A before-and-after of India's room purge - Rage Against The Minivan

I’ve been working hard trying to reduce the excess “stuff” in my house. I recently read the book
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and while it’s practice is a bit extreme, I really did resonate with the idea that clutter only holds us back. I’ve been ssystematicallypurging every room in the house, but it has been hard to get the kids to buy in.

Recently, I had a little “come to Jesus” with my oldest daughter, who has a really hard time throwing things away. I told her we needed to pull everything out, put it on the floor, and put it back away, and I told her I wanted to her to really think about throwing about half of it away, because the volume was overwhelming.

And it WAS overwhelming . . . especially as she saw everything laying on the floor. I think she finally got the “burden of stuff” laid out like that, and she was onboard. We filled four trashbags, and we put everything back neatly in place. And we were both really happy with the result.

I got lots of inquiries about the rug when I posted this photo on instagram. It’s from Lorena Canals and I can’t say enough about her rugs. The designs are amazing but hetter, yet, they are WASHABLE. You can throw them in the washing machine like you would a comfortor which makes it so easy to keep clean in a kid’s room. (I also have one in my livnig room.) They are hypo-allergenic and fmade with non-toxic chemicals, natural dyes and without environmental hazards. HIGHLY RECOMMEND! They are also available on amazon here.

I’m happy to report that after this excercise, something clicked for India, and she has kept her room clean ever since. She’s even done a purge twice since without me even asking. She’s finally understanding that keeping less means more freedom from clutter.

And now, it’s time to tackle my kitchen cupboards . . .