First Night of Clearing Out the Clutter

On Sunday I wrote about my desire to purge at least 50 items from my home. I thought I’d struggle to find 50 things to get rid of, but here I am on the very first night and I’ve already found sixteen unwanted items.

I started in my bedroom where I found one sweatshirt, two pairs of jeans, four t-shirts, one button down blouse, one pretty summer shirt, one tank top, six pairs of socks (I’m only counting all six as one item), one pair of sleep pants and two pairs of swim shorts (one of which has never been worn). The majority of items are headed for the donation center. A few of the items might fit my mom, so I’m going to give her the first right of refusal before donating them.

I’d like to make another pass through the closet, but my initial goal was to perform a quick purge. You know look through the closet and quickly decide, “that will never fit” or “that color never looked particularly good on me” or even “can someone remind me why I bought this?”. I’ll make another pass through later this week to actually try on a few things and decide whether or not they should stay or go.

I usually don’t have much trouble parting with things, but I did find a couple of t-shirts that I just couldn’t get rid of. Rather than throwing them out I cut the logos off the front of the shirts and placed them in a box with a bunch of other fabric and sewing supplies. Over time I hope to pull together enough t-shirt scraps to make a quilt. Of course, it’s just an idea at this point and I’d need a whole lot more fabric before I can get started, but I really love the idea. I plan to keep the cut-up t-shirts in a box for the time being. If a good deal of time passes and I never get around to making the quilt, then I’ll throw away the fabric and the idea.

With the first pass through of the closets complete I headed for the living room where I purged a bunch of newspapers and magazines. I never seem to get rid of magazines immediately after I look through them. I recycled a bunch and the remainder will head up to my mom’s house so she can read them.

Lastly, I recycled a bunch of cardboard boxes that have been hanging out in my sun room for way too long. I didn’t get rid of all of them, in case I find anything worth of listing on eBay, but I did make a dent in the pile.

Tonight’s purge was relatively painless. In less than thirty minutes I found sixteen items in need of new homes. I’m looking forward to finding thirty-four more items, but I have a feeling the second pass through will be much harder.