Preparing My Home For Decluttering & Secret Group Note

I’ve been a little quiet on my blog this week but very busy in my home!

Our house is already looking so much better and I’m looking forward to digging into my declutter projects next week!

It’s important to me to start fresh when I’m decluttering. What I mean by that is I prefer to have holiday decorations put away, laundry under control, and the house fairly tidy. Having those things in decent order helps our home to look better – not worse – while I’m tackling bigger projects.

And since I talk about more thoroughly about preparing our homes and hearts in my book I won’t repeat myself here, but I will show you a little of what my family has been working on!

We started our cleanup project on Sunday afternoon. We put away Christmas decorations and tidied the kitchen & basement, plus I had a little fun setting seashells and candles out in the living room:

We’ve cleaned the kitchen every single day this week, which is huge for us! And it only takes a few minutes to do when we’re making simple meals and actually cleaning up each time we eat 🙂

I’ve also done a little bit of laundry every day this week – especially Monday – and it’s nice to have clean clothes in our drawers again! I haven’t taken any laundry pictures recently though because really, how many times do you want to see photos of my clothes?!

On Tuesday we tidied up the entire main level!

And on Wednesday we cleaned the upstairs. Notice that I’m ignoring clutter piles – it’s my way to get things tidy and decent without feeling bogged down by the details.

I still have a few loads of laundry left to do on Thursday, but overall I’m thrilled with how much better my house is already looking!

If you want to join me for my live declutter project that starts on Monday, January 12th, 2015 then go ahead and spend some time over the next few days tidying your own home! Even if you can’t clean everything, that’s okay. Just do something because progress is still progress, regardless of how slow!

Here’s a quick summary of this week’s declutter prep:

• Project: House tidy, laundry, dishes, un-decorating
• Length of time: About 8 hours
• Progress: Tidied the entire house (basement, main level & upstairs); washed, dried, folded & put away several loads of laundry; put away all of the Christmas decorations, caught up on dishes.
• Work Remaining: Finish laundry (about 3-4 loads left) & maintain progress.

Total items purged during house tidy:

• 1 trash bags full of items for donation.
• 1 trash bag full of trash.
• 1 huge Christmas tree.

OVERALL TOTALS:

• Time spent cleaning & decluttering: 12 hours
• Bags for donation: 5
• Bags of trash: 2

FACEBOOK GROUP NOTE: I started a private Tidy-Up Club on Facebook. This group is full of wonderful people who offer encouragement and inspiration for us in our homes! Go here to join.

I’d love to hear – what are your organization goals for this month?