment of organizing, I was left with a sense of failure. And feeling negative about the experience didn't exactly help with motivation to keep it clean.

So, today I'm airing my dirty laundry, so to speak. Because there's actually no dirty laundry on my floors upstairs. After my marathon cleaning sessions this weekend, my ENTIRE upstairs is organized and tidy. Better yet, MOST closets and drawers are organized as well. The exception is that 4th bedroom closet. We don't have much basement storage, we have no attic storage, and the garage is tight this time of year. This is our only space to keep extras. I'm hoping that will change sometime soon.

So, my rooms aren't all painted or decorated, but I'm proud of this progress.

Eloise even has her own tiny capsule wardrobe!


I think this is the first time in years I would have photographed every room in the upstairs at the same time. They have never all been clean at once. Now, I want to organize that 4th bedroom closet better than it is now and relocate the last of the boxes in that room. But this is HUGE progress. And, no. I don't think these rooms look great. Maybe Ada's. Poor Eloise deserves a painted room already. She's 19 months old!

One thing at a time. More soon!

Related:

Minimalist Kid's Room Tour
Eliminating the Maybe
7 Clutter Categories
Cleaning Week Snapshots
Wannabe Minimalists

Read more...

Decluttering My Life // 2018 Cleanout

After writing up my What's in My Makeup Bag post, I realized my microblogs have gotten a bit lengthy. I want to stick with writing, so this week I need to change things up a bit. Today I'm going to write up a short and sweet list of accomplishments I made toward my organization/cleaning/minimalism goals. There's more to just cleaning -- it's changing the whole cycle of buying and identifying needs vs. wants. But that's a post for another day.

To recap: Here's my action plan for getting rid of our clutter.

TOYS

• Cleared out most toys from our first floor living room
• Purged half the toys from the basement playroom 
• Leaned out more toys from the bedrooms
• In total: Have donated or packed away a total of 2.5 large bins of toys

CLOTHING

• Collected two garbage bags of clothing to donate
• Identified some items to sell on my Poshmark store
• Separated out spring from winter clothing to have less stuff out
• Packed away one large bin of clothing as a result -- less laundry!
• Made a capsule wardrobe for myself of 25 items for winter
• I didn't yet have Stephen go through his clothing -- doesn't have as much as I thought

KITCHEN

• Went through all drawers and cupboards
• Got rid of one large box of items, including glass jars with no lids, broken stirring spoons, etc.
• Relocated a bunch of stuff that had no business being in the kitchen (toys, personal care items, etc.)
• Still have more to do . . . 

HOARDERS ROOM (a.k.a. 4th bedroom)

• I could barely open the door to this room. No joke!
• Found THREE bags of paper and other trash (broken things, not pizza boxes) in this room
• Found a bin of maybe items that we'll hold onto for a month or so before donating
• Have almost cleared the whole room out, except the closet -- which is amazing!

BATHROOM CLOSET

• Go rid of near-empty bottles of product by combining with newer bottles
• Organized our bulk items (soaps, shampoos, etc.) into bins for easy grabbing
• Got rid of a bag of trash in this area
• Found tons of used water glasses and dishes in the closet for some reason

All and all, these activities didn't take a single hour as I had hoped they would. It was more like on-and-off for two days. I'd say maybe five to six hours total. Yikes. But it was necessary. AND I'M STILL NOT DONE! I am hoping to give you some visuals in the coming days. I'll probably devote this entire week of blogging to organizing and minimalist stuff. 

Stay tuned . . . and check out more of this month's micro-posts.

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Overcome by Clutter: Action Plan

I've written about our efforts to become more minimalist in the past, so I also feel I should share when it's just not working out. Like now. OK. So, we were doing well several years ago, but I noticed the creeping of stuff started after Eloise was born. I think it was a mix of getting an influx of baby items and putting my guard down. It's an excuse, yes, but it's harder to stay on top of things with a baby/toddler around AND sometimes there's stress. And as much as I'd like to say it isn't true, I do still have stress-shopping tendencies.

We're all works in progress, right?

Anyway, as I sit in our basement playroom, I'm a bit disgusted. We have all these beautiful new and old toys strewn about. Many of them aren't getting good use. Instead of appreciating them, I'm incredibly annoyed at the moment. They're a giant source of stress for the adults and kids alike. Stress for me and Stephen because of constant pickup. Stress for the kids because there is so much, they're overwhelmed, hopping from thing to thing.

I woke up wanting to throw everything in the garbage. So, before I do something crazy, I decided to write this post. Thing is, I don't even know where to begin. The main level of our home is relatively tidy most of the time. Not ever when I hop onto Instagram for some reason, so that's a fairly true representation of what annoys me. It's nothing a half hour of picking up can't fix, though. The second level where we sleep? Yikes. It was clean before Christmas. Laundry abounds from all corners now, along with some Christmas items that never found proper places to live. And, of course, the basement is an absolute wreck.

Minimalism is about a lot more than just a clean house, and I think that's one area where we've strayed. Now, I also want to explain that I've always been more of a wannabe minimalist. We, as a family, are getting there. We're slowly arriving at a point where we're accepting the core principles of living with less excess and embracing those things with purpose. Anyone who's done it will tell you it takes time, and there will be back-sliding.

All of this is to say that today I have written up a short to-do list that I'm hoping will help get us back on the right track. And, at least at first, this mostly means clearing some stuff out so I can think. So we can ALL think.

• Donate/get rid of one bag of my own clothing. Re-create a capsule wardrobe for winter. 
• Have Stephen donate/get rid of a bag of his own clothing.
• Weed through Ada's and Eloise's clothing to store away anything that no longer fits them/is damaged/etc. or donate.
• Go through basement toys and pack away/donate at least one box of items that are no longer used or are damaged/missing pieces/etc.
• Reevaluate all toys and books in the living room. This is our most annoying area of clutter where Eloise's just grabs and throws things all over. We may temporarily eliminate toys in this space because it's getting to be too much at the present moment.
• Go through all mail and recycle/trash what isn't needed.
• Weed through kitchen drawers and donate/get rid of random cutlery, cups, appliances, etc. we're either not using or that's broken/missing pieces/etc.
• Identify a better storage area. We don't have many bins of storage, but keeping them in the garage isn't working out.
• Gather up a box of "maybe" miscellaneous things and put them away for a month or so to see if we actually need/want them to stay in our lives.

I'm hoping these activities will only take an hour or so, and I'm also hoping I can update you on my progress next week.

More Minimalism:

Eliminating the Maybe
7 Clutter Categories
Cleaning Week Snapshots
Wannabe Minimalists
Five Things I No Longer Buy

Read more...

Introvert's Guide to Holding a Yard Sale

In the last week or so we've had a yard sale, taken two trips to the children's second hand shop, and I've also made my first transaction via a local mom's Facebook sale group. I feel like a superhero of sorts when it comes to getting rid of all the dreaded stuff. Yet, when I think back . . . I thought I got rid of everything last year. You know, the great purge. Why am I doing it again? Obviously I haven't been following my own advice to stop bringing things home. That's not the topic of today's post, though.

Let me tell you about introverts having yard sales. It's a comical situation. I got so wrapped up in the prospect of making cash money from all my things that I hadn't considered the strain it would have on me. And, yes, strain is the right word. Of course, I am being slightly dramatic. But sitting around while random strangers paw through your children's old toys and make small talk is a nightmare scenario in my eyes.

So, here's the setting: Saturday morning, dawn.

I got up early. I had already staged everything in the garage the day before so it would be at the ready. I pulled each makeshift table (these camping cots we've had for eons sure come in handy for lots of things!) out to the driveway and proceeded with marking prices. Most were $1, $5, $10, and even amounts. Pretty easy -- I was ready to go in 10 minutes. But also pretty hard to put a price on things with so much sentimental value and even guilt attached. I digress.

And just like that, it happened. People started slowing their vehicles. Stopping at the foot of the driveway to gawk. To ask questions by shouting out their car windows. Walkers and joggers took notice, too. You know, because that's what people do when they're trolling around for deals. It's part of the game, Ashley.

When people started approaching . . . the conversation I had in my head was sort of like this:

Oh, god. 
Here comes this or that person. 
Do I look right at him/her? 
Should I say hi? 
Hm. 
Maybe I should just let him/her look around first. 
OK. That's the plan.

It would never fail. I'd say an awkward "hello" and nervously giggle.

Inevitably, someone would want to chat or ask a question. It's a social interaction, after all. I don't know what I was expecting. (Maybe next time I'll have a sign that reads: "Please just buy my things in silence.") We had all sorts of people come by. Some of them ended up being people we'd met briefly in the past. Some of them, we learned, do this trash-into-treasures hunt every weekend. And some seem to have crawled out of the woodwork. One woman exclusively clapped to get her 2-year-old son's attention. I think I made a nasty face at this whole thing, and she left in a huff.

I think one of the most uncomfortable parts of the sale, at least to me, is when people wouldn't buy anything. Instead, I feel like they may have come just to look for looking sake. We had primarily baby and little girl things. It was plain as day because the driveway was basically glowing primary colors.

We would have people slowly examine each and every item only to come up to us and say "Well, I don't have a family or any friends with kids. In fact, I have never even met a human child -- so none of this stuff interests me". Thank you. You could have decided that from the road versus slowly stalking that table of brightly colored toys for the last 10 minutes. Have a nice day. Merry Christmas.

I imagine Stephen's account of the sale is different from mine. In short: People were everywhere. People lingered. Drivers honked and waved. Some tried to haggle. Some lonely stragglers had no interest in the sale and simply wanted to talk to someone. In the end, though, I survived to tell the story. And I'll probably do it again sometime. That is, after I get back the mental energy. People zap me out cold.

So what are my tips for introverts who want to hold yard sales?

1. Grab your extroverted partner, if possible. Stephen -- thank god -- was able to take a big shift while I took Ada to gymnastics. He was loving it. He's entertained by people. He genuinely likes chatting with strangers. So, I let him do it while I pretended to clean the garage. Only problem is that he had an appointment during the bulk of the latter half of the sale. So, I was solo for a good chunk.

2. Hold your sale with a friend or neighbor. We were lucky because it was a neighborhood sale, so our friends next door were also outside. I considered them my crutch if I started getting uncomfortable. Actually, the husband is quite like me and retreated to his basement during most of the festivities. (Lucky.) Anyway, at least I had a familiar face to hang with.

3. Set definitive start and end times. Some people hold sales all day weekend long. They sit and sit and sit. I knew that I wanted to be done by 2PM because -- well -- that's what I decided on the spot. So, when I got uncomfortable, I knew that we were getting closer to my somewhat early end time.

4. Consider alternative modes for selling your stuff if you're really uncomfortable with the idea of having people scattered about your lawn. As I mentioned in my intro, I also went to the local children's second hand store. So, we made $165 at the yard sale (by selling only like 5 things!) . . . but we made another $100 at the store. Honestly, if I had started by taking everything to the store, I may have made slightly less . . . but if you consider the time and energy that went into holding a yard sale . . . you have to figure the cost of time.

Have you had a yard sale? Do you love it or hate it? You have to admit that -- no matter what end of the spectrum you're on -- it's an experience.

Read more...

Five Things I No Longer Buy // Minimalism

This whole minimalism thing is a process. That's for sure. It started out long ago with just a thought. And then a bit of passion. From there, it got physical. And by that, I mean we got rid of a bunch of stuff. Remember last year when I took you all on our spring cleaning adventures? By the end, we had figured out some major stuff about how to clear everything out and we were down to just a few bins in storage.

Amazing. Not so amazing is where we're at a year later. I blame it on having a baby. But the stuff, or maybe should I type out The Stuff, has slowly made a return. Not to previous levels, but we definitely need to take some time again to get back on track.

The hardest part isn't actually purging. Sure, you need to make those keep, sell, donate, and trash piles. Sure, you need to part with things that you may be emotionally tied to. But once you've done that -- it feels amazing. The hard part is actually NOT BUYING and NOT BRINGING HOME things to fill all that empty space.

So, here are some things I have stopped buying since committing to being more minimalist. We're still a work-in-progress over here. But saying no to these areas has helped tremendously. We need to add more items to this list, and I'll note those down below.

5 Things I No Longer Buy

#1: Paper towels, plates, etc.

We do not buy any paper towels, paper plates, napkins, paper cups, etc. Not only are they wasteful, but they also clutter up the trash can and pantry space. This isn't to say we don't have some rogue ones around the house. My parents and in-laws (trying to be helpful -- so we appreciate the sentiment) do end up buying us paper towels on occasion. My mother-in-law also has a thing for getting Ada decorated paper plates for holidays, birthdays, etc. We try to use them sparingly and re-use them as many times as we can (for example, I may use them as paint trays a few times).

We have a cloth towel system for cleaning the house. We also have two sets of Corel dishes in plain white. It is enough for eight people total. We very, very infrequently would need more than that.

#2: Cleaning Supplies

You guys know that we make a lot of our own cleaners. A great all-purpose spray is just vinegar with water and some essential oils. You can use different ratios of this to get the job done. You can add some rubbing alcohol to make it suitable for cleaning glass. In other words: Vinegar is awesome. Here are many ways you can use it.

We also make our own laundry detergent, dishwasher tabs, and even some of our own personal care items, like deodorant, lotion cubes, and face scrub.

#3: Fast Fashion

I have so much to write about this topic. I think my LuLaRoe obsession was my breaking point. I had this brief love affair and bought #alltheleggings and it left me feeling really empty and sad. I've made some major changes to my wardrobe, including selling most of my LLR (in my Poshmark closet) and buying the vast majority of my clothing second hand now (again, on Poshmark -- you can use code NYRLS to get a $5, btw -- not sponsored).

I have been trying to switch out my clothing with more timeless pieces. Also buying natural fibers, like FLAX, that are made to last for many years without wearing out. I will talk much more about all these changes when I show you guys my 33-piece wardrobe. That post will be a video. I'm in a weird place with my wardrobe right now because one day it's 65 and sunny . . . and tomorrow we're expecting up to 18 inches of snow.

#4: Sheets and Blankets

When we were doing the great purge last year, I discovered that I hoard blankets. If I see something warm and cuddly, I simply cannot pass it up. Or, at least I wasn't able to a year or so ago. I am happy to report that I have not bought a blanket in a little over a year. We've even pared down on our sheets so we have just one pair of flannel and two cotton for our bed.

In Ada's minimalist bedroom tour, you can see that I also stored away the top sheets on her bed and only use the fitted.

#5: Toys

OK. So, this one isn't something we totally don't buy. We have just changed a lot about how we buy toys. As in, we don't buy many . . . and we are continually looking to pare down on them. This is really difficult with so many generous friends and relatives. Instead of toys, we try to buy Ada things to do, like coloring books, where she's being creative. Or we try to invest in experiences versus stuff. Like with clothing, this is a topic I need to devote an entire post to writing.

I also need to give you guys a tour of our basement play room. This is one area that I just cannot seem to totally control. Part of it is because it's hard to make kids give up toys. It's also hard to part with things that were given as gifts, whether or not the child plays with whatever it is. I think you parents out there know what I'm talking about. This is a tricky area.

Our policy in the house is that we do not buy toys unless it is a holiday, like Christmas or birthday. There are limits on the number of toys. And we like to get rid of something if we are bringing in new. I won't lie, though. Right now my basement looks a bit like a daycare center. That's what a late November birthday, Christmas, and having a new-ish baby will do!

We're Not Perfect

Thing is, we are far from perfect. Minimalism has been a two steps forward, one step backward process for us. What remains a constant is that both Stephen and I see value to trying to live with less. We may fail at times, but we regroup and often chat about how to get where we want to be.

Here's something cool, too. Using the cash envelope system is really helping us bring less stuff into the house. It's because we end up writing out shopping lists, seeing where our money is going, and thinking more about the purchases we make in general.

Good Resources

If you want to read more, check out these links.

How to program your mind to stop buying crap you don't need via LifeHacker
10 ways to stop shopping for a while via Be More With Less
Giving up (new) clothes for a year via Becoming Minimalist
How to not buy anything for a year via Two Less Things

More Minimalism:

Eliminating the Maybe
7 Clutter Categories
Cleaning Week Snapshots
Wannabe Minimalists

Read more...

Why Organizing Doesn't Work (For Us)

Here's a long-overdue spring purge post about why simple organizing just doesn't work to spiff up our spaces. I mean, we're still learning as we go along. I can't believe how many times we've set out to have "this clean" be the "final clean" -- but something was actually different about this time around. Versus organizing the crap we had around the house, we actually got rid of most everything we deemed nonessential.

Getting rid of a large portion of your belongings can be overwhelming. There's this tendency, at least for me, to feel like I'm foolish getting rid of something I might need in the future. I would stow things away for someday, thinking of all the many scenarios where I'd need five different winter coats or all those old issues of Runner's World or six thousand serving spoons. I'd feel guilty getting rid of anything we were given as gifts even if they were broken or just didn't fit out lifestyle.

Here are the three main reasons organizing doesn't work (for us). File this post under opinions. Food for thought. It's not how YOU should approach life or your home. It's just how we've started seeing things, and it's been quite life-changing.

You still have all that stuff. 

Even if you go through, categorize, and put everything away in clearly marked boxes -- you still have things literally hanging over your head in the attic. Or it's in countless bins in the garage or basement. We had over 20 bins of things . . . and when we really took the time to go through the items one by one, we realized that likely most of those things would never make it back into the house.

It took several moves and tries, but finally letting go enabled us to see how foolish we were for schlepping that stuff around. How much energy we spent moving those bins from our old house to the new house. Or moving them from the attic to the basement, etc. How much mental energy we spent on, well, things that we didn't really need anyway.

In my humble opinion, even if your stuff is out and away, it's still stuff. Heck -- we considered getting a storage unit at one time. Why bother?! This is stuff that you might not need for years . . . or, truly, EVER AGAIN.

So, why bother giving it any more of your energy, time, or money?

You're wasting money.

At least we did. I can't even begin to tell you the dollars we have spent on cube organizers, shelving, and other tools to wrangle our crap into better order. It's shameful, really. In the end, it always gets messed up again. We still accumulate too much. It was, for us, a losing battle. The more stuff we got, the more things we needed to store it in. The more places we needed for storage, the smaller we felt our house was, etc.

I feel like so many people think they need these gigantic houses because they need places to hold all their stuff. When I watch HGTV, closet space is like one of the top concerns. The host always jokes that the woman needs that gigantic walk-in closet. Our old house was 1,200 square feet. To be honest, we mostly lived in 1,000 square feet of it because one room was usually storage. Now? We have around 1,900 (1,600 above ground). I love our new house and neighborhood, but I can confidently tell you that living with two kids back at the old place would be totally fine.

Plus, you don't need big closets if your wardrobe is pared down to 50 or fewer items. You can get dressed much more quickly, too. Our old house was really lacking for closets. Somehow when we moved, we filled all these large closets that we didn't used to need. Weird, right?

I also discovered that we were wasting our money because with so much stuff, we always felt like we needed more -- well -- stuff. We were in this really bad cycle of consumption. Perhaps out of all this cleaning up, the biggest lesson we learned is that we needed to stop shopping for mindless entertainment. We needed to examine our priorities. And we needed to stop bringing so much crap home with us. It was draining our wallets and moving us farther from our core values.

You're wasting time.

When Stephen and I sat down together and examined our goals in life, the one that stuck out the most was that we wanted to have more time with one another. You know, time that isn't spent cleaning up toys or wading through excess. Or feeling stressed about money, etc. We just want to be with our little family and live a simple life, whatever that means at this stage.

You'd think organization would make cleanup easier, right? We have two 9-cube toy organizers in our basement, for example. And this is one of the few remaining problem areas of the house. You'd think organizing toys into separate boxes would make spaces clean. Nope. Instead, we filled the boxes. All of the boxes. Family bought gifts that filled all the boxes. All the boxes were overflowing. And with a 4-year-old, unless we spend time each day or week going through them, everything is out of place. A toy-plosion, if you will.

Not only we were wasting time trying to put toys away. Ada, too, was wasting time being overwhelmed by options. When I was younger, I would spend hours just . . . coloring. Or playing with one doll. Somehow, along the way -- toy options have gotten out of control. Kids seem to need everything and . . . they get it from well-meaning parents, relatives, and friends. But it's part of what's fueling the whole over-stimulation thing and, again, that over-consumption.

There's just too much!

More thoughts:

I'm sure you can see how this applies to most every area in your home. If you step into a Bed, Bed, and Beyond -- there are entire walls dedicated to useless kitchen gadgets. When you buy electronics, their lives seem to be ever-shortened, creating a whole junk drawer full of outdated cameras, phones, etc. Life didn't used to be this way.

So, I guess you could say we're rebelling. It's hard. The temptation is strong to go into a Target and walk out with a cart FULL of amazing things. Now that we're gotten rid of a good deal of the bins, the maintenance is our main effort. All it takes is saying NO. Walking away. Waiting to make purchases. Unlinking PayPal from online shopping accounts, etc.

In my next post, I'll do an updated house tour and highlight some problem areas we were able to kick into gear by purging. And as I wrote that last part, I think the how NOT to buy is another good area to write something about. I'm still learning the best methods. 

Is there anything more you'd like to hear about our big spring cleanup? Let me know in the comments!

* Image source

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How We Purged // Spring Clean

There's really no secret tip or trick for the best way to actually go through your stuff. For us, it made the most sense to touch everything -- or at least get our eyes on each item. Tedious? Indeed. But this way we could ensure that we weren't parting with anything that was actually important or critical (which is particularly key when going through old paperwork!).

Our Method

Here's what we did. It may or may not make sense in your situation:

• First cleared out the main house from anything -- like extra furniture -- we didn't want. This uncovered all sorts of stuff that had been hiding in nooks and crannies. We created a few "miscellaneous" bins and put them in the garage for further investigation.
• We also went through closets, drawers, and cabinets for the same reason. More misc. boxes came out to the garage to be staged for the next step.
• Then we went bin by bin in our garage (it was helpful to have an outdoor space so close to our car) and started sorting things by where we intended to take it. (You can read more about that below.)
• As we got enough stuff to take to a certain place, we'd clear some of it out. For example, we took two trips to the Salvation Army in one day to make room for more organization. Then later that day, we decided to take a trip to the trash place with our construction waste, again, to make more room to continue on.
• Anything we were keeping was promptly put into it's right place in the house. In the case of sentimental stuff, we did put it back in labeled bins that went down to the basement. 
• And then we just kept at it. We took more trips to the drop-offs and kept clearing out. After not too long, the space was clearing and we could breathe again.
• We saved our paperwork for last. We took our time on this one because we didn't want to get rid of any documents that might be important in the long run. 
• Then we decided to go through the house just once more to make sure there wasn't anything left that we could part with. We actually got another van load from our second go-through. I think it's because once we got started, we realized how freeing it is to purge. And it helped put the stuff in perspective . . . so we were ready to just let go.

Where Stuff Went

Salvation Army

The majority of things went to our local donation center. We even called a number the person at the checkout gave us for some furniture pickup that's scheduled for next Tuesday. Always make sure to get a receipt so you can write off your donations next year at tax time.

Once Upon a Child

This is a store in my area (and I think in other areas) that buys gently used and good quality kids stuff from toys to clothing. We sold a bunch of things we know we won't need with baby #2 here. And you know how I found a brand new BOB stroller at Target on clearance a few months ago? We sold our old one (it was in OK condition) for $75! I think that's a great return on that. With everything we sold (which was only a small box), we made out with nearly $200 without having to host a yard sale.

thredUP

I sent some of my nicer clothing to thredUP and am waiting to see how much $$$ I'll get. It's always worth a try to send clothes off (or go to your local consignment shop) to see if you can get anything for them before donating.

Waste

We had a lot of construction waste, like old boards with rusty nails, etc. We took all this stuff to our local center to dispose of it properly. In addition, we took some trashed computers and other recycling there because they know what to do with it. Just make sure you've cleared off any information that could potentially be taken. You never know.

Friends, etc.

We did find some things we thought our friends could use, so we asked and gave as the opportunity arose. I like the idea of having clothing swaps and the like. We have done that even with kitchen things in the past. It takes a village.

What did we do with Ada?

So many people have asked where Ada was during all this cleaning. Well, I estimate that we spent around 4 hours a day actively sorting and taking trips. We used Stephen's spring break versus doing something fun, so it was a big sacrifice. But we did the bulk of it during nap time (Ada slept 2 hours most days). Now that she's four, though, she was able to hang around us and even help. Her favorite part was taking small boxes to the van for donation.

In other words: It wasn't hard. I don't know what it would be like trying to do this with more kids, but we've always been able to do house projects and stuff with Ada right alongside us. Don't let it be an excuse!

OK. It's Friday, so next week I'll start off with a post I'm calling "why simple organizing doesn't work." We're getting close to the end, so if you have any more questions about this process -- let me know!

And don't forget to catch up on this series:

Eliminating the Maybe
7 Clutter Categories
Cleaning Week Snapshots
Wannabe Minimalists

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Eliminating the Maybe // Spring Clean

So, let's back up for just a minute. Did you know that there's a mental cost to clutter? Like, it has the power to make or break your daily life? I suppose I knew this on some intuitive level, but after doing more research + purging of my own -- I can truly tell you, it's true! For example, I'm a very visual person, and seeing lots of stuff around is actually quite over-stimulating and distracting.

And think of it this way: If you have lots of crap in your attic, you literally have weight hanging over your head. Then come the feelings of guilt or even embarrassment when, say, you can't open your garage door without everyone on your block seeing your mess. Oh, yeah, and it's nice to finally know where my birth certificate is because, well, I didn't know for the bulk of the last year -- talk about stressful.

I mulled over all this during our spring cleaning escapades last week. How did we have so much stuff? Why did we have so many bins of things I wasn't quite sure if I could part with? And why -- after having major cleanings before -- did the things keep piling up year after year?

Then it clicked. I wasn't truly letting go.

When I've organized and cleared out in the past, I've approached it by creating piles.

• Trash
• Donate
• Sell
• Keep
• Maybe 

The thing is, that maybe pile kept getting carried over and over again every time I'd go to organize. (And, seriously, this whole minimalism thing is about so much more than just material objects. I'll get to that in my feelings post.) We schlepped a lot of maybe things from our college days to apartments. We schlepped a lot of things from old apartments to our first house. We then schlepped even more maybe things from our first house to our current house.

The maybes kept piling up and up and up.


What was in these boxes? Clutter -- in this order -- from these categories.

• Clothing
• Someday Stuff
• Gifts
• Forgottens
• Sentimentals

. . . Maybe someday those size 2 jeans will fit me again.

. . . Maybe I'll find a use for that fancy vase I've still not taken out of the box.

. . . Maybe I'll want those hundreds of photos of people I can't remember.

. . . Maybe we'll start entertaining outdoors more and need that patio dining set.

. . . Maybe that stained chair can be reupholstered if we save our pennies.

. . . Maybe I'll want two different baby gyms for Baby E.

I think you see where this is all going. It's a clutter purgatory of sorts. So, when we did cleaning this time, we eliminated the maybe category and had to get a lot more decisive about all this stuff we had been carrying around from place to place for the last decade or more. Mostly, the answers became:

NO.
Get rid of it.
I haven't looked at that in years.
I totally forgot about that.
No, I have no desire to exercise and diet to fit into all these old clothes.
We have too many dishes already.
Etc., etc., etc.

For our clothing, we tried a modified KonMari approach -- both of us -- where we simply held the item, decided if it "sparked joy" (not necessarily if it was practical to hold onto or anything like that), and said a hard YES or NO from there. And now my seasons of clothing fit neatly into narrow sliding containers. I have 25 items in my closet currently -- but I won't delve too deeply into this part because I'm pregnant and it's not the best time to talk about a capsule wardrobe.

There was no special trick to letting go. It was more of a mentally ready moment. And this idea can actually carry over into other areas of your life. I mean, how often do we say MAYBE when we really mean yes or no? Whoa. That gets deep!

This post got much longer than I intended. I have had such great feedback with sharing about our journey to wannabe minimalism, I may add a few posts to my original plan. (Like -- tomorrow will now be that post on how we got rid of everything.) I hope that's alright! If you have questions or comments -- leave them down below. I'm happy to answer anything and everything.

Happy Wednesday!

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7 Clutter Categories // Spring Clean

When we set out to start our spring cleaning, we were dealing with a lot of different obstacles. We just didn't know where to start. So, we decided to think about the different categories of stuff we had cluttering up our house on the inside and out. It helped us get in the right mindset to go through whatever we encountered and -- then -- to bust through.

Once we got a handle on all that, our plan of attack became much more clear.

Clothing

Of everything, clothing seems to suck up the most space in our house. For me, it's from my ever-changing body. I was one size before I had Ada. Another size afterward. And another size last year. Now I'm pregnant and have two general sizes of maternity clothing. That's just me. Ada had WAY TOO MANY CLOTHES to even pass along to Baby E. The way we could tell our clothing was out of control? We had bins upon bins of it in the garage. We also had quite a laundry pileup on the daily.

Someday Stuff

This is stuff we were hanging onto for one reason or another. Like, just in case we might need a random chair someplace in the house. Or that extra tricycle someone found at a garage sale. Basically, this category is really broad and showcases our mini hoarding from either getting deals on stuff, buying multiples, or generally over-consuming.

Trash

Then there were boxes of papers and documents that we were hold onto because we didn't know what to do with them. Or they needed shredding and we hadn't gotten around to it. Stuff like old checkbooks, tax returns from the early 2000s, mortgage paperwork from our first house, computers that hadn't been hooked up since college, etc., etc., etc. We had several bins full of this stuff we were simply too afraid to throw away. On top of that, we found a bunch of items that were broken beyond repair that we were holding onto thinking maybe someday we'd figure out how to salvage them.

Gifts

Well, not necessarily gifts . . . but stuff we came into possession of whether we wanted to or not. We're talking bags of clothing from friends and family. Random toys or other items that were either duplicates or just never used. And a lot of this stuff we had said YES to accepting, etc. This category is really tricky, guys. Because we're always thankful at the generosity of others. A lot of times, we can all benefit from sharing things. But there are other times when the influx of stuff is just overwhelming. Then there's guilt for getting rid. Right?

Sentimentals

Yearbooks. Photos. Albums. Old sheet music from sophomore choral and band festivals. Video tapes, CDs, and DVDs from life events, college papers. I mean, you name it -- we have it. This is a category we are still dealing with because we didn't want to purge and regret. I'll get more on this in my next post.

Demo Remnants 

We work on our house. A lot. So, in the winter, we tossed demo materials in the garage for spring cleaning only to find out that our trash collection no longer takes these items. In all, we had the leftovers of a huge tool bench from the basement, several doors that we had replaced in the house, and other odds and ends of splintery, nail-poked wood.

Forgottens

Last, there were boxes of things we would open and be like -- WHAT? I don't even remember this stuff? And you know what we did with those boxes? We sort of looked through them, just to make sure nothing important was mixed in. But if it had been out of sight and out of mind long enough for us to forget -- we donated them immediately.


Stay tuned! In tomorrow's post, I'm going to talk about how we dealt with these categories from a letting go perspective. How we decided what to keep, what to give away, and how we were able to make $200 from selling a few things.

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Snapshots // Spring Clean

Stephen's spring break was all last week. And, no. We didn't jet off to some tropical location for a vacation. Instead, we decided to dedicate most of this chunk of time to our wannabe minimalist + organization goals. After over 4 hours each day (about 36 hours total!) of dedicated cleaning, fixing, and tooling around in the house -- we're probably 90 percent of the way done.

Ninety percent! It feels SO GOOD.

I have decided to dedicate this week on the blog to spring cleaning. Today I am going to show you a few teaser photos from our progress. Another day, I'll be sharing some tips we found handy for dealing with the various types of clutter we encountered. Yet another day, I'll go over some of the methods we used to clear everything out. I'll try to get an updated house tour up to show the before and afters. And then there will probably be some reflection on how this all makes us feel (surprisingly, it's had a huge impact already).

Sound like a plan, friends?

The garage was our main area of focus. These photos aren't current -- it was actually WORSE than this. We had 23 bins of random stuff that we either hadn't gone through since our move or that were disorganized. And a lot of these items were things we were just holding onto for some reason. Oh, we also hadn't put a car in the garage in like a year. (Nothing like airing our dirty laundry nooks + crannies, eh?)

We were especially lazy with old paperwork and things that needed shredding.


Anyway, here's a few progress shots.


But this is only the tip of the iceberg. I have so much to share! You don't need to dedicate an entire week of time all at once to cleaning your spaces. You can split it up. We decided on this intensive boot-camp approach because Stephen's track schedule is about to go wild with late night and all day meets -- before Baby E comes, we didn't see any other opportunity.

Have you made headway on organization goals recently? What's your method?

I'll be back tomorrow with some practical tips we learned along the way.

(PS: I'm 27 weeks! Anxiously awaiting my gestational diabetes screening results today...)

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Spring Cleaning // Wannabe Minimalist

The weather has taken a major turn toward spring this week. Today's high should reach close to 60 degrees! Though I'm sad and frustrated we didn't get a single snowstorm this year, I'm ready for change and sun and warmth and, well, spring cleaning.

Because this year? I think we're ready for the big purge.

No, this isn't my junk. I took this photo several years ago outside a Salvation Army after we had donated some things post move. Honestly, this photo stresses me out to the max. Though I'm not the tidiest person ever, I very often get overwhelmed with the sheer amount of stuff we have in our house, our garage . . . and with how much that stuff just continues to accumulate year after year despite our efforts to pare down.

Seriously -- how does this happen when we have good intentions? With a baby on the way, the stuff issue has been even more at the forefront of our minds. We want to get a handle on this before she arrives in June.

I don't want to utter the word minimalism, but -- yes -- OK I do. I just went there. I rolled my eyes a bit, too. It's so darned trendy . . . but I think we might be ready to adopt some of those principles. They simply make sense!

We're asking ourselves some questions inspired by this great post on Zen Habits.

• Is all this stuff important? (Obviously the answer is no.)
• What can we get rid out without regret?
• How can we stop attaching regret to things anyway?
• What are our family's core goals and how does paring down fit in? (Definitely ease of cleaning our home to make it more calm is a big one these days.)
• Can we purge without replacements? (We've tried editing down several times in the past only to end up replacing the old with new, defeating the entire purpose)
• How can we bring these ideas to other parts of our lives? (Simplifying our meals, social calendars, etc.)

With the home stuff, we're hoping to use Stephen's spring break to go room by room to start clearing out. We have some pieces of furniture that do little more than collect stuff and dust. Then I'll probably go through this Guide to Creating a Minimalist Home for the rest. Hopefully I can blog about it along the way.

Like I said, we've tried this whole idea many times. I think this time it might work better because Stephen is really on board this time around. It takes the commitment and energy from the whole family to get this sort of thing going, eh? Stay tuned for an update later in the month.

What are your spring cleaning goals? 

Have you successfully adopted a minimalist home or gotten close? 

What are your tips for making work -- especially if you have kids!

PS: Congrats to Andrea, winner of our PinkBlush giveaway. I'll be in touch soon about your $75 prize!

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