Welcome to Week 2 of the ONE ROOM CHALLENGE! I expect this week’s task to be the most challenging of this entire project for me. Give me a DIY project and I am good to go. Change the plan midstream? No problem! Break a tool? No biggie! I will adapt every stinkin’ time. But tell me to get rid of my stuff…well, that one is a stumper that stops me in my tracts. Decluttering, though very satisfying and quite rewarding, is and always has been very difficult for me.
Might as Well Face it, I’m Addicted to Stuff
I am so attached to things! That’s why the catch phrase for my store was Elegant Clutter! As long as I can remember, THINGS have brought me such joy. Be it a record album, like the soundtrack from Grease that my Aunt Patsy gave me for my 12th birthday or a Valentine’s card my Mom Mom sent me or a hastily drawn picture one of my kids drew…I attach sentiment to everything!
I even had a difficult time trying to thin out items that had been at my store for years. I would come across an old table linen with a beautifully embroidered flower. Though the linen was stained and quite wrinkled, my mind would whisper “You can’t get discard that! Some little old grandma spent countless hours creating that artwork!” So it would stay and my heart was happy. But my store was cluttered…and not always so elegantly. It can be quite frustrating to find beauty in everything!
When I closed the store in 2019, I knew I had to donate 90% of what was left in the building. My store was 8,000 sq. ft. And though we moved a good majority of merchandise on clearance, there was still so much left. I didn’t want to pay for storage since I would not have an income. I selected a small percentage to keep. Some were great items that I would try to sell. Some were things I absolutely loved and vowed to find a place for in my own home. And some items were just too valuable to donate to be sold for pennies on the dollar.
My “save” pile quickly grew and I realized that it would be ridiculous to pay storage for items that really and truly had no meaning to me. So the “donate” pile grew and grew. It was painful for me to see revenue going into that Thrift Store trailer and out of my hands but it was the logical answer.
Where to Put it All
My struggle with STUFF resulted in boxes of office documents, antiques, vintage items, etc. filling my garage. The overflow landed in the living areas, most notably in my dining room. I used the table to sort papers for income tax and sales tax and estate information and personal finances. Each task was so overwhelming, it seemed, that I would work in stages. When my head hurt, I would turn to listing items on Facebook Marketplace and Etsy. When that became overwhelming, I would start a DIY project in an attempt to reclaim my house from the STUFF invasion. Inevitably, the excess paperwork, items for sale, and DIY supplies and tools would all end up on the dining room table.
My goal after closing the store, was to freshen and renovate every area of our lovely home which had been neglected over the last ten years a direct consequence of owning a retail business. I started with the kitchen which was the target area for my very first ORC. MY TUSCAN INSPIRED KITCHEN was just completed in June. Next I worked on a FEATURE WALL partnership with Woodgrain. We ordered a NEW FRONT DOOR. Once it arrived, I finished the ENTRYWAY.
As the house is beginning to transform into a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing reflection of our family, I decided it was time to really attack the clutter. And so, the dining room was selected.
I scanned the room and realized that I could make quite an impact by first removing things that simply did not belong in the room. So I returned all paint, tools, ladders, chairs, and miscellaneous items to their rightful place in the garage or room where they belonged. That process opened up some room to sort and review what was left.
The First Step to Decluttering
I made the following staging spaces:
- Garage: tools, paint, items for vintage shows
- Etsy and Facebook Marketplace
- Vintage show merchandise
- Yard Sale
- Donate
- Trash
- Office Supplies
- Tax and Financial records
By sorting into categories, I could box items, label, and set aside for processing later. Many items were relocated to the garage in a designated area such as Yard Sale, Vintage Markets and Shows, Etsy and Facebook listing, tools, toys, furniture, etc.
When dealing with enormous tasks it is critical to break the whole into parts. Then attack and complete one part at a time. You have to view the project one step at at time or the end goal is just seemingly impossible and the series of complicated steps is overwhelming.
Ten Minutes in My Shoes
So, I did a quick removal of the things most easily relocatable. Then I sorted the remaining items into categories. Then I rehomed each category one at a time. It took me three days because…SQUIRREL!
Here is how the process worked:
- Oh! This plate is beautiful! It’s one of my favorites. I remember when I bought this I also bought that gorgeous antique bottle. Where is that bottle now? In the garage? Yes, let me go find it since it would be lovely with the bottle collection on the glass shelves in the kitchen.
- Enters garage to find bottle.
- Yikes! There’s so much stuff in here. Where did I see that? I think it was by the Vintage Show items.
- Walks to Vintage Show items but passes a stray Ryobi power tool battery.
- Oh, I’d better put that away.
- Goes to the tool area and places the battery in the charger. Sees miscellaneous paint supplies.
- Oh, I should sort those out so I can find them when it’s time to paint the Dining Room.
- Moves sandpaper to the sandpaper drawer. Returns rollers and putty knife to paint supply areas. Passes a chain saw. Puts the chain saw where it belongs.
- What was I doing? Oh, sorting the paint items.
- Goes back to paint items and puts cans of paint on paint shelves. Looks around at all of the stuff and boxes.
- Why did I come in here? I had better get back to the Dining Room.
- Returns to DR and sees the beautiful plate.
- Oh, the antique bottle! Crap…no more rabbit holes right now.
- Resumes sorting.
- Oh, here are those flowers from the girls’ wedding. I was going to make an arrangement. I’ll just put them in this box and label them for later. What ever happened to the flowers from ONE’s wedding? Hmmm…it’s in the bedroom. Let me grab that and put it with these.
- Goes to bedroom. Grabs flowers. Sees YLEO bottles nearby.
- I should put these away. Wait, there are some in the kitchen too.
- Goes to kitchen and grabs oils. Puts the oils away in a drawer in the bedroom.
- Flowers still in hand, sees a drill on the dresser.
- Oh, I should put that in the garage…
And we already have established what happens when I go into the garage, which is essentially an antique store, thrift store, furniture store and tool department all in one. So that my friends, is why it took me three days to sort and empty my dining room. And my dining room is not very large!
But it is decluttered! Welcome back Mi’lady! And oh how I have missed ye!
Dining Room Ready to be Transformed
Time to Paint
The next step is to paint these walls! In decluttering the room, I found these fan decks. The Sherwin Williams Fan Deck was given to me at my store, The Blue Building Antiques, many years ago.
The smaller and much more manageable fan deck is from Behr and was one of my favorites in my SWAG bag from onE of The Haven Conferences that I attended also a few years back.
My paint color of choice is somewhere above in that Behr fan deck. I considered every one of the colors that are shown. Such a difficult decision. But I picked an unexpected color for me. Check back next week to see the freshly painted room!
Here are the updates for exquisitely talented FEATURED DESIGNERS in this season’s ORC. And, as always, make sure you visit the other GUEST PARTICIPANTS . I guarantee you will find some inspiration and ideas for your own home!
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