November 20

13 comments

The Never Seen Before Picture of the Living Room



After pic of living room
This is one of the After Pics. It’s taken a year to get it like this.

It’s taken me a year to get the living room to the point where I’m not embarrassed to let anyone in. Even though I’ve gotten rid of over 1,300 things, there’s still way too much stuff in here. Early in the decluttering process, I was wondering how other people could have things but not have a disaster like I did. I realized that I didn’t have any storage closets or any place to put things. If I was ever going to change things, I would need to get rid of as much as possible and then find a place to keep the things I wanted.

After thinking about it for awhile, I decided to add shelves along the back wall of my living room with the additional plan of putting up a wall to hide it all.  I was going to make it like a pantry so I could keep mostly kitchen things and random living room things in there.  It hasn’t quite turned out the way I wanted.  There’s no wall up yet so you see all these shelves when you first come in the house.  Not exactly a clutter free look.  So, I’m thinking of putting up a curtain or something before Christmas, just to block the view of it.  Here’s the pic with all the shelves on the other side of the room.

After pic of living room
This is the other After Pic with all the shelves.  They hold a lot!

When I sit here and look at those shelves, I’m sure that I can get rid of more things.  There’s still so much decluttering left.  Now that I’ve put most things in the rooms they belong, I feel like it will be easier to let some of it go.  The real trick is to not slow down now.  If I slack at all at this point, I feel like the clutter could easily take over again.  There’s not enough storage for everything and a few new things would be enough to tip it in clutter’s favor.

I’ve posted pics of small areas of some of the piles of clutter but I’ve never posted a pic of the whole living room before in it’s hoarder state.  It’s extremely embarrassing and I probably shouldn’t post it but I want anyone who is feeling hopeless to know that it can be cleaned up.  I can’t lie and say it’s easy or fun because it’s not.  It’s really hard which is why it takes so long.  Letting go of good and bad memory reminders is emotionally draining.  Some days it’s physically hard moving things around.  And it’s always time consuming figuring out the best ways to get rid of things.

The Before Picture of the Living Room

Well, here it is.  Ready to see it?  I’m not! And yes, it’s small on purpose.  Nobody needs to see a great big pic of this mess!
before pic of living room

On the right of the chair in the middle of the room, there was a small path that we used to get through.  That’s the only place in the pic that you can see the old ugly carpeting that was in the room.  I love my new floors.  It’s made such a difference.

I also painted two of the walls yellow which really brightened up the room.  You can’t see it in the before pic, but where there’s some light curtains on the double windows, there were some really dark curtains hanging up.  It’s much brighter and happier in the room now.  I love being in here and I don’t always have that feeling of wanting to be somewhere else.

You may also like

Will We Ever Sleep Again?
The New Countertop Dishwasher
What’s On The Current Agenda?
Feeling a Little Better
  • I am in AWE!! It looks great. I really wish I had taken before pictures when we started our journey. Great job!

    • Thanks!!! It drives me crazy when I forget to take pics or I don’t take enough. And then there’s those times that the pics just don’t turn out.

  • It looks like you have a gorgeous floor! I live in an apartment with light colored carpet (which naturally looks worn out and dirty even though I vacuum often) and I would love to instead have the floors you have! Keep that uncovered as much as possible! 🙂

    • It kind of surprises me how much I want the floor cleared off just so I can see it! LOL!! I don’t know why we didn’t do this years ago but oh well, I’m glad it’s done now!

  • I’m with “lifeasinterpret”, you have done an amazing job. You inspire me with getting my stuff done. I couldn’t have done my 21 day declutter challenge if it hadn’t been for you going strong as you did. No doubt the hard work has been worth it, look at your place now.. oodles of clear space 🙂

    • Thanks!! It helped having people cheering me on! There were some rough days there, and I’m sure there will be many more, but I feel like I’m on my way to a clutter free home. Yay!! 🙂

  • Jen – you have done and amazing job! I can see why you have been so keen on your decluttering activity and how well you have progressed. You should be very proud and excited. As usual, you are an incredible inspiration.

    • Thank you! I can’t believe it’s taken this long to get to this point but when I look at the before picture, I know that all the hard work was worth it!!

  • {"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

    Subscribe now to get the latest updates!

    >
    %d bloggers like this: