Home Purging Cycles

I go through cycles of purging our home storage every so often to keep sane.  Some years ago, I took a clutter personality test from a book that gave organizing tips for each type, such as:



1.  Accumulator - the hoarder tendency, thinks she needs more space not less stuff
2.  Collector - easy to spot, the need to have something complete overshadows everything else
3.  Concealer - indecisive accumulator with neatly hidden stuff
4.  Tosser - clutter not of their own creation offends their sense of order, in constant battle with others

I am most definitely a concealer.  In the aftermath of some purging over the last two weeks, I'm left with this evidence:

I counted 26 storage bins I no longer need.

Christmas is the worst season to do a purge, what with all the year-end work stress and the holidays to prepare for.  But I couldn't put it off due to these built-in closets upgrade in two rooms:

Masters closets before: untouched since the 70s

Linen and Masters Bedroom closets built over the last three weeks, nearly ready to be organized

I sketched these shelf plans in 20 minutes.  Amazed the closets turned out decent

The idea to make backlit closets came from this archive reference I kept years ago.  I love the effect and utility.

Here's what I come home to in the meantime:

Horror.

I couldn't figure out why, as a regular purger, I still have a lot of things.  After all, I'm pretty good at keeping my own closet size small.  I figured it out after I did this technique from one of the books I've read:

Sort into three piles: trash, keep and donate.

All the ones in the keep pile either belonged to Ladybug Girl and her (hopefully) future sibling; or to future DIY home projects like picture frames and this:

A ridiculously high pile of fabric just taking up room

With fresh eyes, I gave away most of the things I've kept (no more garage sales: I've had two and they were exhausting).  

This particular home purge cycle is also doing wonders to curb my shopping lately.  Awesome Guy's new rule is that we can't buy something new without using the last thing we bought.  So far it's working and it's forcing me to focus on pending things at home.

  

Frankly, coming home to all this clutter makes me feel like a homemaker failure, especially on days when I have no construction excuse.  How on earth my officemates do it and host parties at that eludes me.

But the dream of a dream home lives on.  Such is the life of a DIY Corporate Mom.