What's Up Wednesday:: 02

Hey all, and welcome back to What's Up Wednesday!

With Allie's wedding quickly approaching, we are finishing up some last minute projects & getting ready for the big day. I have a lot of things going on lately with school, work, crafts, and house stuff, so I've been super busy trying to accomplish everything!

I've been getting rid of a lot of furniture & decor, and lazily looking for replacements. So far I've gotten rid of two dressers, a desk, a few chairs, and some storage (which went to my mom's). Some of it was well loved, but didn't fit my vibe anymore.

Which brings me to my next thing...my mind is once again gravitating towards a different style. I know, I know. It's like some kind of seasonal disorder, I swear.

I've decided that while I do like the way the farmhouse style looks, I'd much prefer to visit it than to live in it. There are far too many things everywhere, which makes it difficult to clean, and a cluttered house really does make for a cluttered mind. I need more modern, clean, open space in our house.

Any of you that follow me on Instagram or Pinterest know that I've reverted into crushing hard on Mid-Century Modern stuff again...the simplicity is to die for. One look at my "Office Love" or "Furniture Love" boards will tell you I have a slight obsession.

I'm tired of coming home and dreading doing any household work because there seems to be just so much of it. I want to come home and be able to relax, have minimal chores, and more time to enjoy my home. I've decided to slowly start paring down, room by room, beginning with our basement.

I know it seems odd to start with a room that we don't often use, but I have my reasonings:

• Because we don't use it that often, I don't have to worry about it being a disaster zone while I go through everything. It's already a mess, so this won't really feel much different, but at least it'll be moving towards something rather than just sitting there.
• I can take my time. Meaning I don't have to rush & get in that zone where I just throw everything out & end up tossing/misplacing something important.
• I'll have a place for when I'm cleaning out the other rooms of the house. My "maybe" items will be able to go into the basement once it's done, as the current plan is to have that room be storage & "in-progress" projects. My Modern "Old World" Study just isn't going to happen; truth be told, I don't really need or want it at this point anymore. I have my MCM office & rec room upstairs, and that is more than enough.

I want our basement walls to look more like this than just big piles of boxes & things. I have three of these units that can be used. You know where they are? Yep, the storage unit. Fail.

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Next will be our kitchen:

• Extra dishes be gone. We have several sets of dishes, which leads to massive piles of dirty ones waiting to be washed. I plan to stow away our extras & only keep one set out to help force us into doing the dishes more often. We don't usually have paper plates laying around, so we'll have to wash if we want to eat.
• Same goes for cooking pans. Casserole dishes, pots, pans, etc. Duplicates are nice for the holidays, but on a regular basis, they are completely unnecessary. There are only two of us, not 20.
• Glassware is still debatable. When he has his friends over, they use a lot of glasses, and I'd still rather have them use the ones I don't care about as much in case they drop them on our ceramic tile. Dollar tree glasses are easily replaceable. My favorite IKEA ones are an hour and a half drive away.
• Appliances. You'd be surprised at how many extra small appliances we have. I couldn't tell you the last time we used a toaster (he throws his Eggos in the microwave & I eat them frozen).
  We have two different sandwich grills (one for pocket-style sandwiches & one for paninis), a knock-off Keurig we never use, a blender, a countertop oven, a griddle, a regular coffee maker, my KitchenAid (still in love with it), a rice steamer.... you get the point.
  We really only use 4 of those on a regular basis: blender, KitchenAid, rice steamer, panini grill. And that's even pushing it. So these others that are hogging up valuable cabinet space need to find a new home. Whether it be in our house or not, I haven't decided. Some may end up on shelving in our storage unit at some point.
• Utensils. What a weird thing to have too many of. We have two drawers of the oversized ones alone, and half the time, I can't find what I'm looking for. This is definitely the least concern in this room, but still an annoyance.

Isn't this clean counter an absolute dream? We can only hope that ours begins to look like this after the purge, The less extra stuff, the less likely we are to have it all laying out.

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And that's just the plan for two rooms. Imagine what'll happen when all of them are done.

By cleaning out all of our extra stuff, I may be able to make a little extra cash, help someone who needs it, and declutter our lives all at once. We'll be able to come home to a cleaner home & relax, which is way more important than storing items we won't ever use or decorate with again. Maybe by spring I'll have changed my mind again, but at least the winter will be nice and simple.

Do you have any cleaning tips or secrets? Do you have a favorite cleaning product you'd like to recommend, or method to keeping your dirty dishes to a minimum (without a dishwasher)? If so, please send them our way; we all know that we could use them!

See you soon!