Bedroom decluttering

I am slowly going through our entire house and decluttering/reorganizing. Its a slow process because I haven't given myself a deadline; I'm just doing what I can, when I can. No need to stress over it!

I hadn't intended on doing any decluttering this weekend. But I noticed I needed to dust again and realized that for a while now (we won't dwell on how long exactly), I haven't been moving the stuff on my dresser and DH's chest of drawers to dust. I just dust around it. Lazy, I know! But if I moved it, then I'd have to deal with the clutter. And I never have time for that. Saturday, C went down for what I knew would be a nice long nap (she skipped her morning nap so she was exhausted), so I got to work.

Here's a shot of my dresser before I tackled it. And this was after I already removed some of the clutter up there. I forgot to take a picture of it before I started.

That humidifier has been sittin there since last winter when I was sick...yeah. I should have taken a picture of the humongous dust bunnies under all that junk. Yikes! That big stack of papers, believe it or not, came out of my purse when I sort of cleaned it out a few weeks ago. Behind the humidifer what you can't see is a mass of chargers, ear buds for the cell phones, and some other random stuff.

Soooo much better! Its amazing how much better I feel walking in to my bedroom now, too. I try to keep knick-knacks to a minimum, since all they do normally is collect dust for me to worry with, but some things I won't part with. Like that boutineer. My husband wore than on our wedding day (we used all silk flowers so we'd have them forever - my bouquet is in a vase on the mantel in the living room). And we actually use those candles occasionally. Not so much now that C is mobile, but before she came along, we constnatly had candles lit around the house.

Oh, my dresser is an antique. We found it at an antique mall years ago and talked the guy down to $100. Its very fragile but I love it! I've thought about painting it, but I just can't do it. I love old furniture. ( :

I also took a stab at DH's chest of drawers. He's the type who comes home and empties his pockets, and it amazes me how much he crams in there every day! He needs a man purse, haha.

And this was when he wasn't home, so a bunch of stuff was in his pockets still. I gathered everything up and placed as much as I could into the basket there, then I got another basket from the living room that I wasn't using, and filled it up, too. I took out some of the hats (the ones he never wears) and put them away, but I left his favorites because he likes to have easy access to them. If it were my dresser, it would look totally different, but since he's a man, I have to be a little lenient. ( :

Ahhh....much better. Unfortunately, it didn't stay like this long. DH didn't like having 2 baskets up there. But, he did go through all that mess and downsized the clutter, so it still looks nice. As long as it doesn't get to the point it was before, I'll be happy! (Oh, and this chest of drawers is an antique find, as well. Its a beautiful piece!)

It really does make me feel so much better when there's less clutter around, and things are more organized. That way, I can really see and appreciate what we have. We have some beautiful furniture throughout our home (quite a bit of it antique), and there's no need to add a bunch of clutter to it and hide the beauty. I reorganized our walk-in closet earlier this year, and it made a huge difference! I donated a huge black trash bag full of clothes we don't wear, but I still have a ton of clothes. We both do, actually. Just last week, I went through mine and donated another grocery bag full. I intend to do that more often. I just don't need all the clothes I have. I don't need a lot of the clutter that I have around the house, but its been hard for me to let go of some things. I'm working on it, though! ( :

I think next I'm going to tackle the bookshelves in the living room. We've got nice big built-in bookshelves surrounding the fireplace. I have been pleased with the way I decorated them when we first moved in (almost 4 years ago), but I'm thinking they need to be refreshed. I have a ton of pictures of C that I want to display, but we don't have a lot of wall space, so the best place for them is the bookshelves. Next project!! ( :