I have always been an advocate of the force-yourself-to-declutter-by-inviting-guests-over method to get some of my neglected clutter cleaned up.
Sometimes it’s great. Sometimes, not so easy.
I’d like to share a personal story with you from this past Thanksgiving (October 10 this year, here in Canada). I hope you enjoy it, and get inspired to tackle a neglected project .
I did not even have to look for an event–it was our turn to host the family Thanksgiving meal. And, Thanksgiving is a doosey. There is a lot of prep work.
My family was coming over on the Sunday, for a 1:00 meal of turkey with all the fixings. Being that we usually have our Thanksgiving meal early afternoon, there is a lot of prep work that needs to be done Saturday to ensure the turkey is in the oven on time Sunday morning, and everything else is ready too.
Because Sunday morning is so tight, I try to prep as much as possible on the Saturday. So, Saturday I picked up the turkey, bought the groceries required, cut up the bread for the stuffing, washed and prepped the veggies. And, cleaned the house.
Everyone gets in on the act to clean the house. The floor gets washed, the carpets vacuumed, toilets cleaned, and the house tidied up overall — all the regular stuff.
What was bugging me for a while though, was a couple of nooks in the dining room cabinets that were filled with unknown stuff, with knickknacks placed strategically in front of it, to hide the stuff behind.
Usually this mess is really easy to ignore. These nooks have been cluttered for a long time.
But recently, this old clutter was bugging me more than usual. Usually, I just make sure the clutter is mostly hidden and hope the lights are dim enough for the shadows to disguise the mess behind the veneer of cleverly placed knick-knacks.
Even though my goal is to clean up some outstanding mess when I’m cleaning for company, with a high-prep time like Thanksgiving, I tend to skip it.
No matter. This was a habit goal I had set for myself, and this year I wasn’t going to break it, not even for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I’ll find a way to get all the cooking and general cleaning done – somehow I always do.
So Saturday afternoon, I sat down in front of this mess, and started pulling things out. I figured I’d tackle one shelf and see how it went. At worse case, I’ll put away a couple of items I found in the back.
I completely emptied the shelf — usually the best way to tackle a job like this. Was I ever shocked at the junk that I found behind my cleverly placed knick-knacks.
I found old short candle stubs that should have been thrown out years ago, incense and candles I didn’t know I had that I could have been using, empty candy wrappers, confetti, and a host of other small items.
I looked at all this stuff in front of me — hmmm. My son came over and giggled. He fully remembered hiding those chocolate bar wrappers in days gone by. Well, he got the honor of throwing them all in the garbage.
About three quarters of the items on that shelf were garbage. Even a large decorative piece that had dried hot peppers on it was beginning to disintegrate, and got tossed. Everything else got put away in its place.
It didn’t take me nearly as long to clean out this shelf as I had always thought it would. It helped that I had oodles of other things to attend to, so I was on a mission to get it done quickly. I had a deadline, so I could not dilly dally down memory lane as I cleaned out the shelf.
I was so thrilled with this shelf, that I went on to clean the other side. I pulled out everything from the second adjoining shelf, and proceeded to clean that one up also.
And yes, this is a picture of the nook after it was cleaned up.
It took a little longer to deal with the second nook, but not much. There were no hidden candy wrappers, but there were hair ties, notepads, and more knick-knacks to decide whether to keep or trash.
When the second shelf was cleaned out and arranged, I stood back and was in awe at the transformation. I beat myself up a bit — why hadn’t I done this sooner. It was so easy to do. However, I was thrilled this mini project was done.
I had so much energy as I went on to do the regular cleaning, and prep work for Sunday.
And every time I passed by the dining room over the next couple of days, and saw my organized nooks, I smiled. I couldn’t help it – they looked so nice and uncluttered.
As I write this post, I know that for a lot of my American friends reading this, Thanksgiving is approaching.
So, as you’re getting ready to entertain for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any other event, ask yourself:
Is there a space that’s been silently nagging at you that could use a clean-up?
It could be a bunch of hidden junk like mine was, or a space that’s gotten a bit disheveled over time.
Clean it up before you begin your regular preparations for your event. And enjoy your cleaner, more organized home as you celebrate. You deserve it!
To your organizing success,
Barb
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