I arrived home yesterday from several days camping at the beach. With just hours to clean up and get ready for a Christmas party, I knew if I was going to make any headway on my plan to remove one thousand things from my home, I had to do it quick! As soon as the travel trailer was unloaded, I grabbed a box from the never-ending pile of empty Amazon boxes (which has me thinking I should invest in cardboard) and headed to the bathroom. I quickly unloaded every single item from underneath my sink onto the counter and floor. I took a quick look through the mess, and then I picked up each item, holding it, deciding what to do with it.
It was easy to make the first ten or so decisions – old toothbrushes from our Summer vacation to Missouri, two of the three nail files, old medicine – all to the trash. I came across these hair wraps that I purchased so I could wrap my wet hair up and it would come out curly in the morning. I think I tried to use one of them one time and it didn’t work out. And I have had a perm for a few months now, so I put those in the donation pile. I continued to weed though the items, twenty-five, then thirty. Forty. Fifty. How is it possible that I have fifty unwanted items underneath one cupboard, in one of the smallest rooms of my house?
In total, I spent about fifteen minutes and was able to pull sixty-nine items out of that messy cupboard. The only thing worth donating was those hair wraps, the other items were nothing but trash! I put the bathroom box next to the living room box from my last post and then went on to get ready for my Christmas party.
Some of you posted on social media that you were going to try to get rid of a few items, and some have reached out to me personally, so I wanted to do a quick check-in with you to let you know that the journey of a thousand things has begun! I also want to encourage you to start. Looking at these before and after photos, I am eager to tackle every hidden space in my home. I am beginning to wonder if I can get rid of a thousand items without touching the surfaces that are visible on a daily basis. I am an all-or-nothing kind of person, so I typically go big with a lot of zeal. But if that’s not your personality, start small. Do you have ten items in your home that are taking up space and not providing you any joy?
Sixty-nine things, from one cupboard, in one of the smallest rooms in my house.
Uncommonly Common Mom 