Day 4 was a doozie. It took all day. Looking back I would not have done two really big projects back to back. Had I not been under a time crunch, with the kids going back to school on Monday, I would have done a smaller category in between. But, it’s done, and my son and I are happy with the results. To keep his focus, because this process does take focus, we took quite a few breaks.

My 11 year old son knew that this was his day. He was not super thrilled and tried to come up with every excuse not to help. I would have gladly done it by myself, but that’s not what this is about. It’s his stuff. He has to make the decisions, not me.

This is what we started with.

He is actually under the blanket on his bed.

On the whole it’s not too bad. The goal of today is to go through every single item, by category and keep the things he loves and discard the rest.

There are WAY too many stuffed animals. There is no need for 2 big buckets. He doesn’t even know what’s at the bottom.

We started with the clothes. We had recently gone through his hanging clothes, so that saved time. We tackled the drawers in his closet

This just looks dangerous.

The clothes went quickly because clothes are not the issue in this room, it’s all the little stuff. All of his “collections”.

Next category was books. He had a cardboard box full of books under his bed that we hadn’t unpacked from when we moved. His answer was to just leave them under there. Yeah, no. We ended up discarding more than half of them. He only kept the ones that he really liked and/or wanted to read.

Now they are all in his bookshelf. (He added a new giant baby head to his collection)

After the books we started on his toys.

He wasn’t too thrilled when I dumped the bin of Lego out. Everything was so jumbled up and we found a lot of non lego things that didn’t belong. We also realized that the bin we had them in was too deep which made it super hard to find pieces he was looking for.  After going through them, we decided to store them in a wider shallower container. Although he grumped through this part, he found some figures he’d forgotten he had and he realized it wasn’t as bad as he had anticipated.  We keep his Lego stored under his bed. They’re out of the way but easy to slide out when he wants to play with them.

This should not have taken all day like it did.  Like I said earlier, breaks are a must. The plastic boxes in his closet took a while to go through because everything is just so little and there was so much to go through. He ended up donating  a huge box and bag full of stuff. Although he would have rather been doing anything else, in the end, he was very pleased with the what we had accomplished.

Here are the final results. Some of the things I wouldn’t have kept, but if he could convince me he it actually “sparked joy” it could stay.  I wanted him to take the big saucer chair out, but he loves it. Like I said, his room, his stuff.

We put the empty Funko boxes in the green basket at the top because I was informed, you NEVER throw them away. A tote bag and extra sheets take up the rest of the shelf. I found the plastic boxes at the bottom at Big Lots for less than a dollar a piece. We’ve used this system for a while and he really likes it and it works well for us.

The open bins hold bigger toys that don’t fit in the boxes.

His desk drawers hold his trumpet music and music stand, sketch pads and notebooks and his markers, pens and pencils. I wanted him to get rid of the tray table, but he uses it when he’s sitting on his bed or in the big chair.  It holds his cat head lap desk and an extra laptop. The banker’s box underneath holds special notes and cards that he kept.

We got his stuffed animals down to one bucket. We moved his puppets up to the shelf. He collects puppets and he and his sister actually use them when they make up puppet shows. 

His ever important Funko Pop collection.

So that’s his room. There are not MAJOR changes, but there is a lot less stuff and everything is grouped together by category. He clothes are folded Konmari style so that he can see everything at once. I think that he will have an easier time keeping it tidy because we went through every single item in his room and he decided what he would keep and exactly where is should go.

The hardest part that I have found when doing my kids rooms is to let them make the decisions. Being a Type A personality I just want to take over, but I’m really only there to help with the categories and to have them stay on task. Other than that, they chose what “sparks joy’ for them and where to put their things that would work best for them.

It CAN be done. If you are thinking about decluttering  your home plan it out and don’t give up. It can be overwhelming at times, but remember how to eat an elephant. One bite at a time.

Stacy