The Great Purge: Part II

The past two Saturdays, we have continued our great purge. Last Saturday we tackled the upstairs which included the bathroom, play room, walk through closet, and attic. We once again divided everything up into keep, trash, or donate. The bathroom was fairly easy to go through. It included a lot of cheap jewelry that my sister and I had when we were in middle school. (Important note: My husband and I bought my parents' house a year and half ago so it still contains quite a bit of my childhood possessions.) The cheap, tangled, out-of-style jewelry was quite easy to part with. Even the random articles of clothing left in the drawers in the playroom were easy to toss. However, the childhood memorabilia in the walk through closet and the attic were a completely different story.

Apparently I've never thrown anything away in my life. I just boxed it up and put it in storage, which ended up in the upstairs closet and attic. I felt like I was walking down memory lane unpacking all of those boxes. I found 5 diaries from when I was in elementary school. Here was my favorite entry that I read. I wrote it when I was in second grade. I love that this was one of the best days in my life!

April 21, 1993
Dear diary today was one of the best days in my life.
My mom came and ate lunch with me and Ashley went to church with me.

I decided that I needed to condense all of my memorable possessions into one box. I picked out a box that my mom had written "Amanda's Treasures" on to use as my one box of keepsakes. I was surprised at how many items that I was willing to part with that I once felt too sentimental to let go. Now some of my most memorable childhood keepsakes are in this one box.

I wish that I had more before and after pictures to show because it is amazing how much we accomplished, but the angles of the closet and attic made it hard to take a good picture. A lot of what I got rid of was old clothes. Apparently I've held on to everything I've ever worn since middle school. A lot of the clothes were not in a good enough condition to donate so we ended up trashing them. My husband absolutely loves going to the dump and was so proud of our dump pile. This is his picture that he took.

Yesterday we really began organizing, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I mostly tackled the pantry while my husband worked on cleaning up the attic and garage. I went through and threw away all of our expired food. Then I took a few items that we will not need regularly to the attic for storage. I took items like spare lamps and seasonal decor. I love how you can really see the difference in the before and after photos of the pantry!

 Having a clean and organized house is so peaceful! I absolutely love it and I love all the room that we've made!