Tips for decluttering and organizing to get ready for a new school year and the holidays.
The start of the school year is always bittersweet for us. We love the slower summer days and sleeping in, but it's always nice getting into a schedule again too!
I also love the anticipation and prep for the second half of the year. Fall and the holidays are definitely my favorite, and my energy ramps up as the temps cool down.
Because of that, I find that I tend to get the urge to declutter and organize now more than earlier in the year. I love a calmer, organized house — I find it helps when the busyness of school and extracurricular activities schedule start up.
I've been tackling a few spots in particular, and I thought they may inspire you to work on some of your problem areas too!
The last month of the summer is always busiest for us, so I tend to let things pile up. I'll see the mountains of stuff growing and just say to myself "I'll tackle it when 'X' is done." Whatever 'X' is at the time. 😁
I give myself that grace when our lives are busy, and I think it's important we all do that!
Years ago I shared these awesome metal pull out shelves for our bathroom vanities:
They have been SO helpful because we have dumb vanities that have doors instead of drawers (and it was totally my fault for not catching this).
This side had become cluttered and full over the past few months, so I finally sat down to go through all of my makeup and toiletries.
I took everything out, sorted through old stuff and things I don't use, and then cleaned all of the items and washed the metal drawers.
Now everything has room to breathe and I have plenty of space!
I also pulled out the two small drawers on my vanity and did the same for those. Since these are the only built in drawers in the cabinet, I have to use the space well.
I used a few of my favorite drawer bins for the smaller stuff and made sure to only include things I use every day:
