September is a traditional transition month. Schools start up, weather starts to give us hints that change is coming. If you've felt stifled by weather lately, September comes along and gives some relief, ~~~ air flow ``` , and a sense of possibilities.
When it's September, it's kinda hard to pretend the holidays are far away! The "Plans" are already starting up, with first weeks underway as of now!
How would it help YOUR house to have a new PLAN for clearing spaces and organizing storage?
What would help most in your lovely home ... ..
15 minutes a day faithfully?
A big push once a week?
Measuring the "donation" or "toss" boxes and bags, either by size and number, or by weight?
Buying some new storage supplies or cleaning supplies, for fresher smells and prettier views?
Whatever your plan, we hope you'll tell about it here and let us cheer. It will do us good and maybe we'll try to keep up!
I need to declutter but I am not good at getting rid of things and neither is dh. I think I hve done most in the garden, for now, except cutting back the lavender which I have started.
I started a vertigo episode (oh joy) I think it is passing off now but I have done very little today.
Do I really have to keep all of dd's Community Nursing Service notes?
I have one basket I can let go of from the potting shed.
Plant cage next / some planters to put in the shed for letting go of as I do fall & winter prep. on the patio area.
I am finding motivation hard. I did in early August take 3 car loads of stuff to our church yard sale. At the beginning of summer I cleaned out and declutters my clothing both closet and drawers and guest room is totally decluttered. The areas that need done.
My office - I gave up Mary Kay and I need to donate or throw away things out of closet and 2 hutches. My bookcased need decluttered and organized. My desk and desk drawers need attention and my husband would like me to rearrange my office so I am not stuck in a corner but honestly I can't think of a different way to arrange the furniture in this room, I have a 6 foot counter height hutch, a big 5 foot desk, 2 tall book cases, a closet and door that take up one wall and a tall window that is only 1 foot above floor on opposite all right in the middle. I also have a corner hutch in one of the 2 corners that it would work with in this room. He doesn't like where my desk is because when he comes to help me he feels claustrophobic. It is a small bedroom turned into my office. All horizontal surfaces are cluttered. I want to set my closet up inside instead of a Mary Kay product closet to an office closet, my filing cabinets are in the bottom and I have 3 shelves above. I have a laminator, extra computers and such it is possible I may be able to get rid of at least one of the bookcases. I want to set my corner cabinet up as my Reiki cabinet. When it is organized it works fine and get a non cluttered extra chair to sit back by my desk.
The other area of my house that needs decluttering is bathroom cabinet and drawers.
The third area is kitchen pantry and lower drawers and cabinets - we want to have another until built to replace a dresser we are using and that would take care of much of the clutter.
I just am not motivated because I don't think I can tackle it in one day and that will drive me insane. So I don't start and it gets worse.
I could focus on one area at a time. Like closet first, then book cases second and hutches third and desk last, it gets somewhat decluttered once a month.
I also have to declutter my gift closet.
OUr house is tidy but our storage spaces are a bit of a mess.
Oh, vergerswife, I hope that vertigo has let go of you! I think Kittykatt's advice is very good.
Nancy, your patio will be lovely.
Kittykatt, great work on donating clothing.
Costumelady, Hi! And whether you feel you're good at finding motivation or not, I think you are doing great. What you got done in August was wonderful. Congratulations to you for kindness in giving donations, too.
Costumelady, my problem is the stamina right now. I feel motivated, because I truly dream of creativity, but it has taken so much time to get the room ready. I can only now say that after days of specific declutter, I'm ready to bring a project out and set up to finish it. My sewing room and office is also a small bedroom originally. My grandmother's when I was a child, my dgrandson's much later when his ddad's family lived here a while. In the meantime a storage room for my parents. We moved here 3 or 4 years back. Last year, I completely finished the largest, most difficult quilt I've ever made, and all in this little room. Now I look around and say how in the world did I manage it, because we had NOT made good decisions about the space.
I can "see" your difficulty with large furniture and a sightly unusual tall architecture (the window) from your description. I have two large desks with a corner desk unit between. My husband thought it was brilliant to "join" the two with the corner unit because he could envision me cutting out quilts here, even ironing, while having one of the desks for my office desk. Big problem is that the corner unit is 1.5 inches higher that the two desks, lol, so they can't be used as one complete surface. The other desk has my sewing machine. There's an ironing station across the room (small ironing board until I need the larger one, which is rare) and a design board beside that, from ceiling to floor, very like your window, that needs to have access to walk right up to it and work. There's a cutting station on the fourth wall, slightly in the way of good access to the closet.
If it is valuable at all to have advice from someone who has gotten herself into a similar boat I would suggest thinking of the clutter on the horizontal surfaces as a separate project and don't let that get all tangled up in your brain with the rest of the room's decisions. (Ask me how I know that can happen.) Get the surfaces cleared, pat yourself on the back, and THEN fret about furniture placement and closet. Consider having a sorting surface outside of the room - sometimes just an old, clean sheet over a made bed can let you bring a bunch of unrelated clutter to it and be efficient in decision-making. Another idea we've had discussed here before has been to take a photograph of spaces and look at the photo when you are away from the room. Sometimes you can get an idea or a plan (like furniture plan) better that way.
Anyway, thanks for letting me think of your ponderings instead of mine for a bit, since maybe it prods my brain about my own. Best wishes - you have already proved you are very good at this, and you can do it again.
We went to Asda and bought dgs 2 more shirts for school , then had lunch at the local spoons. I put a load of washing on overnight and dh put it on the heated airer (we originally bought it for dd for their flat). I have done a dishwasher load and need to unpack that. The weather kept me from doing any more lavender cutting today. This house was bought by my father in 1954, my grandmother came to live here too, after my father died we renovated the house, then ds and ddil and dbaby lived here for 2 years, dh and I came to live here and soon after dd and partner and dgs came here with us. So there is stuff from everyone in the house and I am used to it being here. Dh and I have an amazon bookshop with the books on bookshelves around the walls of the living room, this doesn't make much profit now because amazon has refused to let us put the postage costs up for a few years but dh wants to keep it on.
I spend a lot of time on ancestry, I have 22,000 people on it atm. I am in shock but I have found a 10th gt grandfather is the brother of Catherine Parr who married Henry VIII, the Parr family is local so it is more possible than it sounds but getting that far back is a bit tenuous. So I am prepared to be wrong.
Thanks Harriett for all the thoughts. I feel I am getting ready to hire a helper for motivation.
I will tell you what is getting in the way the most. My addiction to scrolling on my phone. I prefer that dopamine hit than the one I would get if I cleaned the room.
I know if I just got started on one area I would most likely do more so decluttering a surface would be a good start for sure. I need to lock my phone up for the day.
When our boys moved out, we built our dream home with spaces for retirement activities and entertainment. We have this amazing house, we actually went bigger not smaller. We have this 3 story home, basement is our entertainment space with a large blues bar feel with pool table, movie area, bar, piano opening onto a huge patio with firepit and backyard. There is a huge organized storage room with my husband's house computer area. Then we have a full bath and my sewing room craft room with a utility sink and it's own outside door which is also next to the area under our garage which is my husband's workshop. The main floor is our primary living space with our master suite which includes my husband's office area, big open kitchen and living area, second bathroom and 2 small bedrooms, one which is my office and one is our guest room. Then our laundry room and garage. The attic has 1 bedroom and bath with area for a suana which was our youngest son's space when we moved in and when he.moved out was a second guestroom or destined to be grand kids playroom. The rest of attic is our exercise studio with 2 connected tcs on each side for videos or TV watching, treadmill, airdyne bike, rebounder, total gym, weight and exercise space with mirror, chin up bar and push up bar. Over the garage was to be my zen room with massage table, my Turkish rug, reiki space, yoga studio. That was the dream.
The reality: my house is modular but in a factory, it came on 3 flatbed trucks and we built the basement and garage floor first then they lifted the house and put it together like building blocks. So basement was unfinished and attic was unfinished. We all 3 lived on main floor and older 2 boys lived together in another state. Slowly over 5 years we refinished unfinished space, attic first. Son moved up. The week we painted my zen room purple the pandemic hit. Boys lost their jobs and all moved home. So my house was full. Oldest got guest room, youngest got his room back, he had.moved out as well. We were an empty nest with daily exercise for 1 year. All of the exercise equipment got stuffed in one side and the other we created a bedroom for middle son. My zen room became a storage room for all of their apartment stuff and 30,000 dollars of my oldest Lego collection most still in boxes. He cleaned out a storage space. 5 years later they are still there but the oldest has moved back to his city but the Legos remain. During the 2 years of pandemic we finished the basement and middle son moved into my planned craft room and has been there 3 years. It never got to be a craft room except for 1 year he lived in Colorado the second year after pandemic. I have sewing projects I need to do but it is difficult.
I will say I do enjoy the youngest 2 (age 27 and 31) still being home but I am truly ready for them to launch again. The 31 year old graduated Oct. 31 with his teaching license so really hoping he will get a full time job next fall and finally move out. Youngest graduated a year ago but has had no luck getting a job in his degree. He is about to be hired part time to be a test administrator while he keeps looking. That won't be enough to move out.
I dont go up to exercise because I feel that is youngest space and we dont entertain in basement much because that feels like middle son's space. So we live on separate floors and eat dinner and watch 1 show together each night. The spaces exist as my dream but are occupied differently and I think I am never getting grand children. You have to actually date a girl for that to happen. I rarely talk to or see oldest.
I retired full time teaching last May but I still teach part time, I go to the Y for classes, keeping my studio, I feel certain we will get our house back in about a year. The Legos are going to need to go to a storage space back with son at that time. When we both are retired in a year we want to live in our dream house.
Most people downsize and we went bigger and it was a blessing because there was room.for them all to move home but not be in their Childhood bedrooms. I got to see my sons and they are all 3 lovely young men They had many projects to build together. Older 2 took an old church bus and transformed it into a camper and traveled second summer of pandemic to dozens of amusement parks living in this that summer. So I am so thankful. I just want them to be more independent. It is going to be harder to settle for what they can afford, it won't be what they enjoy here. It has become comfortable. We each live our separate lives but hang together a lot. We take them on some of our travels but usually they house and pet sit.
Way more info that you wanted but hopefully that paints a picture of space. Middle son is OCD ish and very tidy and clean so house is always neat. My study and our suite and his little brothers space which is a pigstye, he doesn't touch but the rest is fair game. We are not super messy just a little cluttered. My mother would be so distressed, she is like middle son. I am a SHE with an ocd awareness that I can't act upon. I am also AuDHD and must tell the whole story with all the detail.
Ok I have 2 days with nothing on the calendar except for usual todos.
Saturday we usually go grocery shopping and run errands.
Need to drop off laundry to friend whose washer broke Thursday, I finished it for her.
I need to pay bills and plan meals for the week and do laundry..Dollars, Duds and Dinner.
That puts me in the office so I will clean out hutches and box up things to donate or gift and clear out hutches and top of closet. I will set a timer for 1 hour and see what I can accomplish. If I get on a roll I will keep going. That should then allow me to declutter surface of hutch.
The hutch has 12 drawers all filled with business supplies for Mary Kay. No idea what to use this for when done. Really wish this room was big enough for one of my sewing tables. This is a gorgeous piece of furniture that I don't want to part with but no idea where it could move or what to use it for. I can store all my Reiki items in it and eventually it could move to my zen room.
Other non cleaning things I need to do. Will plan this for Sunday.
Plan 2 one hour each presentations for a conference that begins a week from Wednesday, plan a 6 hour presentation for Oct. 6 and make folders for each participant. Study for AI certification in 1. 5 weeks at conference. Create a children's sermon for tomorrow. Buy books for EFM class that begins soon. Write up 4 days of sub plans. For conference week.
On the presentations, it is more reworking and updating ones I have done before, updating info but I need to get it done. Will focus on conference first.
, and a sense of possibilities. 
once a week? 
I would suggest thinking of the clutter on the horizontal surfaces as a separate project and don't let that get all tangled up in your brain with the rest of the room's decisions. (Ask me how I know that can happen.) Get the surfaces cleared, pat yourself on the back, and THEN fret about furniture placement and closet. Consider having a sorting surface outside of the room - sometimes just an old, clean sheet over a made bed can let you bring a bunch of unrelated clutter to it and be efficient in decision-making. Another idea we've had discussed here before has been to take a photograph of spaces and look at the photo when you are away from the room. Sometimes you can get an idea or a plan (like furniture plan) better that way. 
today. This house was bought by my father in 1954, my grandmother came to live here too, after my father died we renovated the house, then ds and ddil and dbaby lived here for 2 years, dh and I came to live here and soon after dd and partner and dgs came here with us. So there is stuff from everyone in the house and I am used to it being here. Dh and I have an amazon bookshop with the books on bookshelves around the walls of the living room, this doesn't make much profit now because amazon has refused to let us put the postage costs up for a few years but dh wants to keep it on.