Quick Tips

I'm back! I didn't post for a few days because the traffic was really low and it bummed me out. But here's a short and sweet update with some tips:

• A lot of our clutter was huge empty boxes! I don't know how we amassed them, but I think it was the whole "this could come in handy someday" idea. I was kind of relieved that most of the boxes were empty, because it was so easy to just break them down and recycle them. Try ridding yourself of these space Napoleons (=coup d'etat, really bad joke, etc.) today and see how much more open you can make your home.


• Always be careful about letting clutter pile up again once you clear it away. Make sure everything has a place and that things go there! A lot! All the time even! If you don't do this, you might end up using every possible flat surface as storage, like we did, and it can get ugly.


• ARGH BOXES! I'm still bothered by the topic. Let's discuss. Even despite and during this whole process, our living room is still full of boxes, but it's not empty stereo boxes or empty shoe boxes. It's boxes of the things found while de-cluttering that are marked "to keep." Problem is, they're those awful white cardboard boxes with handles that people use for cleaning out their cubicles when it's time to move on. This won't do. I'm thinking of switching them out with something like this in something bright - green or red maybe.


• The whole box thing has resurfaced because I'm making big progress on our front closet. I mentioned that earlier but I'm still really happy because hopefully soon we will have somewhere to put the boxes so that visitors won't be appalled and affronted by them.

Flashback

I've become very fond of seeing the dirt and dust washing off my hands after I take a break from de-cluttering. It's some sort of weird relief, like seeing the burden of the clutter just flowing down the drain.

Today I was working on our front closet, and it made for my favorite kind of de-cluttering: old photo discoveries! It's so weird to see my own face grinning up at me from over ten (and sometimes over fifteen) years ago! I was a cute little butt head. Here are some of my favorite photos so far! Check back later and there might be "after" photos haha. Probably not.

My treasured stuffed tiger. I could never decide on its gender, but s/he is still with me today. Ragged and sad.


Don't blame me, it was the 90s.


"No wonder Clark was such a weird cat." - My mom.


Not a morning person. Even on my birthday. Or maybe I was just irritated at photo time.


That's a shark on my face. I don't know why.

I would put dates to these faces, but a) some don't have them, and b) laziness! Always laziness.

Fancy Box How-To

After charging my camera batteries for around 815 hours, I have photos ready for a little tutorial. Keep in mind that I am only slightly creative at best, and my execution is kind of horrible. But the idea is what really counts: taking ugly old moving boxes from when you moved 13 years ago (hey hey) and making them look semi-decent so you can use them as storage anywhere in your house! This project is also good if you have over 50 rolls of wrapping paper that you need to use for something. Click the photos for bigger versions.

1. The box.



This is what my bedroom closet looked like before I cleared it out - I de-boxed the top shelf and I de-clothed about half the clothes rack, and I de-crapped the floor. The boxes were still hanging around after all that, somehow, so I came up with the project I will now demonstrate via pictures.

2. Wrap it like a present.



I estimate my boxes to be around 8x13x8, so the wrapping paper didn't quite fit perfectly on each side (you'll see this more in later pictures). But you can start by just laying the box on top of the unfurled roll and cutting it so that the paper covers each of the wide sides. I then folded the extra paper onto the inside of the box and taped it there.

3. Cut diagonally at the box corners for easy folding.



Just make little snippies at the inside corners of the box, so when you fold the paper up over the remaining sides of the box, you don't get paper bunchies. Have some yummies as a snack, maybe rub your tummy, listen to your munchies go crunchy. K I'm stopping.

4. Now fold the new extra paper in like before.



The remaining two sides of your box should now look like this on the inside. Keep in mind you can also use a square box or any other shaped box if that's what you have on hand and want to fancify.

5. When you fold up those two remaining sides of the paper, you should get a triangle-like shape down at the bottom.



This is a little tricky to explain, but hopefully you can use your present-wrapping skills, along with the photo, to figure out what I mean. If you need to, go back to where we made those snippies at the corners. Now pick up the tips of the paper that's hanging off the side of the box and bring them in to meet the center of the box side. Folding over the paper onto the inside, with the help of our snippied part, tape that extra paper down to secure it. Now smooth out the doors of paper you just made against the box; you should get something like the triangle I have here. If you're better at wrapping presents, then you'll get well I don't know what you'll get, just move on, you queen of present wrapping. Whateva.

6. Fold up that triangle.



Easy as pie. Now just tape that pie slice (the triangle) up to the side of the box. Smooth out any weird paper waves.

7. Be "creative" and cover any mistakes you made.



Since I'm not the queen of present or box wrapping, I had an ugly strip of my old box showing, and the triangle was shorter than I expected. So I took out some old poster board I've had since high school and made this little strip. I did it on both sides because I like symmetry. You don't have to like symmetry, but you also don't have to call me up in the middle of the night when your ugly box is haunting you from the closet.

8. Wrap the box top.



Pretty self-explanatory. I just barely had enough paper left on this dying roll to do each short side of the box top. My creativity knows no bounds, so for the top...

9. ...Be creative. Always.



I used more of that same poster paper to cover up the still-hideous top of the box. Got many different paper media used up that day! Success.

10. Labels!!



Labeling is important, as I've said before. So do something sorta makeshift or whateva. You can see how laughable my own writing and labeling is here (I didn't have enough room for the word "contents" so I cheated in a very erudite manner by making it French - "contenu"). Do your own thing. Or copy mine. Better, though. Of course.

Tell me your project ideas! And link me to photos (completed projects or incomplete, doesn't matter) if you want. I may even try them for myself. Better, though. Of course.

Linen Closet - Before and After!

Today I started on my closet goal! I'm so proud. My mom said she wanted me to start with the linen closet, which disappointed me because I thought it was the one that needed the least work. But ohoho was I wrong. Man.

Since we have such little space around here, the linen closet hosted not only linens but a lot of random toiletries like TP, tissues, little paper cups, bars of soap, uhh girly things (we ARE girls after all), and laundry supplies. I found no less than 9 boxes of Kleenex, to give you an idea of what went on in that disaster of a closet! So I spent a good amount of time rooting through all the duplicates of things we had in the closet and reorganizing/folding our towels and bedding.

I realized that one big problem we have as pack rats is that all the mess gets so hidden by the rest of the new messes that are constantly piling up, that we often profess things we can't find as lost forever and just buy new ones. The Kleenex for instance. So think of it this way, if you're facing a massive decluttering and just can't get yourself started: you may save money! Tip: Organize your supplies, whatever they may be, in a way that helps you see all of them all the time. That way, there's never any confusion about what you have enough of.

All in all, I'm still sure we have way too many freaking towels (most of them pink - why??), and in retrospect I didn't follow my own advice about stuff's visibility, but here are the before and afters anyway! Since this is an ongoing project, I'll probably redo everything later; this is just the first step. Also, keep in mind that I did this one on my own! So it's not neat as a pin, per se. The before pictures are inaccurate, because I forgot to take them before I started! They were taken about halfway through, when I had thrown a bunch of crap out into the hallway.

Click each photo to view a much bigger version.

Before:


After:





As you can tell, I ended up a little pressed for space in the end. My Space Bags have holes in them. :( So I couldn't vacuum the linens up to save space like my mom suggested. Hopefully the comforters crammed at the top of this closet can go somewhere else once we, uh, have space somewhere else.