blairsunderland blogs: #5: Room Clean-Up Fit For a Queen

Two summers ago, I switched rooms with my little brother after I had been away at college for the year. He deserved the bigger room that I had at the time, since he still had many more years before he'd be moving out and I was living six hours away anyway. So I took the front bedroom, which is sized more for a nursery or office than a bedroom. I've made it work for the past two years, mostly because I don't live at home and I don't have to deal with living in such a small space.

Until now. Now I'm living at home for the summer, which means four months of dealing with it. And just to make things a bit trickier, I traded out my creaky old twin sized bed for a much nicer queen. Problem: I could barely fit the twin with all of my stuff, and now I've got a big ol' queen. Which is precisely why I added "Clean out my room" to my Summer 2012 Wish List.

I pared down on everything, from clothes to makeup to shoes to books. I ended up donating three or four full trash bags to Good Will. In all honesty, I could go through my things again and donate another couple of bags! (I'm all about simplifying!)

The main problem with my room and the amount of stuff that it held was that I have all of my things from both my apartment at school and what I've accumulated over the 20 years I've lived in this house. Which means too many clothes, too many products (shower items, makeup, and 12--yes, 12 boxes of floss), too many pairs of shoes, too much of everything. For a girl who hates flossing, 12 boxes of floss seems to be a bit much. Maybe if I liked it more, they'd go a bit faster. Oh well. I didn't have a good idea of what I had at home, so I'd buy things at school instead of bringing them with me.

Not only was this a full scale clean sweep, it was also a mental inventory of things that I don't need to purchase (ahem, floss).

Before I began, my closet was tiny and stuffed to the brim. I had no idea what was beneath the clutter or the tangled hangers (hate that)!

My wonderful new bed was more like a graveyard for random stuff I didn't know what to do with. It was sans bedskirt and sans the respect it deserves in all of its fluffy goodness!

My floor was a bit better than the rest of the room, but not by a lot. See that huge blue sack? Yeah, that's full of Fall and Winter clothes that I couldn't fit into my closet or dresser.

My cute antique painted dresser (it was my grandmother's) wasn't looking the best either.

And the worst of them all--this bookcase. Looks cute, right? Wrong. It was adorable when I had a larger room, semi-cute when I had a twin bed in this smaller room, and absolutely too big and too much for this little room and big bed! Unfortunately, it was full to the brim with DVDs, books, yearbooks, etc. Ugh.

So, I sorted through everything. Books I'd read years ago and will never read again went in the donation pile. Ballet flats, which I continue to buy although I hate wearing them (they don't fit my feet and give me huge blisters!) went in the donation pile. Note to self: stop buying them! Old high school t-shirts went in the donation pile. Off-season clothes went into bags and bins and were dropped off at my apartment at school, where I'll use them in the Fall.

That bookcase was disassembled and the pieces were neatly tucked away in the basement. (Thank heavens!)

I hung a couple of shelves on the wall above my bed, created a headboard by stapling fabric from Wal-Mart onto cheap canvases from Michael's, and bought some pillows for my bed from Target.

My closet was organized with bins and baskets that I already had, although most were re-labeled and assigned a new purpose!

Here's my dresser now. Ah, I can breathe again.

I ended up hanging this cross from Pier 1 after I decided the empty wall was too, well, empty!

And my closet! The hangers are still a bit of a mess, but that's another project. The left side is so much better!

My tennis shoes go in the pull-out rack, and my flip-flops, sandals, and flats go in the purple bin. My boots deserve a space of their own! :)

All of my personal items (medications, etc.) are in my cute Scout Homegoods find. On the right, the plastic pull-out drawers house hair tools (my flat iron and curling iron), small, travel sized products, and "Pens & Stuff."