The first step of Konmari is cleaning and re-organizing your closet. A lot of people end there, but we had clutter that had built up EVERYWHERE, so I made myself a list of areas I wanted to tackle, using the methods Marie Kondo suggests in her book. (Read the book; it's worth the time.)
Marie Kondo has a recommended order. It made a lot of sense; she does not recommend doing one room at a time, she suggests doing "like" items together. Most of my rooms have only one category in them, so I did end up doing by room, but I also collected like items together to do as a batch. For example, we had small electronics stored in all kinds of corners of the house -- I have been moving them into one area and once I finish all the rooms I will tackle them as a group. Same thing for photographs -- all loose ones are moving into the boxes with the others, and will be my last Konmari project (probably this fall/winter).
Once I completed the bedroom, in order to keep going on my personal items, I had to tackle the bathroom next. I will spare you a ton of photos, but the main problem was that I had so much stuff crammed everywhere we were never able to have a clean countertop.
There are only two drawers and the underspace in the vanity, and a small medicine cabinet on the wall. Originally when I set up the bathroom, I had thought since the underspace was so big, it would be best to put a couple of plastic drawers down there and store all the "little items".
Once I pulled everything out of the space and laid it out on the floor (and top of the vanity, and on top of the toilet, and every surface space I could find) I realized my mistake. Several of my mistakes.
Medicine was the first one; by putting it under the sink we never knew what we had, so we kept buying more and not realizing when it had expired. A trash bag of expired allergy meds, cough meds, Nyquil, Netipots, ibuprofin, and antibiotic salves later, I knew we had to store it IN the medicine cabinet from now on.
I had made the same mistake with "extra" paper/supplies, like cotton balls and shampoo and q-tips; we couldn't see what we had so we kept buying more. And I was even worse about toiletry/travel bags and supplies!
So the (remaining) medicine got moved to the medicine cabinet, the extra supplies sit in the underspace, plainly visible, and the makeup and hair accessory drawers got Konmari'ed down to the items I actually USE and LIKE. We did end up with his-and-hers plastic caddies on the toilet top to hold the products we use daily, but anything dusty, expired or unliked hit the road. I think it was about 4 bags of pure garbage that got tossed, including the stained and ragged rugs.
I even made a spot in the underspace to easily store my hair dryer. Did you guys know it doesn't have to live on the counter? I didn't!
Here is photographic evidence of the best part of Konmari; it's not the purging that matters, it's the re-organization and re-evaluation of what you KEEP -- and WHERE you keep it -- that makes this entire project worth it.
I cleaned out the bathroom in early May. This is what it looks like in August; I didn't even have to clean anything up to take these photos. I just walked in -- this is what it looks like all the time now.
(Emily is hiding on the rug; I store a special cat-comb in here to brush her so when I walked in she was hoping that's why I was there. LOL!)
We are also looking at new vanities as a fall/winter project; this one has been falling apart for years but since it was covered in crap we pretended not to notice. Can't do that anymore! :)
But even as it is, it is again wholly functional and attractive. The clutter is gone!
Right outside the bathroom is the upstairs landing and linen closet; since the closet is so "small" (I thought) we installed a bureau at the top of the stairs to hold the extra sheets and linens.
Every drawer and shelf was full, of course, and even the top of the bureau with the photos had become a landing space/permanent home for cleaning products (for animal messes). It was time for Konmari.
First, everything came out of hiding. (My helpers on the corners of the bed. They both had to be there for EVERYTHING.)
Using the like-with-like method, this went pretty quickly. Towels were refolded into the same size, oddball items (like a pillow sham that matched a bedspread I had not had in twelve years) or tablecloths I never liked were discarded, and best of all, sheet sets and pillowcases were sorted and stored together. We had never done this before, which had resulted in all kinds of mismatched pillowcase combinations every time we stripped the bed. No more!
When I was done, not only did everything look tidy and easy to find in the closet, I no longer had to use the bureau for storage! But I did want to use it for decoration...
Which brought me back to the bedroom.
Previously I had decorated the bedroom in sort of an eclectic, found-art style; we had gold gilt frames up against the blank wall, and inside two of them I hung my dried bouquet from my wedding, and the small bouquet I had caught at my sister's wedding the year before mine (1995 and 1996). The dog had chewed a couple of holes in the melon-orange comforter we had so my husband started covering it with a sheet, which unfortunately led to the room looking like this too often for my comfort.
Blah.
I cannot tell you how much I HATED those brown sheets. HAAAAAAAAAAATE. They did not survive the linen closet purge, as they sparked the opposite of joy. (Not Sadness. Disgust.)
Another great Marie Kondo suggestion is that you think about what your goal/vision is for your space, and you organize the room to fit that. I wrote down:
"Want clean and bright. Don't like dark colors in my bedroom. Want to be able to find everything quickly and create outfits easily. Need to be able to see all the components of the outfit at once including accessories and shoes. Want to come home and unload everything in one place."
The closet cleaning I had done the weekend before took care of being able to see everything in the same place, and to find and see it all easily. Now I needed to work on clean and bright.
Enter the Keith Haring print.
My husband has had this since we met, probably since Haring was still alive. It's hung on many walls in our homes, and I even took it to work for a couple of years. It makes me happy every time I look at it. How can it not?
Once I knew it had to go up in the bedroom, the gilt frames and dried bouquets had to come down. but I couldn't throw them away -- not only did they have significant sentimental value, my wedding one had retained a lot of its color, eighteen-and-a-half years later.
I think you know where this is going, right?
The bouquet in its original state is in the photo frame on the wall, too. I love every part of this display. It's about love and family and marriage, and now also it's about keeping things fresh and seeing them in different ways. It sparks so much joy!
The bedroom is still in progress; eventually it will be painted a lovely ghost gray and then I can hang the rest of the pictures, but before that my husband needs to do his clothes and I want to find new bureaus for both of us. More fall projects! In the meantime, I am making smaller improvements to the space one by one. I've found a new duvet cover from West Elm and the perfect throw pillow (from Amazon, of all places), and we all love the bed so much more now. The dog isn't allowed in the room during the day anymore to prevent further chewing, but she loves laying on it when we are there.
Next time: how moving a box and a basket upstairs changed how paperwork flows through our house.
