I Choose : Project 1 : Purge the Clutter

My first I Choose : Around the House project I wanted to share is my plan to purge the clutter in our house.

Pretty much every year since we've had kids, which really has only been a few years, I get this urge after Christmas to go through every surface and holding container in this house and purge. It's probably the overwhelming sight of new toys, boxes, giftwrap, decorations and just general stuff that is laying around without a home. I am very much a "a place for everything and everything in it's place" type of person, so the post-holiday abundance of stuff really rattles me.

I knew once we got back into our routines - decorations put away, Mark back to work, Morgan back to school - I'd have time to get the house back in order. I'm pretty good about continually purging the house of the things that we don't need anymore, but I was feeling like the whole house could use a little extra attention. I saw Becky Novacek was doing a 30 Bags in 30 Days challenge to purge and organize - and this just screamed my name! That night I made a list of all of the rooms in our house, plus corresponding hot spots or areas to tackle. And yup, you guessed it, 30 areas to concentrate on : 

As you can see, I've already finished a few areas. Here is my unedited list:

1. kitchen – cabinets
2. kitchen – pantry
3. front closet – file cabinet
4. front closet – shelves
5. living room – play kitchen and toolbench
6. living room – bookshelves
7. morgan’s room – dresser
8. morgan’s room – closet
9. morgan’s room - floor
10. parker’s room – dresser
11. parker’s room – closet
12. main bath – vanity
13. main bath – linen closet
14. family room – toy shelves
15. family room – cabinets
16. family room – toy bins
17. family room – indoor grill area
18. mudroom – cabinets
19. mudroom – countertops + inbox area
20. mudroom – closet
21. mudroom – purses + bags
22. master bedroom – nightstands
23. master bedroom – closet
24. master bath – vanity
25. guest / scrap room – desk
26. guest / scraproom – bookshelves
27. guest / scraproom – junk corner
28. guest / scraproom – underbed
29. guest / scraproom – dresser
30. garage – garbage + recycling area

My goal is to do one area a day, in no particular order, until I'm done tossing / donating / posting to sell. Some days I may not get to it, some days I may do more than one space. But I'm hoping by the beginning of February that this house will be completely clear and ready to re-organize. At that time I will figure out if and where we need to move things around and/or find new containers, etc. Right now,  I've done well with repurposing bins and baskets, so I'll be super happy if that continues. I'm all about using what I have.