Declutter Project: The Spare Bedroom, Part 5

It's been awhile since I've posted about my Declutter Project! Probably because I haven't made much progress. Life just got busy and there were a lot of changes in our home: 1) I have a new foster son, Munchkin and 2) A friend has moved in with us temporarily.

Which is interesting since ALL of my "catch all" items from when I started the KonMari process was in my spare room -- that I had to clear out for my friend to move in. 

The Spare Bedroom

The spare room had EVERYTHING in it. The spare room has been a catch all for all things. Kids stuff, my stuff, boxes of stuff, linens, etc. What I found:

• MORE BAGS! 
• More suitcases. 
• More adult clothes. 

I moved everything into there thinking that I would be able to sort through it methodically and also keep it out of the way, so the rest of the house was still functional. Well, with my friend moving in suddenly -- I had to move all this crap out of there AND find another place for it. It all happened so quickly, that there was no way I was going to be able to sort through all the stuff that quickly.

Spare Room - BEFORE

Spare Room - Before 

The worst part of the room was the Closet... It was actually hard to open the closet door since there was so much stuff in it. This was my "catch all" for all things foster care. I had baby stuff, kid blankets, extra pillows, clothes, etc.

The Closet - BEFORE

I tackled the closet first. I ended up giving a lot of the stuff away to friends and also donating to Goodwill. I had so much stuff, there was no way that I was going to need every single thing. Doing this, I got rid of almost everything that was in the closet. 

Which left the boxes and boxes of stuff in the actual bedroom. I needed to move them fast, so I moved them to my loft area AKA my home office (I work from home). 

My Office - now the "catch all" place

Not a permanent solution... But everything is out of the way. It's "orderly" -- as orderly as it can be with having a bunch of boxes everywhere. I had vowed to myself that I would go through a box a day. That hasn't happened, as the adjustment period to adding so many new people to our household was a little more exhausting than I expected. But now that things have gotten more routine, I should have more time to really tackle it. Looking at it, it looks overwhelming! But in reality, most of this stuff will end up recycled, donated, or trashed. There are a bunch of sentimental items that I'll need to go through later on. 

My goal going forward is to go through a box a day. If things get too busy (my adoption is coming up - YAY! and the Holidays), I do have an alternate plan. I'm taking adoption leave for all of December. I'm going to take that time to really tackle this declutter project.  

Wish me luck! 

Stuff given away: 11 bags. 

Donation bags: 16 - kid clothes, baby type items.