Lightening our load

This is what our dining room book shelf looked like last week:



Pretty crowded. Way more clutter than I like.

It actually doesn't look as badly in the pics as it did in real life. Some of the shelves had 2-3 rows of books squished into a single cubby. Not good.

After spending some time de-cluttering last week, the bookshelf now looks like this:



Ahhhh, much better.

Pay no attention to the boxes on the left hand side. That's a project for another day.

Back to the book shelf. I went through the overflowing collection and decided which books would stay. I really only kept our favorites, ones we hadn't read yet, reference style books, and board games. Look at this impressive pile of books that didn't make the cut. I'd estimate there's at least 75 books in this pile, which will be donated to Good Will.







Goodbye, books. You served us well.

I also cleared out a lot of the non-book items that were on the shelves. I moved some photo frames, wooden bowls, and other decor items into storage. Much cleaner. But this wasn't just a total purge section. I also made room for a few new things. Like this wooden cow sculpture that used to belong to Rob's late grandfather:



We also inherited a cute little wooden hippo, also from Rob's grandpa:



I also went through the keeper book pile and tossed out all the plastic dust covers that came with the books. I personally think the books look better without the covers.



Also note the vintage camera, which I wrote about here.

We've definitely lightened our load, but we've got more work to do (the d-ecluttering/organizing project in the attic bedroom is already underway). I really think de-cluttering is good for your soul.



Related reading:

• De-cluttering 101
• The organized kitchen
• Ringing in the new year with home organization
• Tackling the junk drawer
• How to clean and organize a closet