I’m well into Week 4 over here, but today I’m sharing my decluttering progress from last week on the dining room and entry ways. I’m really liking the way that Mary schedules each day of the week with a small portion of the project to do so that it doesn’t get too overwhelming looking at a whole room or area. I had a pretty busy week last week with school events and meetings, so I was able to schedule my decluttering around that.
This is our front closet. Thomas backpack – Zachary’s from when he was 2. The mess on the top shelf? UGH.
And the bottom of the closet – tons of boots spilling out everywhere. The right side is the entrance way we use the most, inside of the garage door. We have hooks on both sides, but basically all of our jackets – spring and winter – were hanging there. And this was when the kids were at school, so it was minus their back packs and winter coats.
This was the opposite side of the same hallway, followed by the front entry way hooks, where Dave had at least 10 baseball caps and all of his jackets hanging up.
Here are those two garage entry way hook sets again, after the boys had returned from school. The empty hook on the right side picture is Gabbie’s. This was where I found the most disgusting thing I’ve uncovered so far – a moldy sandwich from the day Gabbie got home from camp! UGH!
Front entry way – all cleaned up besides the coat Dave had with him at work. Where did all of his baseball caps go? Inside the door of the front coat closet!
Even after straightening, the boots still looked messy, so I bought a boot rack for them to stand on. There are still extra pairs that are too small in there and those are the bottom row beside my boots!
I combined the hats and gloves bins so that all the bins on the top shelf would be uniform. I have a ton of those green bins – I guess I got them on sale at some point when we lived in NJ! In any case, they are labeled scarves, hats / gloves, and bags. I put away a bunch of my bags that don’t need to be out all the time and they are both on the shelf and on the bottom of the closet. Not perfect, but much better. Plus, even though I hung up all of the spring coats, there is still room in the closet because I got rid of all of the too small coats (and the ones that Dave doesn’t wear – why did he have an old leather jacket from the 90s?) that were in there!
Our entry way table houses all of my seasonal decor and extra picture frames. I don’t think I need all of them but I can’t help but keep them just in case? Hmm. I have to think about that one. I straightened them up and hoped to be able to fit more in there, but the way I did it is a little tight, so I may have to reorganize.
As far as the dining room, it wasn’t actually too bad, aside for the fact that we still had a high chair and a travel high chair in the room for the slight chance we might have guests over with little kids! So I moved those to the basement storage room. I also cleaned out the breakfront a little bit. There are things in there that we don’t use, but they are meaningful, like family things or wedding gifts. I got rid of the things we aren’t keeping back when we moved.
I also cleaned off this table that sits in the corner of the room and gets things placed on it, especially after the kids have birthday parties in the dining room. The table itself actually needs to be put away, but on one has done that yet.
That concludes Week 3 of the challenge! Next time, I will share my progress in my living room – the main room we hang out in that gets filled with all of the things! Have you been decluttering? Are you still going steady?