From House To Home

The first step is admitting you have a problem, right? I’m more than a little reluctant to admit I need an intervention due to chronic clutter issues. It’s funny how I’ll spend hours on eBay searching for the perfect vintage lamp for my office while six piles (at last count) of papers sit on the floor waiting to be put into a filing cabinet I’ve not yet bought. The zippy zebra-print bench I found for the foot of the bed might as well be a cheap plastic hamper because half of my closet has been tossed on top, never to see a hanger again.

For ages I’ve known what needs to be done to improve both the look of my house and the quality of my domestic life. Yes, the time has finally come to stop ignoring these stark, organizational truths:

I’m never going to sell it

I literally have a room full of things I’ve earmarked to sell online or at a consignment store. Not only is most of this stuff ugly (this means you, mauve Formica bedroom set), it’s useless (sorry, 1998 Apple computer). It needs to be donated to charity or put out for a big garbage day. End of story.

I’ll never wear that again

Like most women, I have clothes in my closet (or in my case, on a zebra bench) that I put on only to take off again in favor of something else every time. There is a reason for this: it doesn’t look good on me. Even if they still have tags on them, clothes that don’t look good should not be kept. This is not hard to understand.

No one needs that many water glasses, bath towels, or beer koozies

Individually, my husband and I had the ideal number of these items. As a couple, we have enough to open a mid-sized hotel. The towels will go to the local animal shelter, the glasses to the thrift shop, and my husband’s beer koozies will just…go.

I’ve forgotten why I’m saving those magazines

Instead of ripping relevant pages out of the women’s titles I hoard like packets of artificial sweetener, I keep the entire thing, expecting to remember what it was that interested me in the first place. They are not gold bouillon, they are glossy stacks of paper—and they have a date with the recycling truck.

I feel better already, and I haven’t even done anything yet. Bad sign.