A friend of mine posted a link about 40 Bags in 40 Days on her facebook wall. I found that interesting and took a look. It's about purging your house of all the "stuff" we tend to accumulate. Those low $$ purchases we make at the thrift store, clearance/sale items, the "I could use this later so I won't throw it out" things can add up and start to make you feel like the walls of your house are closing in on you. I have totally been there and am currently there! I realized just how much stuff we had and how ridiculous it was when we moved. I was wishing the whole time that I would have had time to get rid of a bunch of the unwanted stuff. Fast forward to now, 3 years later...I'm motivated to get rid of the stuff! I'm going to go into it with the thought process of: If I like it, I'll keep it. If I don't, it's either to Goodwill or trash. I'm going to try to keep the sentimental factor out of the decisions, but I know that's easier said than done. I have decided that if I can't get past the "who" it came from, that item will get put aside to re-evaluate it later.
Today was my first day. I'm just a couple days behind on the "official start date" of the 40 days as it coincides with Lent, but I'm not being super picky about it. :) I decided to start off with a room that was a little "easier" as far as the sentimental aspect: the main bathroom. I've been working on getting rid of stuff over the last year and this is one of the rooms I've gone thru before. I also went into the room being prepared to spend a good amount of time in there purging, organizing, and cleaning! I even put down some new contact paper in the bottom of the 3 vanity drawers. I finished up the room this evening by washing the floor and putting the few things back in their place on the floor (trashcan, scale, rugs). It feels SO good!!!
Tomorrow: starting on the kitchen. I'm going to be spending a few days in there as we have a lot of cupboards. I'm planning on doing major cleaning in there as well by pulling everything off the shelves/countertops and washing them down. Maybe this will give me the motivation to do some painting in there this spring, too. :) I'm wanting to do before and after pictures, but I don't want any reminders or show anyone what it looked like before...it's embarrassing to me with how cluttered it is. Lack of motivation I suppose and not being happy (for lack of a better word) with it, but that's what I'm hoping to change.
We are planning on living here for a few more years, probably. We have started our Total Money Makeover recently and are excited for our future. We're out of debt and have our starter emergency fund. Now working towards our 6-month emergency fund and then on to investing and saving for our own house. We'd love to pay cash for either a current house on the market or build a new house. I'm leaning towards building because we've got a lot of needs and wants on our list! All this to say, that I need to make this house feel like a home until we can have our own.
I think I've just decided where I'm going to start tomorrow with the kitchen...the countertops! I can't really do much with what's in the cupboards if I don't have space on the counters to set stuff when I clean out the shelves. Yay! Looking forward to tomorrow!
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