Decluttering Your Home: Where To Start -

I can so clearly remember how excited Steve and I were to buy our first house. We were over the moon to be homeowners and rushed to Home Depot to painstakingly pick out the perfect paint colors–fire engine red for the kitchen, butter cookie (a scrumptious yellowy gold) for the living room, and a periwinkle blue for the guest bedroom (thankfully my sense of color has since improved). But truly, we loved every last inch of it because it was ours.

Overnight we became the proud owners of this huge (to us) home and with only a handful of things to call our own, mostly from our Macy’s wedding registry plus a few hand-me-downs that felt sacred, we moved in.

And naturally, we started the process of acquiring.

A few hand-me-down lamps here, a couple pillow cases there, a floral couch, a few vases, a chalk-painted nightstand…our house was slowly becoming a home.

While all of this was helpful and necessary when we were first starting out (afterall, who has money to buy a brand new couch right out of college?), I think many of us never adjust our perspective soon enough to think “hmmm, maybe what I have now is enough?”

So we just keep acquiring…

Great finds at the Goodwill,
Cute clearance pillows at Target,
An extra dresser from Aunt Myra
A dining table from Grandma Jean
Our first new couch from Costco
Free clothes at Mops
You’re getting rid of that vase? I’ll take it!

More is better, right?

Then one day we find ourselves with multiple children in tow, a jam-packed linen closet with who knows what in there, mountains of dirty laundry, an overflowing playroom, and children with NEEDS…so very many needs.

Add in milk spills, cracker crumbs, appointments to make, 100 books to read before kindergarten, earaches, bath time, BPA plastics to dispose of, organic broccoli to steam and puree for the baby, a dog who ate a rock…

It’s no wonder moms can start to feel like they are losing their marbles. Overwhelm is a very real thing when you are a mama of little people.

At some point we realize that all the extra stuff is no longer a blessing and that perhaps it is even stealing some of our peace (and sanity?!) and holding us back from how we want to be spending our time.

A few years into motherhood, I remember looking at our hodgepodge of stuff and not even knowing what fit our family.

I would flip through magazines (back when we all read Better Homes & Gardens) and ask myself “Do I like gray? Lots of color? Beige? What IS my design style–Traditional? Vintage? Modern?” I really had no idea.

So what’s a girl to do and where do you even start when you feel overwhelmed? How do we unbury our homes and unburden our lives from what’s holding us back and define what is clutter and what we value?

Envision

When it comes to decluttering and creating order and peace in our homes, I am a huge proponent of starting with vision. When you are at the start of a new season, a new year, or really at any point you are in need of a home or life overhaul, the best way to start is with the dream.

What does living the best version of your life look like or more simply put, how do you actually want to be spending the hours in your day?

If you haven’t defined it, it’s going to be really difficult to achieve, especially because happiness looks different for different people.

Your decluttering story starts with your purpose. It’s the best beginning, because when we know what we want to do in our life or simply how we want to spend our time, we will have the catalyst needed to create lasting change.

Envision

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