If you missed Day 1 of the challenge, click here.
Welcome to the second day of the purge challenge! Today we’ll be focusing on the living room space and entryway. Although we spend a lot of time in our living room, I try to keep it as clutter-free as possible. I find that this helps me keep the space tidy, and it’s also much easier to clean. In fact, I’ve been told that my living room is “simple” and “plain”. It doesn’t bother me, and I actually embrace my minimalist style because it’s what I like. 🙂
Since I don’t have much to work on in the living room, I’ll be focusing my efforts on our entryway closet. My toddler’s toy box is in there, and it’s gotten a bit out of control. I need to do some serious toy purging, since she doesn’t even bother with half of the toys she owns. I also have to go through a few containers that we keep stored in there.
Not sure where to start? Here are some ideas to help you get started:
Visible surfaces
Clear visible surfaces, and only keep out the things you need or love. The more stuff you leave out, the more you have to fuss with and clean later on. Some areas to focus on are tables, entertainment centers and bookshelves. And if something doesn’t belong in the living room, out it goes.
Movies, books or magazines
I don’t typically keep movies or books in the living room, but I know many families do. Now it’s a great time to go through your collection and purge anything your family doesn’t use. Consider donating or selling what you don’t keep, so you can fund your summer plans. What you do decide to keep, contain it or group it together, to keep the space looking tidy.
Decor
If you find there’s decor that is not working in the space or you don’t love, get rid of it. This can be wall decor, throw pillows or decorative accessories. I know it’s hard when you don’t have something to replace it, but trust me, you’ll feel way better after parting ways.
Electronics
It’s easy to make the living room the default space for all electronics. If you have electronics that don’t get used, or collect dust most of the year, find a new home for it. No point in keeping stuff that takes up space, and could be sold for cash.
Again, if you feel this is too overwhelming for one day, spread it out over several days. Some progress is better than none, so don’t feel like you have to keep up with my schedule.
I hope you’ll join me back here later on to check out my progress, and share your own!
**UPDATE**
Since today’s challenge was a bit easier than I expected, I decided to also tackle some cleaning. I moved all some of the furniture out of the way and vacuumed the areas that are harder to reach.
It was raining throughout the day, so the lighting isn’t the greatest.
Here’s the entryway closet. The toy box was a bit out of control.
It’s sooo much better now. This is all she owns besides books, movies and her kitchen playset.
I can’t believe I filled a whole bag from that tiny space!
How did you do today? I’d love to hear about your progress!
Yay another space that was mostly done already 😉 We don’t spend as much time in the living room as we should (because we have an office, and we spend most of our time on the computers) so it’s normally kept in a state of decency. There’s stuff out there that *could* be stored better, but we just don’t have the actual storage space for it (the large “bags” for the motorcycle, for example, and the various helmet visors and whatnot. They don’t stay on the bike while the bike is here (versus stored at our friends’ house) because it just has to be parked outside.
My media shelf is done, and the LEGO shelf could do with a re-organization, but the only way to improve it would be to have different bins to hold the LEGO, which we don’t have the cash for right now (it’d be expensive to do, even from the Dollar Tree!).