apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

My decluttering starts this weekend and will continue until, oh, it's completely finished -- probably through December or so. The backstory: I lived in a small studio on the UWS until last February, when I (sadly) moved way, way out of the city. I took a great job, got a bigger and much cheaper apartment, and am saving my money in order to move back to the city. (The position I took will be a solid steppingstone to my ideal job.) The goal: I'd like to find a great job and move into a well-maintained studio, and I'd *really* like to leave most of my clutter behind.

So here's my challenge: Go through every dresser drawer, every closet nook, every shelf, and every underbed box, and keep only the things that are necessary to my financial and/or emotional well-being and things that I dearly love. I have a lot of stuff, so this is a big undertaking. I'm not a collector, but I seem to be bit of a packrat. Ugh. This is not who I want to be, and this is not how I want to live. I'm approaching this as a lifestyle change as well as a cleaning project.

This weekend, I'm starting with the bathroom closet. Wahoo!

I just posted this in the Renewing thread, but I got a bunch of plants combined together into larger containers, which makes my apartment look much less cluttered (fewer small pots, fewer pots overall), so I think that counts as decluttering. :)

I have lengthy, disorganized piles of stuff to get through from my old house, where we had much more space, and where the movers packed us by throwing everything in boxes with no rhyme or reason. Each box has at least three ruined items in it, but spending time apart from them has given me the opportunity to detach myself.

My main issue right now is my bedroom, which has become cluttered through lack of storage space. I'd be shy to post a picture of it - a before pic would be too messy, an after pic wouldn't be tremendously and painfully stylish, and my furniture is very cheap. But I have been working on getting things in order - realigned my bed (which was sliding away from the wall), assembled some storage units that were still in flat-pack years after I bought them, repacked a bunch of books in preparation for a future move. Just moving the bed made the room, which is large, look 25% bigger. & although I have a lot of closet space, I have very little drawer space, so the new storage units should remedy visually unappealing things like "baskets of clean laundry in the middle of the floor." Huzzah!

we are moving this weekend from the apt i've lived in for over 25 years to larger quarters...
it gives us a double opportunity to edit(packing and unpacking) just dealing with the art books though is a daunting process ...i have to say that the new place is inspired by a modern aesthetic (with props to apt therapy) so thanks for the inspiration...