Operation Purge: Part 1

 Moving to New England was a bit of a shock for this California girl. I am used to walk in closets, "bonus rooms", and huge garages which are all products of newer homes and apartments.  When we came to RI the first place we lived in was a second floor apartment in a 3 family home that was almost 80 years old. We had 2 closets, that were literally the size of the door, and not very deep. Our bathroom was in between the 2 bedrooms and had a pedestal sink and a small medicine cabinet. My first thought when I walked in was, "Where the heck am I going to put all of my stuff??!!". We ended up putting up closet rods and shelves in the spare bedroom and basically treating it like a giant closet. I told myself that when we moved into a house that was bigger all of my storage problems would be solved.

Enter our first house. The closet situation improved only slightly, but we had 3 bedrooms and a garage. We lived that whole first year with ample space then along came Natey. I'm convinced baby gear breeds like small rodents because it started filling up the house. We decided to turn our attached garage into a family room and boom, there went the storage. The guestroom bed was sold and the room was turned into my craft room/storage space. It wasn't ideal, but it worked and the clutter was once again at bay.

Cue baby number two and now all 3 bedrooms are filled with people. The things that were in storage in that room were shuffled onto a shelving unit in the boiler room, but there is very little space in there. My sewing machine, fabric and all that sewing entails (which is a lot of stuff by the way) were moved into the back corner of our unused formal living room. The clutter began to grow exponentially with 4 people, 2 of which are small beings which apparently require stores full of things that I have no place to put.

I am surrounded by clutter and I'm done. I need my space to be clean and organized again. My BIL, who inhabits our in-law apartment in the basement, is moving out in February. It would be easy just to move the clutter into the basement when he leaves, but that won't solve my problems.  Inspired by Michele, I started "Operation Purge" and my first victim was the bathroom. I'm pretty sure that I have never thrown away a single thing and somehow ended up with packed drawers and an overflowing medicine cabinet. I had items in there that expired in 2006!!! Seriously. All in all I got rid of 73 things from the drawers and cabinet.

I have honestly had most of these things for years!!! The nail polishes, foot cream and banana boat tanning oil are at least 7 years old...and probably haven't been used in over 5! The Theraflu was from 2004! It was ridiculous. My cabinet is so clean and all of the drawers are organized and not packed to the gills! It was freeing and now I am motivated to tackle the whole house a room at a  time.

Next stop....the dining room!