mid-winter purge

I'm purging this week. Which isn't as disgusting as it sounds. (Well, not really....) I've just hit that time of the winter where I feel like if I don't get some extra breathing room in here, I might scream!!! Which sends me into a throwing-stuff-out frenzy. Something that is badly needed around here pretty much year-round, but that I have trouble finding time (and motivation) for unless I'm stuck looking at it for days on end due to frigid temperatures outdoors.

So I invite you into the seldom-seen recesses of my house. These are the places that the purge is most needed, and where I concentrate my efforts. Like this first location, the focus of my attention this afternoon-- my closet. Nice, huh? (NOT!) Yesterday afternoon I purged my dresser drawers (and now the clothes I actually wear fit in there -- what a concept!) and I have 2 1/2 tall kitchen trash bags' worth of clothes headed to the donation bin next weekend. I purged my bookshelf (my own personal books, not the kids') a couple of days ago and plopped a nice big "used book sale" box of dog training books at the training center where I work, with a suggested price and instructions as to where to leave the money. (I hear I've sold a couple -- what doesn't sell I'll donate with the rest of my discarded books to our library. The few that actually have decent value I may sell on Amazon or eBay, if I can find a place to store them -- snort -- and ever find the time to actually list them -- double snort!)

Part of the reason I need to purge has to do with the size of our house. And not so much the actual SIZE of the house, but the amount of usable space within. We're living in about 800 square feet of space (and that's including my bedroom, so I'm being pretty generous about that amount!). That does not include the room pictured in this photo, which is SUPPOSED to be a family room, but instead has sort of become a place to stash things we need and use somewhat regularly, but don't have a place to be when not in use. If we could find places for all this stuff, we'd have 400 extra square feet of living space. That's right. 400. We'd increase our living space by 50%. Of course, that's including this space:

Also known as our half-bath and laundry room. Which, as you can see, has also been consumed by the stuff-we-use-but-can't-find-a-place-for. This particular room happens to stash toys and dog beds. (Dog items in general account for a lot of the stuff-we-use-but-can't-find-a-place-for, hence the importance of purging the next room I'll talk about.) You can almost see the toilet in there, about 2/3 the way down on the left side. The sink and the washer/dryer are to my immediate left, and, believe it or not, are actually accessible. Surprisingly, everything in this room is accessible, it's fairly well organized. Just, you know, impossibly crowded and in desperate need of a purge.

Here's the product of last year's purge. This room was filled from wall to wall to ceiling with STUFF. It's now only half filled (and only half-way to the ceiling) with stuff. Most of which can probably be thrown out. Last winter I threw out about 90% of the stuff that was in here (more stuff has migrated in from other areas of the house, as stuff is apt to do when you create an empty space in a storage room). This is not a "real" room, by the way, it's a not-really-finished-off garage, and hence is NOT livable space, unless we were to do some major renovations to it. But it should be able to comfortably house my dogs (they're in there, by the way, out of sight on the right) AND all of their equipment, plus all of my horses' gear and supplies as well. Plus room for storing grain in the front part. If only I can finish purging out the rest of this junk, I could erect some shelving units and finish off a nice little tack room.

And last but not least, here's where all the remaining stuff needs to go. This was also a location of last winter's purge, although it's filled in considerably since then. This is the actual storage room. You see those boxes on the top shelf, to the right? That's the result of this weekend's work. And actually, those will be leaving at some point too -- baby and toddler clothes that I can sell for credit at the 2nd hand store, so that I can buy clothes in sizes my kids can actually wear. There are a couple of other shelves in there behind all the stuff, too. So all in all, a nice storage room once it gets organized. And honestly, most of that stuff is going to have a place in the garage room, once that room gets purged.

But this week isn't about organization. It's about purging. Organizing will come later -- this week is strictly about throwing out, donating, selling, giving away, or burning as much stuff as possible.

I'll post updates. Anyone care to join me?