Taming the seven year old clutter-bug

 Birthdays, holidays, family vacations and just-because... there are so many reasons to give a child gifts. They come home from school everyday with projects, work and "art." And if you've ever had the chance to go on a walk with a child, you know they come home with leaves, stones, sticks, flowers and all sorts of random "junk."

But who dertermines what is and is not junk?

When I was a kid I kept many collections, most notable was my collection of unsharpened pencils. I thought they were pretty. And, most importantly, they were MINE. I was a total pack rat as a kid, and I hated the idea of parting with anything of mine... even old toothbrushes and sneakers with more holes than I could count!

This aspect of my personality made my mom a little crazy. My mom keeps a very neat, uncluttered home... and then there was my room! My hoarding behavior continued until after college when I sold almost everything I owned and moved to South Korea. Living for two years with 2.5 suitcases of stuff was wonderful! Since returning to the USA I have regressed a bit into my hoarder state... but I'm working on fixing that, and in my spare time I try to help others too!

Recently I had the opportunity to help the seven year old daughter of a dear friend merge her playroom and bedroom into one big girl room. And mommy gets to have a crafting room now in the kid's old bedroom!

Here are some pictures of the progress:

This is the playroom when we started. I didn't take a photo of K's bedroom... but it kinda looked like this, just with a bed in the middle. So... As you can see, this kid has many people who love her and and have the means to give her lots of great things... Unfortunately it's too much stuff for this seven year old to care for.

So, we started by emptying the playroom, since this will be K's new room.

First third emptied.

Feeling nearly done, but knowing we aren't!

Oh my gods! Empty! (Ish... there were some things she knew she wanted to keep in there... and some furniture I knew we would need... so we kept it.)

We put all of the stuff in the hallway... It looked crazy! Then we started to move her furniture from her old bedroom to the new one.

Done!?... Not nearly!

But it was lunch time on day one... so it was time for a break!

After lunch we put all the playroom stuff into the old bedroom and organized the stuff in her new room. We also looked through her old bedroom for things she knew she wanted in her new room. 

Day two was all about dealing with the piles of stuff in her old room. These are mostly toys that K doesn't play with very often... things from her past, sentimental things, things her parents are sentimental about, and lots and lots of cardboard!

That's a lot of stuff! K and I made a deal... She could keep anything she wants, as long as it has a place in her new room on a shelf or in a drawer. And piling stuff on stuff is not okay. So she knew she couldn't keep this stuff, but dealing with this much stuff is hard... especially for a sentimental seven year old. So, we went to Home Depot and made a compromise.

At 69 cents a box (and a bit more for the big ones) this was a cost effective solution. The plan was, to pack up everything that didn't fit in her new room, and the we can deal with the boxes in one of two ways:

1. Take a box down every couple of days and go through it, and totally deal with everything in it... garbage, donate or keep... But if she wants to keep something, then something else in her room has to go to make space.

2. After 2-3 months of not feeling a need for anything in those boxes mom and I will put them in our vehicles and donate them all.

So we started packing!

She's a hard worker!

Almost lunchtime on day 2.

Lunchtime! Took K out to the restaurant of her choice to thank her for all her hard work! When we came back we went through the HUGE pile of artwork/schoolwork/random papers we found while packing. We tossed most of it.

Two days and ten bags of garbage later we had reclaimed two rooms! :)

I will probably post again when we deal with the boxes... I'm interested to see what becomes of them!