For years, I've talked about one day getting a "real" house... You know, where I own all four walls, and have a porch and a yard and everything. Well, I finally decided now was as good of a time as any... And I decided to clean, declutter, and get this townhouse ready to list. It shouldn't take too long, right? How much stuff could I accumulate in a little over 1000 sq feet anyway? (SPOILER ALERT: lots)

I started one night a couple of weeks ago and I pulled everything out from under my bed. My mother can attest, this has been a place I historically shove crap. As I was pulling out plastic bins and folders and more shoeboxes than I think I have shoes, I began to make three piles: KEEP, TOSS, DONATE. I kind of felt like Carrie Bradshaw in the Sex and the City movie, minus the friends. And the champagne. And the Run DMC audio track. This took approximately two hours, and I knew this was the least of my worries, so I decided I'd tackle the rest that weekend.

I went shopping for some plastic bins to store things in. I had allocated one smallish plastic under bed box as my nostalgia box. If I didn't need it/wouldn't use it again, it had to fit in the box before I was allowed to keep it. I figured this would help me not turn into a hoarder. Making the box: Tim Couch bobble head, my Class of 97 "Most School Spirit" trophy, VHS tapes from The Raider News, and the Nerg football Carter got me when I broke my wrist (because when Autumn asked what would make me feel better, her three year old replied "A football, Mom!"). Not making the box? My caps and gowns ("even the tassles???" questioned my mom), letters from people I don't talk to anymore, my Governor Scholar id.

As I was cleaning, I learned there were two places in my house that I threw all of my crap: the guestroom closet and the laundry room. After about five hours on both of them, this was the difference I made. (Request: Please don't judge me based on the before pictures):

Closet:







Laundry room:







I cannot even guess how many trips I made to the dumpster, but I only made one trip to the Goodwill. One trip with my back seats folded down, and my car FULL.





Now I will admit my outside storage closet looks a bit like the closet in Monica's apartment that Chandler finally takes the door off to see what's in there... But hey, if Monica can have a messy closet, so can I!

I want to embed this clip, but YouTube won't play nice... so I am linking it in case you want to see (Trish, I know you will click on this link)

My house listed last week. Let's hope all of this hard work pays off and it sells...

Stay tuned for Adventures in Re Estate, Part 2: Looking
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