My husband and I live in a townhouse (attached on both sides) and have the laundry/service room all the way in the back, behind a wall in the back yard. It is a perfect place to hide clutter and junk! And so it was… filled to the brim with shelves from top to bottom and side to side on all four walls!

Last year we decided that it would be the perfect place to set up a massage room for me. I hired a workman who was supposed to come last May, as soon as he was finished with his job at the time, about 2 weeks.

So we hauled everything out to the patio, the terrace, and a few rooms in the house… total chaos, but temporary (so I thought).

Then the rainy season started and we had to shove everything back inside… I was so upset! Then, I had an AHAA moment. I decided that it was the Universe’s way of telling me that I had to ‘get rid’ of most of the stuff.

So I’ve spent most of this last year really analizing every single thing that was there… giving away and tossing, even the shelving!

The workman finally came 2 weeks ago and everything is a mess again, but I’m HAPPY! I will have a spacious, clean laundry room and sewing area with only the essentials, plus a small attic-type space for necessary storage; AND a beautiful massage and Spa room so that I can work at home.

I plan to go through every single box and bag BEFORE I put anything away again.

I just love the ‘breathing room’ that we’ll have now. Yay.

Once we got into the new place, we put all the boxes we could possibly fit in that empty room and called it Box City. Even though we had given away loads of books, clothes and household items, we still had stuff a plenty. But by keeping it in Box City, we could manage the process and live comfortably in the rest of the apartment. We continued to find things we could offload. Soon Box City became Box Village. Two months later, it is not even Box Neighborhood.

Since we moved, we lived with almost no clutter. Now it has crept back in. Today, we took photos of every room in the new apt. for my mother-in-law, who cannot travel to see us. That meant every room had to be de-cluttered to make the photos “interior design magazine picture perfect.” After the photo shoot, I put things back in their place. I feel renewed.

I hope these pointers on an empty room and photo shoot help others.

Heartily recommend playing “let’s pretend” on this one

The reality is – starting this weekend – I am going through a room at a time and purging what I don’t want to pack or pay someone to haul for me.

Decluttering a home of objects is mental and physical. You must decide to get rid of an object, and you must find and pick up the object.

When you move, you are forced to do the physical half of decluttering; you must literally touch and pick up every object you own. The only extra effort you have to make is mental: to decide whether to junk it (sell it, give it away, or trash it) or keep it.

If you are unable or unwilling to declutter while moving, will you ever declutter?

It is just amazing how much “stuff” can be gathered in such a short amount of time living somewhere. I’ve also noticed that the more storage space / square footage you have is almost directly proportionate to extra “stuff” — the human condition likes to fill containers and empty space.

Matt is right on about the great feeling after getting rid of those useless items that often clutter our lives. Great post!

My last move really allowed me to get rid of a lot of items that served no purpose — gave a huge amount to the Goodwill and also sold a lot just by using Amazon.com; pretty cool to get money back for things that were basically just dead weight.

I swore they would not go into another Uhaul with me.

I made $98.00 on them.

Although we didn’t move much extraneous stuff (except for shoes), it was interesting to me that sometimes you have items that you think you “should” have. For example, I had a couple of oven mitts. I don’t ever USE mitts, so why did I have them? I had just mindlessly put the mitts in with the hot pads and didn’t even consider WHY I own them. I filled a big box with these types of items and sent to Goodwill.