Extreme Declutter & Clean With Me | Before & After

I had planned to try and go through all of my clothes and sort everything out before my trip. Spoiler alert. That didn't happen, so I’m sorting through all of my clothing now. In retrospect that was overly ambitious, so now I have to deal with everything.

I started by making small piles of stuff and sorting out the trash and random stuff that was left lying around. I found this mountain of dirty, unfolded clothes inside the closet. I had to pull all of that out to sort through that as well.

There was stuff everywhere and tons of laundry to be done. I washed the towels first to get them out of the way. Everything dried by the afternoon, so I literally just shoved it all in the closet without folding it to move on and get more done. 

I started this decluttering about two weeks after I got home from my trip. I still had clothes sitting on the drying rack from before my trip. I just haven't got around to it because they were clothes I don't wear much. I should have put them away but I didn’t. 

I decided that it was time to clean the massive mess that is my bedroom. I vacuumed the floor because every time I walked, I could feel the dirt moving around and stuck to my socks. We had lots of things in our bedroom that didn’t belong there. 

There were all sorts of random papers and bags. I even found a belly dancing skirt in there. I found my daughter’s slippers, as well as one shoe missing its match. I decided to just dump everything into the corridor to focus on the bedroom. 

There are always a few bits and pieces I decide to get rid of when I declutter. I either donate them or give them away on a pay-it-forward freecycle group I’m part of.

I did at least six loads of laundry but I wasn’t nearly done. It took a few months for me to really get on top of things. My suitcase was still packed from my trip because that's how hopeless I am.

There was so much random stuff packed in my suitcase. I had all these tea and coffee packets that my mom cleared out of the hotel room and dumped in my suitcase. I didn't need all that stuff. I took the suitcase outside and shook it out so I could put it away.

I had to spend a lot of time putting all the random items back where they belong. I don’t know how most of these things ended up in my room. My son's mugs from Christmas were in there. I guess he never used them. I found all sorts of random toiletries and a kitchen plate. Things come to my bedroom and never leave. We've got craft stuff in here. We've got batteries that should not be in here. 

I kept my step tracker on throughout the decluttering. I was walking back and forth, up and down the hallway all day, tracking my steps. I’m trying to get my steps up and make sure I keep moving. I decided to just put things down in the rooms they belong in, without putting them away. This way things are at least in their places and it is closer to getting done.

I filled up boxes with random things like this mosaic kit that I still didn't finish. I do want to finish it and put it in the garden. I tossed the bowl of leftover grout still lying around from the mosaic. 

I decided to store a little projector I found. We used to love using it to watch movies in my room. It was a lot of fun, but it's time to store it. I really need the space and we haven’t used it in a while.

A lot of stuff got dumped on my craft table so I’m clearing it all off. I had this mirror on it that I got from the Buy Nothing group. I'm going to donate it back to the group. I was going to set up a makeup table in my bedroom, but I think I’ll get more use out of crafting space. 

Once I cleared the table I gave it a good wipe down. It was pretty dusty. Then I decided to put it outside. I don't know what to do with it yet. I don't want to give it away, but there's no room for it in the bedroom. 

Going through another box of random stuff, I found a couple of plant holders. I move those outside. I also found another of my son’s Christmas gifts in there. It’s time to get things back to their places. Often when I don’t know what to do with things I dump them in a box to deal with later.

I folded all the laundry up and put it all away. That was a major task. I managed to get the very last pile of washing done and hung out. I was so excited to finally be able to sweep the floor. Our room gets so dusty. It's an old house, so I try and keep on top of it, but sometimes it's a lot.

Extreme declutter before and after

Here is how it looked after. The rest of the bedroom is all clean, and it's probably going to stay like this for about a day before people end up bringing things back in here. I think everything looks beautiful.

This decluttering and cleaning project took many months, but it had to get done. Does your home get this overwhelming? Leave me a comment and let me know.