Decluttering a catch all room...what to do with the things I want to keep????

[vsimeone]

Vsimeon, That is amazing!!! Such a HUGE difference and it's given me the motivation to do the same thing. I just dont have a clue where to start!

We literally emptied the room. My two kids recently moved out so we moved everything into their rooms and the hallway with the oath that nothing goes back in unless it's put away somewhere!

We made a trip to Ikea to get a new desk and some storage units with boxes. Then we bought some storage tubs from Walmart. Next, we painted and put together the furniture. We started putting the room back together while packing some stuff away for the basement and throwing out TONS of stuff!

We had to make a second trip to Ikea for a work area for DH and some more storage boxes. DH blew up some of our pictures for the walls (although he's going to do them again to make them bigger - they're too small). We still need a "window treatment" and we'd like to get some kind of chair.

It hasn't been completely budget but not bad either. So far, with paint, furniture and storage cubes and tubs, pictures, and lights, we are at just under $1000. But it was so worth it to clean up our "junk" room!

It also wasn't a one day job. It took us just about a month to get to this point. By the time we emptied out the old furniture and hauled it to the basement and got everything back in the room - it was a lot of work but we spent a couple of evenings and weekends pounding away at it and now we're ALMOST done!

 

[DisneyAndRedSox]

We JUST did this in February!!! Here's the before and after pics: Home Office

As you can see... we made a 2 hour road trip to Ikea - twice. We stocked up on storage stuff. We also threw a LOT of things away and put some in plastic totes in the basement.

Good luck with your project! We have a few more odds and ends to go but it is SOOO much better!!!

The room came out great!

I was going to recommend that exact storage unit from Ikea. We have the smaller version (we have it horizontal in the family room) and we found baskets with pretty liners that are an exact fit from Home Goods. Perfect for DD's smaller toys. When we used to have play group all the time I had little tags on the baskets (balls, musical toys, etc) and the moms knew exactly where to toss everything when we cleaned up.

 

[jsmla]

We JUST did this in February!!! Here's the before and after pics: Home Office

As you can see... we made a 2 hour road trip to Ikea - twice. We stocked up on storage stuff. We also threw a LOT of things away and put some in plastic totes in the basement.

Good luck with your project! We have a few more odds and ends to go but it is SOOO much better!!!

Those pictures are soooo inspirational! Our office looks even worse than your before pix so I need the motivation. We're dealing with clearing out my in-laws' house and there's so much to go through. I need to do something about the thousands of pictures (ours and the in-laws') sitting in totes right now. I think I'm going to make use of one of my MIL's soon to be empty (she had 6!) file cabinets to sort them. I just have to make myself do it!

 

[elcodfish]

I think the easiest way is that if you don't, love it, use it, need it, want it, get rid of it. Yes it belonged to *insert relative here* and they loved it, but if it doesn't help you, then take a picture and sell it or donate it! You cannot organize clutter. I think the best way to get through "the stuff" is to empty a room, and as you go, start sorting stuff into keep, toss, donate. Then as you put stuff back in the room, reevaluate what you are keeping.