What's your breaking point? When do the piles of paper get so high, the old exercise bicycle in the basement so dusty, the toys in the playroom so trip-worthy that you reach the end of your rope?
Everyone's got a story, and there are no urban legends among them. There's the businessman whose slim closet couldn't fit another item. Rather than sort through his clothes and get rid of his never-wears, he came up with an ingenious solution—or so he thought. You decide. He hung his excess shirts off ceiling fans throughout his home.
The tales of an exasperated spouse going to extreme measures are endless. Many are variations on the “while you were out” theme. The guilty party leaves for work and the Salvation Army truck parks in the driveway.
There's the story of one particular woman who got fed up with her husband's stockpiling habits. Their basement and garage looked like a thrift store exploded. You name it, they had it; piles of magazines dating back years, broken luggage, outdated TVs, ancient audio equipment, empty computer boxes. Driven to take extreme measures, she spent several hundred dollars to rent a commercial dumpster. It took the two of them an entire weekend to fill it up with a decade's worth of useless, busted, and forgettable items that should have been discarded long ago. By the way, it's been two years, but she still hasn't tossed out the business card of the carting company—just in case. Old habits die hard.
Plenty of us could take her lead. It's more than just the unsightly mess that gets to us. Clutter and disorganization first nag at us, then overwhelm us. It makes us frustrated and irritable. It eats away at our time and our sense of control. It also affects our health in ways you might not have considered.
It wasn't always like this. There's no question that we're accumulating things at a greater rate than ever before. Just visit an older home, built in the 1920s or 1930s, and you'll see that closets are narrower and fewer. “Where did they put all their stuff?” you'll wonder. Well, they just didn't have so much of it. We live in a time of excess, graduating from bigger to better to best, and hold on to stuff from all the stages in between.
There's a saying that work expands to fill the time you have to finish the task. That holds true for storage, too. The more space you have, the more things you'll find or buy to fill it up, if you're not careful. People who move from apartments to homes wonder how they'll ever be able to fill all those drawers, closets, and pantries. Check with them a year later, and no doubt you'll find their closets bursting.
But you're ready to tackle the clutter zones in your home, so congratulations! You've made a great start. The Everything® Home Storage Solutions Book offers you real-world strategies for getting your home back under your control, one room at a time. You'll find space you didn't know existed, even in the smallest of apartments. No need to be a professional contractor or pony up the big bucks to hire one. Each chapter gives you easy-to-implement ideas, many of which won't cost you anything more than your time and some sweat equity.
Getting organized is also a matter of getting into good habits. Let's face it. Sometimes it's just easier to pile the laundry on the guest bed “for the time being” instead of putting it away in its proper place, or to jam the golf equipment into the already overstuffed closet instead of dedicating a proper space to it. The Everything® Home Storage Solutions Book equips you with a game plan to manage it all. Plus, you'll get insider information on great products on the market that can change your lifestyle and transform your outlook.
When you streamline your living space, the ripple effects are astounding. Relationships improve, productivity soars, and serenity reigns. Let's get started.