Decluttering Can Bring the Peace you Need

Life Can Be Funny

It’s funny how you can plan everything out, but then life has a different path. Last year my husband and I decided that we were not renewing our lease in our current apartment, but wanted to move and get a bigger place. Our thought was to get a townhome within a 5-mile radius. I was finally getting a separate office, more space to entertain, and not deal with the nuisances that come with being in an apartment.

So we made this decision around May of 2023. Every month the countdown was on. And then in December, we received the letter to renew, so with that, we put in our notice to vacate. That left us about 3 full months to secure a new place.

We assumed renting a townhome or a single-family home would be the same as renting an apartment. But it felt more like buying a house. Working with realtors, sending in documentation, waiting to see if you were selected. That process took about 1-2 weeks each time we found a place we seemed to like.

Then about a week before our lease was up we made the decision to renew our current lease because it was still available. After all the disappointments, we felt like it was God’s way of saying “Not right now”. So with that, I had to find a way to make the current place seem like we were moving into a new place. Hence, the reorganizing and decluttering took place.

Getting Organized

I focused on two main areas for the decluttering; the primary walk-in closet and kitchen. After focusing on those areas, I spent some time with a hall closet and the second bathroom closet.

We have lived in our current apartment for a little over 3 years. We moved during the pandemic from a different state. In previous moves we have had the ability to take our time and move over the course of a few weeks to a month. This time, we needed to move everything to a truck and drive.

So with the help of family, we moved in and put everything in place quickly without too much thought. The walk-in closet wasn’t a total mess, but it was not optimized. We share a closet with our own sides but then add in the linen, random electronics, luggage storage and more, it can get cluttered quickly.

You can’t organized without getting rid of some stuff. And that’s what I did. If I had not used it in over a year, I got rid of it. Here are the items I donated or took to the dump:

• Clothes/Shoes/Belts
• Purses
• Small Carryon Suitcases
• Foot Massager
• Pillows
• Blankets
• Bookbags/Totes
• Old Towels
• Paintings

Now that I had a little more real estate to work with, I took everything out of the closet (except the clothes that were hanging up) to the bedroom and only took back in what was needed. I figured out what “spaces” I needed.

For the shelves, I had these areas

• Towels/Washcloths
• Linen
• Office Supplies
• Important Papers
• Travel Accessories
• Jewelry
• Eye Care and Makeup
• First Aid and Medicine

There is top shelfing so that is where I included items that I don’t need on a regular basis.

• Photos/Albums
• Extra Blankets
• Hats/Scarfs
• Purses

On the middle shelf I have baskets for mainly clothing specific items.

• Socks
• Fitness attire
• Swimsuits

The bottom section I put the bigger items that wouldn’t fit anywhere else.

• Laundry
• Golf Clubs
• Shoes
• Luggage
• Tote of books and paperwork

I purchased another long tote for additional books and photo albums that I didn’t have the space to display. These are placed underneath the bed in the bedroom.

Here are some of my before and after pictures.

I did buy an additional organizer that most people use underneath their kitchen or bathroom sink cabinets, but I found an additional way to use it in the empty spot. I added my medicine and first aid stash.

Here is an amazon link to the under sink organizer.

The Kitchen Semi MakeOver

Now that I was happy with how the closet turned out, I could divert my attention to the kitchen. Let me say that I did not do this all in one day. I took one day for the closet, one for the kitchen and another for the smaller areas with the two bathrooms.

One area that I wanted organization around was my spice cabinet. My turn style caddy did not fit all my spices. I had ordered a spice rack that could fit in my current cabinet. I did have to move a shelf up one notch to have it fit, but it was perfect. The rack held 20 spices.

Similar to how I did the closet, I took everything out of the cabinet, cleaned it and put back only what I needed. I was embarrassed by the amount of spices I had in the back of the cabinet from 2022. The longest part of this organization was cleaning the new spice rack, labeling, and emptying what I had in the current containers into the new ones. There was some leftovers, so I put those either behind it or above. Now finding my spices is a breeze.

Here is an amazon link to my spice rack. Check out the before and after pics below.

The second area that needed attention was the bottom of my kitchen island. It was a catchall for cleaning supplies, random kitchen gadgets, face masks and a sewing machine. My vision was to only see pots/pans and have an area to store vegetables and bakery items.

I had two sets of pots and pans, so I donated one. Similar to how I started the areas, I removed everything from the bottom of the kitchen island and only put back what I needed. For the pots and pans I purchased an organizer that would fit. It works but I think I could have ordered one that was more sturdier. This allowed me to have more cabinet space for can goods and pasta.

The cabinets are still a work in progress as I still need to purchase some additional pasta containers, but I love the fact that I can see everything and not have to hunt for it in my own kitchen.

Here are a few additional organization after pics that I was able to do for the cabinets underneath the sinks and the pantry. I love the fact that everything is more visible.

Zen

When there is organization and less clutter, I’m able to breath. I can concentrate better in other areas of focus. I work from home so being able to be in an environment that is calming allows me to focus on work tasks. Being in an apartment, space is limited, but when you declutter and give everything its own space, the small footprint expands.

I hope I’ve been able to give you some tips or ideas on how to organize some of the pain point areas in your home. If you would like to read about other areas of tranquility, try starting here to view additional posts.

~Angela