Starting small

This month's Who Needs It? Challenge is to Start Small in de-cluttering.

I decided that, given my forced pause in de-cluttering the house, now was a great time to start small and feel accomplished that I got SOMETHING done at least.

I opted to start with my dryer and the shelves above it. Here's the before pictures.

Above the dryer on the top shelf are a folded, clean t-shirt, a bell.a band, a paperback book, my wide brim black with glitter hat, a baby fedora. On the lower shelf is a bag sling someone gave us when the kid was born (I think these are deemed unsafe now, I deemed it unsafe when we put her in it once, somehow it stayed at my in-laws and they helpfully gave it to us when Little Monster arrived), a lone brown knit mitten, and a Quiet Book which is hiding a small fabric toy sheep. You can also see a reusable grocery bag that was washed some time ago and hung up to dry and just behind it is a sweatshirt that's likewise been "drying" for months now.

Here's on top of the dryer itself.

We've got a bag of Rockin Green detergent, a box containing another bag of the same detergent, a box of store-branded bleach (note the censoring mitten hiding the brand, same mitten from the self above), a half full box of other detergent that we aren't using at all, a pair of the spouse's pants complete with belt that's sitting on top of a plastic tub containing some additional dirty laundry and the hair dryer (tub is meant to store socks in our closet).

I removed all the stuff that didn't belong in the laundry room anymore for starters and got the laundry put in a proper place (the washer or a basket of clean laundry, respectively). I then used the suddenly vacant shelf space to store the laundry soap and empty boxes plus some homeless stuff from the kitchen.

Here's the after picture, taken so you could see both areas at once.

Here you can see the soap and bleach are on the shelf, the hair dryer is also on the shelf since I don't have room upstairs for it in/near the bathroom, there's a box of baby bottles with lids that I'm not getting rid of yet (the red one), a plastic tub of pump parts I have decided I'm not getting rid of (yet) since they're my size and fit both major types of pumps, plus an empty small box and empty plastic tub. You can also see that the laundry that's hung up is stuff that is currently drying (wet bag, bibs, bag for laundering undergarments that are also drying) rather than that grocery bag and sweatshirt. The top of the dryer is EMPTY which makes me very happy.

Feelings: I really like it that this space is uncluttered. It's soothing to have usable space. I even cleaned the top of the dryer so it's sparkly and everything. I imagine that when I'm out of town I'll move the soap back down to the dryer but only one package. This space is also small enough that I can keep it clean. Any clutter that wanders in can be voted out quickly and returned to its actual home because this is meant to be an empty space.

For my next small space, I'm considering the dining room cupboard top. I'd like to put some of the dining room plants back up there so the cat quits eating them but it means creating a better cat-invasion-prevention barrier than a wall of empty cans. Zie previously would swish the cans down with a swipe of a paw or tail and then hop up to chomp on the plants. At the least, the assortment of pharmacy journals and holiday cookie tins needs clearing out.