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Organizing

All Things Home

tell me you’re doing home renovations…

…without telling me you’re doing home renovations.  Just look in their garage or any other storage spaces.  They will likely be a jumble of materials and tools used for projects looking something like this… Yes, those are still boxes that have not been unpacked since our move into this house almost three years ago.  Yes, this space is embarrassing.  Yes, I watermarked the photos. When we first moved in, Jeff built some simple garage shelves to provide some storage.  Before that, we had the foresight to prime and paint the walls behind the built-in shelves so it wouldn’t be an issue later.  Aside from those early efforts and a few feeble attempts at getting this beast under control, it’s been a disaster since we moved in.  It’s just been in varying degrees of disaster.  Just when it’s less of a disaster, we undertake another project, and it becomes a disaster

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All Things Home

what to get rid of, what to keep | organizing

As I’ve been sharing my organizing and purging efforts, I have been asked by several blog readers how I decide what to keep and what to get rid of.  One reader expressed hesitancy to get rid of something for fear she might need it down the road.  So, I thought I would share some of the rules I used for deciding what to keep and what to get rid of.  These rules aren’t unbreakable, but they are guidelines that help me make better decisions about stuff.  Not only the decisions of what to keep and what to let go, but also what I buy in the first place. rule number one – space The first filter everything has to run through is do we have space for it in our house.  Space can be subjective because you can have space for a lot of things and not be able to

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Decorating

the mediumalized living room shelves

The living room shelves were one area that made me decide it was time to thin down my ironstone collection and other antiques from my stash.  I put ironstone casseroles on the top shelf because I had nowhere else to put them.  Since I’ve displayed all sorts of ironstone pieces all over my house for years, it didn’t seem odd, but I realized I put them there by default, not because they were the best thing for those shelves.  I felt like the shelves would look better if I removed them and rearranged.  Here’s how the shelves and mantel were decorated over the holidays… And I left everything in place once I took the greenery down.  As the weather was starting to warm up, though, it felt like too much stuff, and I wanted to simplify. I removed everything from the mantel except the blue and white ginger jars and

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All Things Home

sheet organizers

About a year and a half ago, I worked on organizing our linen closets.  I had just dumped everything in them when we moved in, and they were consistently a mess.  I did a pretty good job at the time of thinning things out and getting the closets to a place where they felt organized and functional.  For the sheet sets, which are always a challenge when it comes to having a tidy linen closet, I folded the flat and fitted sheets together and stored each set in a pillowcase with a label pinned on. I knew pulling sheet sets out and putting them away would be a pain, but I tried it.  Yeah, it was a pain, and while it looked okay, I felt like there might be a better solution.  I happened to trip across sheet organizer boxes online and had to test them out!  There are various

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All Things Home

organizing the guest room/sewing room

As I’ve been organizing, I’ve done a terrible job photographing how closets, drawers, and cabinets looked before!  I sort of hop around, working on multiple spaces at once, and get a closet half ripped apart before I realize I didn’t capture a before picture.  I did manage to get a picture of this closet in the guest room after I had only pulled a few things off the top shelves.  Other than having overhead lights installed, we haven’t done any work in this room since it’s used as a guest room and for storing my sewing and knitting stuff, but it’s on the list! Anyway, here is what this closet looked like before I started working on it.  I had organized it pretty well when we first moved in, but it’s gotten a little messy as I’ve shoved things in there over the past couple of years.  As with the

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All Things Home

mediumalism

Over the weekend, I continued working through the house, thinning out areas and setting things aside to sell or taking them to the thrift store.  I have unearthed an entire closet in the guest room that was embarrassingly piled floor to ceiling with stuff.  At the bottom of the pile was a bin of clothes I hadn’t seen since our move.  It contained some of my favorite pairs of jeans that I thought I had donated!  I keep calling Jeff over to look at a closet or a cabinet, drawer, or shelf I’ve thinned out and organized.  It feels good. As I was pulling stuff last week, I decided to thin out the items on my kitchen counters and hanging from the potrack.  As a collector, I sometimes have a hard time putting the brakes on when I have enough!  I was trying to fit way too much in a

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All Things Home

ways to move (sell/donate) stuff

As I’ve been working through my collections and thinning down, I’ve received many questions about moving (selling or donating) the stuff.  This can be the number one reason for holding onto things.  Decluttering and getting things physically out of your house is a lot of work!  It’s just easier to let it sit in a closet or the basement than to get rid of it.  It’s easier to make peace with it.  Donating can even be a pain in some cases when you don’t live near a thrift store with a convenient way to donate. I’ve been staring at those shelves of ironstone in the kitchen for months, and the idea of getting it all down, taking pictures of it, pricing, packing, and selling it all has prevented me from acting on the desire to purge.  But once you get going enough to feel the momentum and the benefits, it

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All Things Home

the fate of the open kitchen shelves

I’ve been looking for and considering an alternative to the inexpensive open shelves we added during our kitchen renovation.  We were at the end of the project and the budget, and I was also experiencing decision fatigue.  But I quickly realized I didn’t have a place to put my mixer or all of my ironstone collection, so I came up with an inexpensive solution – open shelves made out of stair treads and metal brackets, all painted the color of the wall.  It was budget-friendly, pretty easy to install, customizable, and would meet the immediate need.  I always thought they would eventually be replaced with something else, but I keep coming back to the same problem when I look at antique wall shelves or even when I consider building something – there is simply too much stuff. This is one of the realizations that urged me to start thinning my

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I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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