Weekend Projects

This Might be the Quickest, Most Satisfying Weekend Project You Take On All Year

published Sep 6, 2019
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Post Image
Credit: Joe Lingeman/Kitchn; Food Stylist: CC Buckley/Kitchn

Apartment Therapy Weekend Projects is a guided program designed to help you get the happy, healthy home you’ve always wanted, one weekend at a time. Sign up now for email updates so you never miss a lesson.

Sorry, this list is no longer accepting subscriptions.

Feel free to subscribe to our other emails.

If there’s such a thing as having your house completely in order—down to every under-sink space and up to the highest shelf in your most remote closet—well, I don’t know what it’s like. But it’s certainly something I strive for. Even though I can accept that messes and order are cyclical, and that I want to choose living and connecting over cleaning when I have to, I still try to keep my home in the best shape it can be.

Chipping away at whole-home organization while also living life is in line with the whole goal of a decluttered home: Rather than living in a space that weighs us down with visual noise and having our home life moments overtaken by cleaning and maintaining our stuff, we create a serene scene for our lives, one that supports what’s most important to us.

The September Sweep helps us dive into this kind of decluttering mode that makes a significant difference without consuming us. If you’ve never done the September Sweep with Apartment Therapy, it’s a decluttering program that helps you chip away at your home’s messes, little by little, over 15 days. The whole thing kicks off Monday Sept. 9, and you can join (for free!) with just your email address.

Sorry, this list is no longer accepting subscriptions.

Feel free to subscribe to our other emails.

This weekend, we’re going to prime the pump for the September Sweep.

Credit: Minette Hand

This Weekend: Pick one thing to declutter.

Just one thing! That’s it!

Choosing one thing to declutter is a simple way to get in the September Sweep mood. It’ll be hard to stop at one and that’s the idea! Like race horses held back at the starting line, you’ll be ready start strong and race for the finish line when Monday comes.

The item you declutter just needs to be sent out of your home, but it doesn’t matter where or how. It can be thrown in the trash, recycled, given to a friend, or donated, depending on what it is. The idea is to get it out of your space.

Here are some ideas about the one thing you can declutter this weekend:

  • Outerwear you never reached for last year
  • Costume jewelry that’s gone out of style
  • A pair of shoes that was never comfortable
  • The towel “rag” that doesn’t fit in your rag bin
  • The mop you’ve replaced but haven’t gotten rid of.
  • A duplicate kitchen tool
  • A chipped mug
  • An extra set of sheets
  • Baby gear your family has outgrown
  • One book you don’t love
  • Something you’ve been keeping just because it was a gift

And of course, your other weekend project is to sign up for the September Sweep, and share and send this link to your friends and family so we can all support each other once the program kicks off Monday.

Sorry, this list is no longer accepting subscriptions.

Feel free to subscribe to our other emails.

You can catch up with weekend projects right here. Share your progress with us and others by posting updates and photos on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #atweekendproject.

Remember: This is about improvement, not perfection. Each week you can either choose to work on the assignment we’ve sent you, or tackle another project you’ve been meaning to get to. It’s also completely okay to skip a weekend if you’re busy or not feeling the assignment.