Postby Harriet » Tue Nov 04, 2008 6:47 pm
That is wise calculating, bittersweet! I need to think the square-foot way, too, for my parents in their spare bedroom, which is the room I will say is my "take notice area" for November.
No one needed a third bedroom since my grandmother stopped living with us, decades ago. It was not common for households to have an office then (no computers), no one even heard of a media room, etc., but storage was helpful, so it became storage, with one wall of shelving. It was never really well-organized, but lately with my mother's lagging strength and my father's forgetfulness, the truth is there is as much clutter as storage. So if we guesstimated half of a 12x12 room, for instance (not sure), that's being wasted, that's 72 square feet of space. Just think what anyone could do "discovering" 72 square feet in their homes.
Dd10 and I worked there for about 1.5 hours today. We took 2 large kitchen trash bags to the cans. We took another smaller bag home, mostly because my mother decided to give me all her gift wrapping supplies. We condensed all their stationery/office supplies, and all their stored financial papers without regard to decluttering them yet - we just gathered, because we are likely to find more cards, etc. as we go along.
We found many gifts still in their boxes: clothes for my mother, small gifts from friends or from the church at Christmas. (mugs get nowhere with my parents - they are saved for good) That's disheartening, because everyone tries to give the right things and obviously we fail most of the time. There was even a complete set of sheets, which drives me a little nuts because they cost me a bundle but after I gave them I couldn't ever find any extra sheets and was thinking I must not have bought them after all!
Why is this the area I need to concentrate on for November? Our hope is that with this room completely reorganized and some large pieces given away, it will become such a helpful storage space that other areas around the house can be neatened further and kept clean and clear easier. We want to start with the dining room, which is so seldom used it is starting to get cluttered.
If you don't believe in miracles, you're not being realistic.