Decluttering for a Mudroom & Refurbed Cabinets

I have had ongoing projects for the past two years that I will tackle and finish in 2019. I don’t know if life is slowing down or if I just finally have free time, but it feels like I have pockets of space where these mini-assignments can actually be accomplished.

I talk to myself a lot. I like my own company and I seem to be the only person in my life that truly cares about my personal to-do lists. It wasn’t until I came across Marie Kondo’s book, “Spark Joy” that I realized there were others out there that spent as much time obsessing about where things should be put and how things should eventually look.

That’s another character flaw of mine. I look at people, places and situations and see it as they are, as they can be and as they should be all at the same time even though there will be seven different timelines swirling around. This is probably exhausting for people that don’t think the same.

Some may read Kondo’s books and have a Eureka moment — I read it and know I was always in the choir. Here are her six basic rules for tidying up that I have applied to my current situation:

1. Commit Yourself to Tidying Up

I’ve mulled it over for close to a year, but I am committed now to turning my garage into a mudroom and painting my kitchen all white.

The kitchen is a project I have stopped and started many times. The main things that I want completed are:

• the cabinets painted white
• the light fixtures changed
• the cabinet below the glass cabinet converted to a roll-out wastebin
• the island cabinets converted to roll-out drawers for pots and pans

This job will not be farmed out to a contractor to rip me off. I can do all of these projects myself. I just need a plan and the right YouTube videos.

The mudroom in the garage is an idea I have had going for a few months. I hate my current shoe rack and the laundry room is in the garage. It was always a traditional garage, but it bores me.

I want a mudroom. Somewhere to sit and take off your shoes and then store them for each individual in the house before entering the house.

Also, I want a separate table for the washer and dryer. Instead of taking the basket upstairs (note to builders: just put the washer & dryer upstairs so we don’t have to walk to the garage to get our laundry) you can fold at the designated laundry table and then the basket is complete before you leave the mudroom.

I also want to insulate the garage door following a DIY video I saw on HGTV.

I park in the driveway and instead of having an empty room that is simply a space to walk from the driveway into the house, it would be a mudroom — the space in between the driveway and house that would have purpose.

These two projects are me committing to getting my tidying up completed.

2. Imagine Your Ideal Lifestyle

I pretty much covered my imagined projects above, but as far as lifestyle, I think my style is laid-back California chill.

Over the past few years, I have worked to make my space somewhere that you can relax without feeling uncomfortable or too busy.

My one semi-regret is that if I had to do it all over again I may have done a combination of concrete and cobblestone instead of decomposed granite for the backyard. It has a nice sandy look, but the work that goes into keeping the neighbor’s cat from jumping over to my backyard and making it his own is exhausting.

3. Finish Discarding First

I’m great in not being sentimental and decluttering every chance I get. The one room that will be a headache is the office. It has bounced back and forth between being an office and a guest room that I now have a desk with a computer that never gets used (the mac mini works as a glorified storage drive) and a closet full of photos, CD’s/DVD’s and “maybe someday” clothes.

This room will be purged, but later down the line when I have a chance to look at the items with care. My normal mode is to look at everything as excess and throw it all away, but some things need extra thought and I don’t want to accidentally throw everything away and later realize it did hold some meaning that I had forgotten at the moment.

4. Tidy by Category, Not by Location

This one is harder for me because I look at projects by room rather than by items. It’s the rule that I would need a lot of work on, but then again, I think you mold the rules to how they work best for you and I think the best thing for me is to organize my items by category within each location since my locations don’t overlap.

5. Follow the Right Order

It’s not hard for me to follow Kondo’s right order.

Clothes > Books > Papers > Komono > Sentimental Items

Clothes

This is pretty easy for me to organize because it’s all in my closet, minus the bit that spills into the office closet. The one that I will spend time with is shoes. Currently, the shoe rack has the shoes that I wear on a weekly towards the front and the other 90% are shoes that you may wear once a year, but live in the back for all of eternity.

I bought snow boots for a trip that fell through and they still sit there years later unworn. The cutest snow boots sitting on a shoe rack in Northern California for a girl that never plans to travel up north to Tahoe or take a trip to Colorado or the East Coast anytime in the next few years.

The rules would say to throw it away, but there might be that chance day where I would need snow boots on the spur of the moment and how easy would it be to find them in 24 hours?

This item will have to stay. I know it doesn’t follow the rules of tidying up, but I doubt Kondo has trouble finding her shoe size regardless of the city and time of year she finds herself in. I sometimes need a Ouija board to find items for me at the spur of the moment.

Books & Papers

I have stacks upon stacks of books and papers everywhere. I will get to this… eventually. I’m learning to donate the ones that I have read because it’s better to share than to hoard them to myself. I’m down to 3 bookcases and maybe half a dozen stacks of books in the house.

Papers have been filed in the office and the only stack I still have are old term papers from school that I will purge through one day. (Another project).

Komono

I have a plastic bin under the bathroom sink for excess and then everything on my bathroom counter I use on a daily. I’m good about not having anything in excess for jewelry and make-up, but that’s easy because they aren’t my jam.

Sentimental Items

I have a bookcase of photo albums that I plan to digitize one day. They aren’t harming anyone where they are right now, so I’m off to a good start in this category.

6. Ask Yourself If It Sparks Joy

I never thought of myself as sentimental, but I must be. I don’t keep a lot of things. The items that are always on me are my laptop and my messenger bag. My closet is tidy and I only utilize about 60% of the space.

When asking myself what brings me joy to keep, I didn’t think there was any and then I took a picture of the top of my dresser.

Things get left on my dresser top that will live there for years, so maybe I am sentimental. Some of these items include trinkets from overseas trips. A flute I got in Mykonos. Framed photos of me with my dad and my best friend. Another photo I have with my little brother even though I’m an only child. A branch from the tree that used to be in the front yard that I had cut down. I use the branch to hold my bracelets. My latest stack of books. Maybe I am sentimental, but still minimally.

Using Kondo’s six main tips, I have organized my thoughts for the projects ahead that will lead me to a better 2019. I hope for clarity and declutter for all.