Declutter my home (I can finally call it Home)

After I got married, I moved into my husband’s 3 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I had bags and boxes of my stuff piling up in the living. Did I mention I also have a bike and my husband also has his exercise bike in the living/dinning room as well? And 2 of the bedrooms were clutter with paper work and stuff that he did not use or they belong to someone else? Our thought was we will live here for a little while until we buy our own house. So we didn’t take much effort in cleaning it up or buying new furniture. As a matter of fact, we didn’t buy anything because we were saving for a down payment on our future house.

Well, most if not all of that has changed after I got pregnant. We decided to turn one of the rooms (the storage room - with other people’s stuff and unused stuff) into the baby’s room. I had to start dumping and clearing everything that was in there. It took me a while to clear up everything in there and putting up a new blind in there. Then we purchased some basic baby furnitures (a crib, a changing table and dresser) and got hand me down clothing from family and friends.

With the babies room cleaned. I started to clean the living/dinning room (we do not have a dinning table) area and the 3rd (smallest room which we used as an office). I got a chance to see the floor (well, it’s carpet) of the living room for the first time. Then slowly, we started to stock up more and more stuff because the living room has the most open space. The 1st and 2nd time that I cleaned the living/dinning room, I dumped and shredded some stuff but some of stuff I either move to a different room where they belong (example: stationary and paperwork in the office, toys in the babies room) or I put them in bankers boxes and have them piled up in the living room. So now, I have piles of banker’s boxes in the living/dinning room area. They look more organized but they do not belong there. I wish I have a basement to store them. Second thought, having a basement to store them isn’t the solution to all these clutter (whether they are necessity or not).

Our mission is to clean the living room area as well as the 3rd room (our office). Instead of cleaning everything all at once, I have come up with a plan of storing everything in separate banker boxes. We will tackle one banker’s box per week while dealing with new incoming mails and junk mails. And we will setup a system so that we will not have piles of paper work and other stuff all mingle together. (Honestly, I think I am much more organized than my husband. I think he must have a PHD in misplacing stuff and mingle everything together. I have to be organized because in the accounting field, we need a lot of backups and auditors want to see them all the time).

With taking care of the baby, with the baby’s stuff, my stuff, my parent’s stuff and my grandma’s stuff that I have to look after, I think it will be a slow go but it will get done. I just have to be consistent. You know what they say, “slow and consistent wins the game”.