Declutter 100 Items Challenge Link Up!

Do you feel lighter? 100 items lighter?

I do!

Although I didn’t really get as much decluttering and organizing done in the past month as I had hoped or expected (aren’t expectations often loftier than what we can actually accomplish? Or is that just me?), between Project Simplify and the Declutter 100 Items Challenge this month I am really beginning to feel much better about the state of clutter around my home.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still have plenty of clutter and “hot spots” around my house, but now several of them have been attacked and conquered!

The thing that I really like about decluttering and organizing is that it is encouraging and motivating to me.  Getting started on cleaning out and organizing one space spurs me on to tackle more disorganization, and instead of just looking past it, and living with it day in and day out, clutter starts to stick out to me and actually really bother me (remember my background), inspiring me to get my butt in gear and get things back in order (or maybe in order for the first time).

For example, my hall cupboard that looked like this just a few short days ago:

Now looks like this:

Woohoo! And now I’m ready to tackle the cupboard in my bathroom to better organize and consolidate some of the stuff from this cupboard into the bathroom cupboard.

I kind of lost actual count, but overall I’ve gotten rid of – either by throwing away or putting in our garage sale/donate pile in the basement – over 100 items! Everything from expired medications, to kids clothes, outdated jackets of mine and Jer’s, personal care products that I won’t be using, books, toys, and more!

Here are a few pictures of my stuff in the basement.

Please don’t mind the disorganization of these piles/boxes – we’re planning a garage sale at the end of May, so I’m sure I’ll be sharing how I prepared and organized for that.

Okay, so now it’s your turn!

Please share how you tackled the Declutter Challenge! Share a post with your before and after pictures, or pictures of your piles of stuff, whatever works for you, as well as how you went about decluttering and organizing and anything you learned from the process. Please be sure to link to your post page, and not your homepage, and please include a link back here at the end of your post.

I’ll probably leave the linky open through the weekend, so don’t worry if you still want to work on it over the weekend and then link up on Sunday or Monday.

I can’t wait to see how much you all have decluttered!  I know it will be even more inspiration and encouragement for me!