Yep, a table sent me into a decluttering tailspin.
This table, to be exact.
A Little Background
We’ve moved nine times in the past eight years. NINE TIMES. My oldest child just turned four and she has lived in six different homes. My youngest is 1.5 years and she has lived in three places.
You would expect us to be champion movers by now. We’re not. Every time we move, we say we’re going to get rid of stuff. Then, all of a sudden, the move is upon us and we just throw everything into boxes and say we’ll sort through it later. That sorting never happens.
Each time we move, we seem to have more things. Not because we necessarily moved into a larger place, but because we went from no children to one kid to two kids over the past four years. And because random things accumulate and we don’t get rid of the junk.
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Back to that darn table.
I don’t buy much. Ever. I don’t like shopping and I generally only buy things when I think we need them.
I was recently trying to organize the playroom in a way that the four year old could play freely with her toys while allowing the 1.5 year old to also play freely and safely (i.e. no choking hazards).
My four year old loves legos and coloring, so I thought this new table would solve everything. In my mind, she could build her lego villages on top of the table and color directly on the table without her younger sister knocking the villages down or stealing her paper. And, the legos had a nice home underneath the table, not taking up valuable storage space somewhere else.
I was excited about my plan.
However, we already had this IKEA table (which I love and have had for about three years) in the playroom. My plan was to move the IKEA table to the dining room and keep the new table in the playroom. Problem: we already had another small table in the dining room. But, I had a plan for that, too. That table was supposed to go into the covered patio area. Another problem: the patio was filled with junk. I couldn’t fit the table there with all the junk, but the kids certainly couldn’t play out there yet.
There I sat, staring at the playroom that definitely did not fit two tables in it. I felt my blood pressure skyrocket every time I looked in there (which was all the time since it’s right next to the dining room). It was a clutter nightmare.
That was the final straw. The house had to get decluttered. The whole house. Starting NOW.
I downloaded a copy of Clutterfree with Kids by Joshua Becker which gave me the inspiration to get started asap.
And so it began. Stay tuned…
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Have you started decluttering? If so, what made you decide to start? If not, what’s holding you back? Share in the comments below!
