Dear Friends,

For the past few weeks I have been working on a dream of mine. I have wanted to turn my extra bedroom into a studio. In order to do that I needed to use my imagination.

I started to feel guilty about not having an extra bed for guests. The truth is we have sleep over guests rarely. We have two couches and an inflatable bed; we could even put them up in the Hampton Inn. As I continued to explore furniture options for the room; I looked at Murphy beds, credenza beds, and fold up mattresses. There was just one problem, well maybe two.

These beds were expensive. I didn’t want to spend that kind of money. That bed needed to go away. It had become a major hot spot in our home. I didn’t need more furniture to pile stuff on. It took a week to get rid of the queen sized bed.

What is one of our first habits? It is to declutter for 15 minutes each day.  That is what I started to do! There were bins under the bed filled with wrapping paper and purses. Where was I going to put this stuff. YOU CAN’T ORGANIZE CLUTTER; YOU HAVE TO GET RID OF IT!

I started to think about friends of mine who were moving to smaller homes and decided that less is more! Just how much wrapping paper do you need anyway? I got ruthless! It was such a great feeling.

As I was pondering where to start in the decluttering process; everything hinged on the bed being removed from the room. Last Thursday the bed was picked up! I was so excited.

Let the remodel begin!

This weekend I have been in project mode. Each morning I would make a list of the things I wanted to accomplish. I would set my timer for 15 minutes and just do something in that room. Items are being decluttered and my truck is filling up with bags to donate. I am doing 15 minutes each hour.

I started in the closet; I had a plan.

Move all my clothes to our closet. This meant I had to get rid of a lot of clothes. I was ruthless again.

Relocate the leaves to my dining table in the hall coat closet. To make room I had to move more clothes to our closet. These clothes are my clothes for speaking engagement.

I have gone through the bins and baskets in the room. The closet is looking great. I am working my way around the room. Detail cleaning as I go, to give it the finishing touch to that corner.

One more corner and I can start making the room pretty. I found new sheers for the window in the stuff in the closet and I ordered a new slipcover for my chair.

The room is coming together nicely. Once I started to declutter, my dream began to become a reality! I didn’t have to spend a lot of money either. Proof again that the cheapest remodel of all is to declutter.

FlyLady