I have always loved home organization. When we were first married I had my awesome mother-in-law Marlene tape the shows Clean Sweep and later Clean House on VHS tapes for me to watch at our house since she had cable. I love the before and afters of a nicely cleaned and kept house. For a while Rory would ask me kindly, "tonight, when we sit on the couch, will you just sit by me and watch the show and not sort the junk drawer?"
We moved houses when Elsie was 6 days old, and a lot of our house was moved in and has functioned for two years but after reading this book I knew there were some things I could do to make our house more tidy. We have lots of things that don't have a permanent home, one closet upstairs that all four of us share and no actual toy storage.
The author is a home organization guru from Japan. Her book is a quick read, but offers a lot of new ideas for keeping a tidy home, a few that were pretty new to me. She has an order in which you are supposed to tackle your home, so as not to lose motivation. Clothes, books, kitchen and bathroom, papers and finally pictures. She also doesn't believe in spending months purging your home. It should be done quickly.
We flew in late on Friday night and Saturday morning I hit my house. I didn't even unpack my suitcases. I just started sorting my sock drawer. And by lunchtime I had three huge trash bags filled with clothes to give away. Because getting rid of stuff gives me some sort of contagious high. Once I start, I want to keep at it.
Her main technique is that you pick up every item individually and ask yourself, "does this item spark joy for me?"
The book is enjoyable because it's a little bit hilarious. Marie is really into the personification of objects and owning the feelings associated with getting rid of things. So she'll says when you find a shirt that still has tags on it you should say to it, "thank you for the joy you brought me that day in the dressing room." and then put it in the giveaway bag. She's really into talking to your stuff. "Thank you hand bag for carrying so many of my important treasures around all day. I am grateful for your help." I giggled a lot while reading it. And yet, she is hitting on something that really was helpful when I came across an item that I felt obligated to keep. Whether it was a gift, or something with a teeny bit of sentimental value, I could detach a bit and put it in the giveaway bag with no real unease.
In the days since Saturday I have removed every item from every cupboard in my kitchen and bathroom. I have hauled so much to our local clothes closet. I brought an entire huge rubbermaid full of kids books. We have a library in this house already and I feel awesome passing them along.
Incidentally, when I dropped them off I also donated the rubbermaid. Because this woman believes that, "organization containers are for systematized hoarders." Oh I laughed when I read that. Because I LOVE containers of every size and shape. But when I read that chapter I realized she is spot on. I am just moving stuff around, even if it is well organized. In the end, she says, get rid of it all. The stuff inside, the containers, less is more. So I've even been donating baskets, tubs and bins.
I have a pile to sell on an online garage sale with hopes that I'll get a bit of money from my cake platter, bundt pan, fondue sets, mini-crockpot and cappuccino machine that have all rarely been used. I love having them out of my cupboards and I LOVE the way things are set up in my kitchen now. I've adjusted shelves to fit specific items and next is going through my pantry and donating random foods to the food shelf that we haven't used since they were purchased.
I'm excited about this deep clean. The book is worth a read, and believe me, you will giggle too. But I think you'll also find yourself crazy inspired. I've been going strong for four days now, and hopeful to have the entire house purged fairly quickly. I did sort the kids toys, but of course they found the bin that was for giveaway and suddenly those are their favorite toys again. So we'll ride out this wave and then I'll sort them out again.
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