Marie Kondo-ing my room

Marie Kondo is said to have transformed the lives of so many individuals with her book and her latest venture, the Netflix original „Tidying up with Marie Kondo”. And with spring at our doorsteps, more and more people are taking her advice and using it as inspiration to sort through their own homes. 

After watching around two episodes of the show in my final days of my semester abroad, I decided to start cleaning out my bedroom as soon as I got home. As you might have seen in my Where I Live series, my room is not very large. And for its size, I sure accumulated a lot of stuff in my 10 years living in this house. I spent the whole month of February sorting though all of my possessions, a process I found most rewarding (but more about this at the end of this post). 

To give you an idea of how much I truly went through and got rid of, I decided to write a post about it, summarizing my experiences and tips and tricks I picked up along the way.

This post is in collaboration with the wonderful Hannah fromJust Hannah Here, with whom I worked last June on this post (when she herself was hosting a month of collaborations) and had a lot of fun. If you head over to Hannah’s blog, you will find a post about how Marie Kondo affected her life. 

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The first challenge I wanted to tackle was my wardrobe. Though I do sort through my clothes around twice a year, I was never as cut-throat as I should of been in this process. Therefore, heaps and heaps of clothes found themselves on my bed, where I had dumped everything to go through. It took a couple of hours before I hd successfully filled up 3 giant bags full of clothing to get rid of and give away. I found items I didn’t even know I had anymore, proving that I had definitely lost my overview a long time ago. 

The clothing items I chose to keep were put back into the wardrobe. Previously I had had troubles with finding effective ways to store my Socks, underwear but also miscellaneous items like scarves, hats, gloves and bathing suits. I went to a local shop which offered storage containers of all shapes and sizes and came back home with a bunch of them which were then filled with the items I previously found difficult to store and find. 

I then sorted through all of my jewelry and shoes and am proud to say that I got rid of about 75% of my posessions in these categories. A lot of it was old, not my style anymore (hello big chunky necklaces from when I was about 13 years old) or even broken. Again I devided the items that I didn’t want anymore in a „throw away” bag and a „give away” bag. 

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This was another big area where I had a lot of items that were not in use. The problem with this area is that girls LOVE to gift each other makeup and other beauty or skin care products and so I had an alarming amount of products I didn’t even use.  I had, for instance, two drawers full of nail polish, of which I only used 3. Some of these nailpolishes, as well as lip sticks, eyeshadow (pallettes), etc. were 5+ years old which meant they had to go. I was using up valuable storage space I could have been utilizing for something of more Importance. 

I threw away around 90% of my beauty products and was stunned to see how much I truly had and didn’t use/need. Some of it had expired years ago, while other products were simply ones I knew I would not use in the future. I felt guilty for throwing some presents friends gave me away but told myself that keeping them was doing more harm than good. 

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DESK AREA

You would not believe how many pens I had. When I was around 12 to 14, I was an avid pen collector (yes I know how stupid that sounds but it is true: I hoarded pens like they were the most valuable thing on earth). I had drawers and drawers full of pens and penciles. Those drawers had been a source of anxiety for me for the last couple of years and I avoided opening them on the daily. I’m a simple girl: I don’t need 10 different brands of the same pen. I’m good with a black one, a blue one and a red one (for tutoring). 

So what I did was throw 99% of pens away. Penciles that were still useable were kept, sharpened and stored. I decluttered my entire desk in a matter of hours and felt like I was freeing not only my desk but also myself. Loving arts and crafts, I was also in possession of a bunch of different coloured strings, ribons, glitter, washi tape, paint, crayons, and other bits and bobs. 

I went through all of it and stored the rest I decided to keep in big plastic containers under my bed. I have three of them, all of them aquipped with wheels which makes it all the more easy to access these items whenever I need them. The other two boxen were used in different ways: the first now stores paper, unused notebooks, and so on, the other stores old school books and information I wanted to keep. 

I also divided documents I needed access to more frequently or were important into letter trays and three magazine files. This system has been a life-saver as I now know where everything is!

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Book lovers all over are probably shocked right now – „you sorted out your books? Your precious book collection?” HECK YEAH I DID. My problem: I had no space for new books. My goal: make space for new books. And so I did. To be fair, I of course kept most of my books but got rid of around 30-40. Half of those I sold to a second-and online store called rebuy, the second half I am planning to donate. May the books I didn’t like (or don’t need anymore) find a new home. 

And all of my magazines, you ask? Well, I threw all of them away. Every. single. one. I had been collecting magazines for YEARS, which also found a home in one of my bookshelves. I loved to collage with some of those magazins a couple of years back and I still do, but mostly I would just buy a specific one for those projects anyway, as I always had a clear picture of the finished product in my head. Getting rid of all of them was probably one of the best feelings throughout this entire process.

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Phew. With all aspects of my bedroom sorted out, I felt an odd sense of relief wash over me. Not only that, I felt like my mind, too, had been spring cleaned. Instead of opening some drawers or cupboards in dread, I now actually enjoy looking at what I have accomplished. In a way, I feel very proud of myself for taking on this task and actually following through. And beyond that, I feel like I can breathe in my room again. Clear room, clear mind.

As a reward for my efforts, I decided to treat myself with some decorating. I bought a bunch of new frames, got some of my most recent photographs developed and planned a trip to Ikea with a friend of mine. *Anyone else just take every chance they can get to look around in Ikea?* The decorating phase has already begun, though there is still a lot to do. I will definitely share the end result in a separate post!

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A big shoutout goes to one of this blog’s favourites, Hannah; click here (yes, right here) to read about how Marie Kondo affected her life and feel free to leave her some love!

Have you watched / read any of Marie Kondo’s work? If so, what do you think of her methods and has this affected you in any way or prompted you to take on a new project? Let us know!

AND, because I need some inspiration apart from Pinterest – any tips on decorating a bedroom? What is something (preferrably not too expensive, I’m a poor student) that instantly spices up a room / makes it more lively? Please, please, pretty please give me some of your brain juice (okay that sounds weird, but you get the idea… well, hopefully).