I was hoping to have a design or decor project (or at least the attic office mood board) for you today to give you a break from all the miniatures talk. (By the way, go vote if you haven’t yet!)
But I don’t.
As much as I have been getting rid of lately, the more I look around, the more I see stuff we don’t use.
We have house guests coming soon. And once again, my office/guest room looks like this:
While our home is slowly getting more simple, and I’ve made a little progress with my scheduling, things are still too complicated, and it’s starting to drive me nuts.
Is it about a lack of organization? No. Is it about not having enough space? Definitely not. It’s not even about putting this away immediately after using them. It’s about having too much stuff.
So, I went back to The Minimalists for some inspiration. This post in particular. (I HIGHLY recommend reading it…go ahead, I can wait.) And spent the morning, not organizing but getting rid of stuff.
How much?
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Bear in mind, my office/guest room is under 100 square feet. I can do better than that, and I plan on it, but that’s all I had time for this morning. The work will continue, in this and every other room until I can work in it and not have to spend an hour cleaning up after the work is done.
(I also priced things for the yard sale as I was tossing them in the basket to make actually having the yard sale that much easier.)
Of course, I like my rooms to have a little more warmth and personality than Joshua’s, but I think we often kid ourselves into thinking our clutter is what gives the room warmth and personality.
As I was cleaning out my pencil cup, I thought, “Well, I use the red and green pens pretty often, I’d like to have those within reach. And I probably use the paper clips several times a week, if not daily.” But do I really? No.
Besides, if I need them (probably once every couple weeks), all I have to do is turn around and grab the office supply basket off the shelf. They don’t need to be on my desk.
So, while my advice for today is not about pretty decor, I do have some. Go drastic. Cut back everything in any particular space for a week and see what you actually do need and what is actually adding clutter and causing distraction.
And in addition to the assignment, I’d love to hear from you crafters: how do you keep your creative work from overtaking your house? Do you have a system or ideas to help a girl out?
onshore
May 9, 2013 at 10:07 amYou have not seen the state of my craft room, so believe me, the photos from yours are not embarrasing at all!! But isn’t it good to get company so you are forced to clean out the place. I think your approach on getting rid of stuff is the best way to keep places looking neat (I always strugle with getting rid of craft stuff, all other things I can be quite ruthless about)
And for not letting the creative work overtake the whole house. For me this has improved considerably now that I have almost whole room dedicated to crafts. My knitting projects on the other hand usually are in the livingroom. But I now days bag all knitting projects into canvas bags and then place them in a basket when I’m not working with them. That system has proven quite succesful. If you do work like with miniatures you could collect all that to a tray or similar, that way those would look contained and less cluttered. Oh and I also have baskets for unfinished crafts that I’m planning to work on later.
Christina
May 10, 2013 at 5:48 pmI love the idea of having a bag or basket for each project.
I wish I could have kept the dollhouse in my office, but there simply wasn’t anywhere to put it, so it took over the living room and dining room.
otterine
May 9, 2013 at 8:53 pmThat’s a lovely bright room! I plan to rearrange/purge this spring-into-summer as well. It’s a cheap way to redecorate…removing and moving stuff around. 😀
Christina
May 10, 2013 at 5:49 pmThank you Brae! Very cheap…it also saves money because after all the work of purging, you don’t want to bring more junk in for a while. 🙂
Michelle
May 10, 2013 at 2:57 pmI have to force myself to be judicious with what I actually purchase, in terms of craft supplies, in the first place. I have a set space in my home to work on my embroidery business and personal crafting. I try to limit my work to that area. Otherwise it would take over the entire house.
I also keep a board on pinterest just with organizational ideas. There are a lot of great ideas out there for organizing crafting supplies if you go looking. It’s easier to find things when they’re organized and it looks better too.
Christina
May 10, 2013 at 5:56 pmThat’s a good idea, I should start collecting some ideas on Pinterest. I have no problems in the rest of the house, it’s just these craft supplies!
Magali@TheLittleWhiteHouse
May 10, 2013 at 6:29 pmI really need to sort my old lesson plans that I keep in my bookcase even if I never reuse them… Maybe your post will inspire me!
Hege
July 2, 2013 at 3:11 pmIt looks great! hx