I have also spent a lot of time at home decluttering this week. I was watching a video on working through clutter, and their number one tip was to start with the master bedroom. Hmmm. This was an interesting tip, because honestly, I was kind of saving that for last. I was working through the spaces we use the most first (kitchen, living room), followed by the most cluttered areas (back closets full of boxes). Meanwhile, the dresser in my bedroom was covered with stuff.
Their logic for starting for the master bedroom was that it is where you sleep each night, so it will make you feel relaxed and accomplished at the end of each day, motivating you to continue the next day. Interesting. So, I decided it must be done.
Honestly, I love my bedroom. When we bought the house, I knew I wanted to make the bedroom a place of peace. We painted the walls a simple black and white (we have chair railing, it is white on the top and black and the bottom). We hung up simple photo decorations with black frames, and there are mirrors on each side of the room. It makes it feel bigger and full of light, and I love it. We bought an older furniture set to repurpose, which we sanded and painted white. It has a "shabby chic" feel (although I hate that term, it is really the best word to describe it). But sadly, the dresser was always completely covered in crap, and it really destroys the simple beauty of the room.
The dresser was feeling overwhelming to me, so I decided I need to deal with it in a mode I had already been dealing with all week- a box. I dumped EVERYTHING that was on the dresser into a large box, brought it into the living room and went about working through the box one item at a time. It took me longer than any of the boxes had so far- about 3.5 hours. Geez.
But the results were beautiful and make me feel wonderful. I decided to just go super simple, aiming for some zen feng shui. I decided on three candles. Although they are not my best smelling or biggest candles, I had to put a pair of handpainted candle holders. These are very meaningful to me because they are one of the only gifts I have ever received from a student. I work with lower income students, so I don't expect to receive gifts at Christmas or the end of the year, but a senior gave me these candle holder last year, and they really meant the world to me. This student had been in my class sophomore year and slacked off, so despite being really smart, he only got a D. He retook the class to improve his GPA and did wonderfully. These were his thank you to me, and they have a significance that words cannot really describe. Now the only issue I have is the lack of balance in the room because of a terribly cluttered corner I need to attack. In the corner of this room, just out of view in this picture, is a shoe rack. It is full of shoes, and there is a huge pile of shoes under it. Bleh. It didn't used to be there, so the dresser used to be centered under the mirror, centered along the wall. The shoe rack moved in there once we needed the spare bedroom for Tiana, but it throws everything off. We had to move the hamper out of that corner to make room for it, which meant moving the bed over a little, which means now the bed is not centered under the window and the dresser is not centered under mirror. Right now, it is bothering me a lot.
The real solution is getting rid of the shoe rack. Which means getting rid of a bunch of shoes. The problem is... most of them are Marc's. Marc can always think of a reason he might use these shoes, even thought he pretty much wears the same 3 pairs of shoes all the time. To be fair, some of them are specialty shoes. We do have water shoes and stuff like that, things that get used once or twice a year, but are worth keeping. But the Heelys we bought 10 years ago? I think those can go.
I'm thinking the specialty shoes can go in a storage box under the bed and the other shoes can go on the shelf in the wardrobe, but a bunch of them are still going to have to go.
At least I am making progress.
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