Knowing when to Purge

“You gotta know when to hold, know when to “throw” them, know when to…” Well you get the idea. At the risk of being completely and utterly cheesy, I just couldn’t resist. I mentioned previously that I would talk a bit about purging. I know some of you might be cringing right now, because just the very thought of purging or tackling that process may seem a bit overwhelming. Well I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be. So take a deep breath, a nice sigh of relief, and prepare yourself to be motivated to get some stuff done! I talked here about getting the most use out of your space, with creatively thinking, and coming over design obstacles that you just can’t get away from. Let’s face it we don’t all have a nice little nest egg of 20k or so saved up for a rainy day to remodel our house to make it more functional. I wish! Sometimes though before we can make the most of a space, we need to clear it out a bit. It’s amazing how much stuff can just accumulate over the years without us even realizing it, and then the next thing we know, we are surrounded by clutter we don’t even know how it got there. Sometimes it’s hard to see what it is we don’t like about a space, because we can’t see the space. Or maybe you have had the same furniture for so long you’re stuck in a rut because it’s been that way for years, you just can’t envision anything different. But one thing is for sure, you are no longer happy with the current set up, or arrangement, and something has got to be done.

I like to clean, purge and organize. It’s very refreshing! I can fill a bag to donate in less then 5 minutes, why? Because I know how to evaluate whether or not I need to keep something, or it’s time to pass it on for someone else to enjoy. Many times I text a friend a photo with a caption “You want this, I’m done with it”. And it’s not that its bad, or broken, but my I’m just not as into it as I was 5 years ago, or heck even last year. So why hold onto it just because. We hold ourselves back from having spaces we truly love, because we think we have to be stuck with something we bought because we don’t want to be frivolous with our money or wasteful. Let me tell you, blessing a friend with a gently used item or donating it has never felt wasteful to me. Because I know I’m taking one step closer to having the space I truly crave.

I love how Melissa Michaels puts it in her new book “Love the Home you Have”. When talking about clutter she says “When a space is designed with a purpose, we are less likely to fill it with clutter that looks out of place and disturbs the peace.”

Now when you read that in her book, she talks about identifying the problems in the space, what’s not working, and giving the space a purpose so useless things won’t fill it up. I think we can take it a step further and even apply it to those spaces we don’t yet love. For instance, when I first started my space looked something like this:

Not even close to the spaces I drooled over. A lot of my color choices where from our two previous apartments, and inspiration from 5 years prior. Believe it or not we are still using the same furniture, and those curtains are still my current ones too. I took out my white slipcovers that were in hiding from having babies. Sold the coffee table and the lamps, blessed a friend with the rug, and another one got my pillow covers and end table. And all those black frames and red accessories did not make it back in the room once we painted.

Our living room has progressed a lot from the first photo to this last one. You can catch up on all of that here, here and here. But achieving the space I loved, meant getting rid of things, and not letting clutter take over. Once I had cleared out our space, I brought back only the pieces that I absolutely loved.

So how do we know what to keep, and what is just clutter. Sometimes we can quickly gather a few things in our spaces that we are just simply over or done with. Sometimes we need to do a major overhaul. In this case I have found the best thing to do is remove all the decor objects from the space. Grab a laundry basket, or two, and start filling it with all the accessories in the room. Remove table lamps, throw pillows, even pictures off the wall. Clear the space except for the larger furniture items that are staying. Take a look around your empty space now. Make a cup of coffee, or hot chocolate, or whatever you want, and sit in the space, empty as it is. Look around on the walls, evaluate the size of the room. Do you like the furniture the way it is, or could you see it laid out differently? Now is the time to adjust the larger pieces of furniture while all the clutter is out of the way. And I don’t want to hear you can’t move something because you are by yourself. I have moved whole sleeper sofas by myself, where there is a will there is a way. So sit your butt down on the floor with your back pressed up against one end of the couch and start scoochin! Once you have your furniture where you want it, start to bring back in the pieces you know are staying for sure. The coffee table, a few knick knacks perhaps? Love your photos but the frames aren’t really the style you like anymore, or conflict too much with the look you are wanting. I always find great ones perusing through HomeGoods, TJMaxx, and Target. You don’t have to find or buy them all in one trip, but sometimes just simply changing out your picture frames can freshen a space up instantly. Lastly, if you are undecided on what to get rid of, look back through pictures of your favorite spaces. What is it about those spaces that captivates you, makes you stop in awe? What is in those spaces that conflicts with what is in yours now? Does it have all white picture frames, and yours are black or mismatched? Paint them white? Does it have brightly colored throw pillows, and you still have the flat, non-pretty ones the store threw in when you purchased the sofa? Just because they came with the sofa doesn’t mean they have to stay with the sofa. Switch things up. I challenge you to walk though a space you aren’t happy with right now, and grab three things that you can let go of. You might be surprised that you don’t stop there!

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