Seeing Decluttering Results and October Goals

 

Family Room Bookcase 

This is the "before" picture of the family room bookcase, taken in mid September.  Five shelves with four of them filled with books and the middle shelf displaying four brass decorative items.  I didn't pull out the trolley table with the inlaid work to take a better picture of the bottom shelf because it was too much work (the trolley table has a removable lower shelf and I've stored jars of jam and chutney on that shelf).  The bookcase was sort of organized by categories of books.  The top shelf held books on religion, the second shelf held crafts books (mostly knitting, quilting, and crochet), the middle shelf held decorative brassware, the fourth shelf held more crafts books and a few other non-craft books, and the fifth, bottom most, shelf held books about gardening and decorating.  

I have a tendency to jump from place to place when decluttering, rather than going through one shelf or drawer and decluttering that before moving on.  I am not sure why I do that, except, perhaps, I find it easier.  Somehow, it doesn't seem quite so overwhelming to pull a couple of items from here and another item or two from there, knowing that, sooner or later, it will make a difference.  The downside of that is, of course, I can never say I have completely decluttered one particular area or category of items.

However, when it came to this bookcase, I had an idea of what I wanted the top shelf to look like.  

Top Shelf: Before

I asked myself which books were most important to me and which books might I realistically re-read.  Here is the end result of the decluttering of the top shelf:

Top Shelf: After

I decluttered approximately one third of the books that were on the shelf.  I might not keep this particular arrangement, but, I don't intend to add more books to this shelf.  

I have started decluttering the next shelf, but, I haven't finished it.  Here's the "before" picture:

Second Shelf: Before

I will continue to declutter this shelf, and other areas of my house, in October.  The October decluttering goal is 10 items a day for a total of 310 items for the month. 

 

Will you be joining me in an October decluttering challenge?