I'm a minimalist, but still one can spread out if one has extra room and accumulate things.
I just found out that my son and his husband are going to move in with us March 1, so I am doing my best to have rooms ready for them. They are going to move out of their apartment and into our two guest bedrooms on our main floor and will also have the basement man cave area and our main floor full bathroom for their own private use. (They are planning to be here for six months to save money for an out of state move later this year). They will of course have access to our whole house, but the rooms I mentioned, I am clearing out everything that is mine that is not furniture, and they can decide if they want to use the furniture, get rid of any of that, or maybe put some of the nicer things in their storage locker (They will need one for their stuff) and move in some of their furniture in instead (Things that would be nice to have in those rooms in the future after they have moved out when they visit).
What I just did this past week was go through all the things that are mine or guest items (comforters, linens, pillows, etc.) in our cedar chest, in our attic , in the one downstairs closet (everything in that was mine and it is totally empty now), in the five bathroom vanity drawers and under the sink in the downstairs bathroom (this is empty now), and in the dresser, and night stand in the downstairs bedroom (all is empty in those now too). I pitched some items, I boxed / bagged some items for Goodwill and brought those over yesterday, and I moved items I wanted to keep in those room into the cedar chest and attic (had plenty of room in those areas after clearing out things there). I have gone thru all my stuff now. I also got rid of 28 books (Goodwill) in my office to make room for office supplies (computer paper that was in the closet I cleared) that I want to keep and can store that where the books were now. So I am done with the stuff that I own that I wanted to look thru and can make decisions on without consulting with anyone else.
I also bought five small boxes from Lowes and got DH (He's very neat and a minimalist too) to agree to go through books on the bookshelf in one of the guest bedrooms. He thinks he'll be able to get rid of 3/4 ths of the books in there. That will free up that space for the guys. I also got DH to agree that we will move the desk he doesn't really use in the one guest bedroom to the loft off our main bedroom. It will fit nicely there. This will give them space for their two desks. DH mostly just has some office storage items that he keeps in that. He doesn't use the desk except for storage, and said he'll be able to get rid of some of the stuff in that desk.
Most of the items in storage in our home are my son's (antiques from grandparents and great grandparents he loves and would like to have in his own home some day, souvenirs / collectables from various trips that are meaningful to him, cool childhood toys (Lionel train stuff, Brio train stuff, stuffed animals he didn't want to part with), family photography original stuff (DS has converted everything to digital, but wants to keep all the original stuff (equipment, movies, photos, audio stuff) if we have the room - stuff dates back to 1910 (my grandfather and mother were really into photography and DH converted all their stuff (86 movies - edited stuff down, 3000 photos, etc. as a Covid project). Stuff is reasonably well organized and labeled and in storage areas of our home. I don't have any problem with being his storage locker as long as things are organized, tidy, and in storage areas, not living areas.
I also bought three clear storage boxes in case DS wants to store all the Disney souvenirs that are on IKEA shelves, and antique desk / dresser, etc. that are his in the one guest bedroom (the biggest one) that was previously DS's room. I turned that into a themed Disney guest room when DS moved out.
Anyway, as for decluttering it's now down to me offering to assist DH and DS if they want my help.
I'm proud of the one totally empty closet, the empty storage areas in the downstairs bathroom, the empty dresser, and the empty night stand. I was on a mission to get all that cleared this week and finished yesterday. Yeah!
I will never understand a couple of the material choices the spec builder made on our home-went high end for some but others were just
don't they watch any of the real estate/home flipping shows that prove over and over how kitchens and bathrooms are vital in selling??? but the awful countertops this guy chose likely turned off many buyers.
wall paneling??? granted, if anyone ever did any renos to our first home (which was 30 years old when we bought it back in '91) they would find that in one of the bedrooms there was sheetrock put on TOP of paneling b/c it was less expensive than ripping it out. the only flooring surprise someone someday will find in my current home is tile flooring underneath all the high-end lvp in the entry/ kitchen/bathrooms/laundry room b/c again it was much less expensive to put it on top, our flooring guy said it was perfectly level so no dealing with that-and as an added bonus it provided tremendous boosting of our insulation (energy bills dropped like crazy).
What I did last year was put a cardboard box by the front door, I told everyone in the house they had to put at least 5 items in the box every week. Doing that we hauled off 40 large boxes and lots of other bigger items. I think I will try to do that again but try to do 10 items a week (40-50 items per month). I'll check back in at the end of the month.
