Organizing Your House Week Four

Let’s clean house!

Okay.  Maybe we don’t have to do clean so much as we have to organize.  And when I say ‘we‘ I mean ‘me‘.  And also, probably, definitely there will be some cleaning involved.

Still with me?

Nothing is safe in my house anymore.  If things aren’t nailed down, and frankly even if they are, they go straight to the donate + / or recycling bins.  I just don’t have it in me to keep crap around the house; I want it all GONE yesterday.

Let’s get back in the game.  Where were we?  We stopped at Organizing Your House Week Three, wherein we organized a bathroom cabinet / drawer / cupboard and this week we’re organizing the spot next to your bed.  Or your whole bedroom, whatever makes you happy.

The side of my bed is always a virtual landmine of stuff.  Lotion, medicine bottles, 7 kinds of headphones, cough drops, gum, at least 3 different lip balms, blank notepads and notebooks, 75 million pens (approx.) and books, books, booooooooks.  I tidy my side of the bed regularly, but it always piles back up to a huge stack of clutter and it drives me bonkers.  Especially since a bed / bedroom should be an oasis of calm and orderliness wherein you can chill out from all the stressful stuff in your life.

Let’s get started then.

How-To Organize Your Bedside

• Step 1: Pull everything out and see what you’ve got

I kind of wish I’d taken a ‘before’ photo of under my bed, just so you could be horrified.  But I couldn’t even stand it long enough to take a photo, I had to get it all cleaned up the minute I got the itch.  I’ll paint a picture for you though: lots of dust, lots of empty water bottles and old perfume samples pulled out of fashion magazines, a billion books and assorted random wrappers.

I don’t even know.

Part of my bedside includes my nightstand and a little basket underneath that stores all the stuff I can’t fit in my nightstand or under the bed.  It needed serious work.

• Step 2: Sort

I sorted everything into piles:

• What books will I actually read?
• What’s trash?
• What belongs in the bathroom?
• What belongs in an office desk?
• How many pens can a person really use at once? (the answer is one.  ONE.)
• How many bottles of lotion does a girl need (again, only ONE.)

• Step 3: Clean + Tidy

The cleaning and tidying part is the least fun for me.  I can sort all the livelong day, but cleaning and tidying is less enjoyable.  Still, get it done.  Vacuum, dust, wipe down, etc.

• Step 4: Put it back

Putting it back is the most satisfying step of all!  You get to make everything nice and orderly and see the fruits of your organizing labor!  Best. ever.

Put things back in an orderly way so the organized stuff looks visually appealing to you.  This is where your eyes can take a break and rest.  Color coordinate, sort by size, whatever you like to look at.  I organized the books under my bed by size (biggest on the bottom graduating to smallest on top), and then I stacked them in groups of four so it’s visually uniform.

• Step 5: Recycle / Donate / Toss

Remember those piles you made when you were sorting? (see Step 2)  Now’s the time to actually donate or toss.  Be brutal.  Remember my organizing motto: what would you pay to ship across the world if you were moving next week?  Probably not a lot.

Doesn’t it look so much better now that all the junk is gone?

The answer is:  Yuuuuuuuuuusssssssss.

// If you’re just getting started with this series, below are the weeks at a glance.  I’m organizing my whole house one room at a time, and I’d love it if you’d join me!  Tell me your weak spots and I’ll help.  Together we can do eeet! //

• Organizing Your House Week One
• Organizing Your House Week Two
• Organizing Your House Week Three

Allison

Hello there! I'm Allison Czarnecki, founder + editor of Petit Elefant, a blog all about style on a budget for every part of your life: style / home / travel / family. I do a lot of how-to beauty + style tutorials, travel posts, easy recipes, home remodel projects, and cool DIY crafts you totally want to try. I'm super happily married (to a hot Polish immigrant) and am the mother of two kids, a daughter and son, all of whom are featured here on the regular. We live in the country but we're a little bit rock + roll. Welcome!