Last month we decluttered the basement. We like to do this each spring and fall in order to cycle in the seasonal (winter/summer) gear. But we also combed through the boxes of storage, an overflowing collection of half-used paint cans, and all the kids’ shoes we’ve amassed.
This declutter was one of those chain reactions. 👉🏼 We are planning to extend our bedroom into my current office. 👉🏼 So we need to declutter the office to make space for that. 👉🏼 But first we need to declutter the basement to make space for things from the office.
I am very motivated to do this because I know the end result includes a more functional and appealing bedroom!
We have many books throughout the house, but particularly in the office . There are two full book cases there.
- I know this doesn’t seem very minimalist of me, but I believe minimalism is about owning what you value and letting go of the excess (for us, we value books…. and legos)
To make room for the books, we decided to put them all together in the living room.
This past week we set up these bookcases. We wanted a beautiful built-in unit but looked at the home budget we had available and felt the IKEA version would be more suitable for us.
(we plan to add trim to them to make them have a more built-in feel)
One thing I have noticed over the years of decluttering is that it helps to compile similar items together.
Whether it is books, DVDs, shoes, etc. It helps to have one main area to keep all these things.
I felt like books were over-running our home. They were on the couch, in our rooms, in my office, in the kitchen. And now they all live in one spot (other than kid books, which are in a book shelf downstairs). But it makes it easy to know where things need to live.
I also find it looks more visually appealing to group things together rather than in piles throughout the house. It looks more organized and intentional and hopefully you take the opportunity to great a colour palette.