So I mentioned last week that I needed to purge stuff out of my house.  Our house just has….stuff in it, and I’m not sure what some of it is.  And i want to make some changes around the house.  I was really inspired by the popular 40 bags in 40 days challenge that most of you have probably seen around the internet over the years.  Obviously, though, I don’t have 40 areas in my house since we don’t have kids or family rooms or anything like that.

But I did manage to make a list 21 areas in my house that could use organizing, sorting, purging, etc.  Hence, my “21 Bag Challenge”

So, you can see, I didn’t make any area really huge.  My goal is to be able to do an area in maybe 30 minutes or so.  The biggest/longest areas will be my closet and the linen closet, but there’s no real good way to break those down any further.

If you’ve seen the 40 Bag Challenge before you know that it’s meant to be a space a day, or done in 40 days.  I didn’t put that time limit on myself because I know with me it’s so unrealistic to expect me to do an area a day, everyday, for the next 21 days (as evidence by the fact that I’ve only done two areas in a week).  Work is super busy and really stressful right now, so the thought of coming home and cleaning/organizing makes me tired.  I happened to be off for a Counselor Lunch today so I managed to check another area off before getting dressed this morning.

While I’m not putting an official date on these, I’m hoping to have it all done by the time my spring break is over (which starts at the end of this month, yay!).  I know having almost two weeks off will give me time to hang out at home, do some deep cleaning and organizing that I just don’t have the time to do when I’m working 50+ hours a week.

So, this morning, I did our front entryway closet.  It’s a pretty decent sized closet, actually, especially considering we live in an apartment.  But, it’s not maintained well by us; it’s the closet we just sort of throw things in when we don’t know what else to do with them, so it got kind of junky and not well utilized as a result.

This is what our closet has been looking like:

Yeah…..

And if you know me, you know I have a slight problem when it comes to blazers and jackets and coats….I love them….A LOT.   So….I have a lot of them.  I do go through spurts where I’m willing to go through my jackets/coats and get rid of some of them (so I can get more), but today was not one of those times, so I didn’t get rid of any, but they look better and are hung well and easily accessible now, in the closet.  And there’s also room for the coats/jackets Devon and I haven’t been hanging up in there (as you can see by the empty hangers).  Devon has hoodies everywhere and I have a couple jackets hanging on the dining room chair because it’s been too much of a hassle to go in the closet and get a jacket in the morning.  Now?  Not so much!

I have to point out a few things I found while cleaning out this closet.  Some of it is kind of funny.  Like, one, we have an extra TV in there that I forgot we had and that we can likely get rid of because we really don’t need it.  That’s actually one of the few things that I will check with Devon on before I get rid of it, but it’s been in that closet since we moved in and we only have two TV’s in our house to begin with, so we don’t really need/have the space for another, so that will likely go soon.

I also found:

PLASTIC STORAGE!

Worst part?  These two were pretty much empty and not like nestled inside each other or anything.  The purple one had random things at the top of the closet and the black one was just sitting by it’s lonesome at the bottom.  I have a feeling these will be utilized in another closet in the house, so I just nestled them inside themselves and placed them on the floor of the closet.  So maybe not the best use of space right now, but I’m not quick to get rid of plastic storage and I’m pretty sure I’ll use them in the linen closet.

Also found these, aren’t they cute?

I completely forgot that these were a thing.  I’m not sure how long they’ve been in the closet, but they shouldn’t be.  MORE STORAGE!

Devon and I actually got a really pretty crystal decanter set with 6 glasses, that I’m probably going to place on the wicker tray once our sideboard is set up in the dining room. I’m so mad that I forgot I had these.

And uh….

I’m pretty sure we won’t need hand soap for like a year.  I didn’t know these were in there or even why they were in there.  Not sure why….but….no need to buy hand soap!

Once all was said and done, this is the after result:

 

 

Look at everything hung up!  Yay!

The bottom still looks like a lot, but our luggage is in there, the black bin that will likely be moved is there and my cat’s carrier is there.  So it’s stuff we need/use but we don’t really use a lot.  And there’s a lot more room to hang our coats up and there’s some room at the top, so it’s good.

And yes, I still have my lego set from when I was five.  Yes, it is mine and not Devon’s.  I’m not getting rid of those.  Ever.  Don’t try to convince me to.  It won’t work.  Don’t judge me.

I’d like to say I got rid of a lot of stuff from this area, I didn’t really.  There just wasn’t a lot of stuff to get rid of.  But I did make a nice pile of stuff, like our old dish rack and a box of random crap that we didn’t need, so I’m pretty happy.

I don’t think this so much about getting rid of everything, but it’s just getting rid of stuff we don’t need or won’t ever use and if it’s just a small box like this from an area, it’s still clutter that we don’t need and now we have space that we do desperately need.  So, I’m happy with my small box of crap that will leave my house today.

I’d like to say I’ll have the next area done in the next couple days….but…..again, I don’t like time limits, but I will update when I do.  That  much I can promise!