Friday, September 25, 2015

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying: Bed Linens

Marie Kondo believes that a whole house tidy should progress in a certain order, starting with items that are easier to sort through, such as clothing and books, and ending with items that are most difficult, such as memorabilia.  After completing clothing and books, you are supposed to move on to paper. Well that was far more daunting for me.  I have WAY too much paper.  And it is in serious disarray at the moment.  In fact I wasted a whole day of not doing any new tidying.  Although I did finally wrap up the getting rid of process for my clothing and books.  (First load to charity done!)

Rather than bog down and give up, I chose to stay within her reasoning of going from easy to hard and choose another category that would be easier than paper: Bed Linens.  I found very little on the subject online, but there was a section in the book that basically said extra linens for guests should be gotten rid of unless you have such guests more than twice a year.  We have seven members of the family and regularly have grandparents over.  And we live where there are all four seasons, so having blankets that come out in Winter and are stored in Summer is a necessity.  On top of that, both sides of the family have strong quilting/crocheting heritages.  And we camp.  Needless to say there is a LOT of bedding in our house.  Thankfully, we are blessed with a big hall closet we call "the blanket closet".  But, it was seriously out of control:




A closer view.  That deep top shelf?  It's actually 2 shelves.


So, out it all came into one BIG pile:


I surprised myself with how much I got rid of.  I calculated how many blankets, sheet sets, sleeping bags, etc that we really needed and was able to get rid of the ones in the worst condition.  We had gifts that had served a long and useful life and could be now let go without any guilt.  Even if someone hand makes you something, if you've worn and loved it to the point that you know a charity that received it would just throw it out, it can be let go.  In the end there were 4 big bags to donate. Instead of letting the get rid of pile sit around, I tackled it right away.  Its all out in my car, ready to go.  It felt much better to do it quickly.


 I had several blankets that we don't use because they are baby quilts, antiques, etc that would belong more in the memorabilia category.  They all got their own shelf and I may revisit them later when I do that category.  But, for now, everything is much tidier!


I did not fold things the Konmari way, because I'm just not sure that would work so well with blankets and I didn't want to add more folds than necessary to quilts, which I know is bad for them.  It will soon be time to add blankets to the beds for cooler weather.  It will truly be a joy to do so from the newly organized closet!

I then went on to kitchen/Table linens.  That was quick because I don't own many table linens.  My kitchen linens were basically good towels, nasty dishcloths and extra special towels.  I couldn't get rid of any of them, but I did add dishcloths to my shopping list.


1 comment: