A few months ago when we started the initial plans for our house design, we knew we needed to downsize for a few reasons:

We want to live in a home that was smartly designed, but didn't have any wasted space
We want to have the latitude to freely explore the outdoors and not feel like we need to be tied at home to keep up with chores (more simply put, we don't like to clean!)
We simply don't have the budget to build a larger house.

Our current home is about 2,800 square feet and it is plenty big. We rarely use our dining room, we're only ever sitting in one living space or the other, and the basement TV area is largely unused.

Not surprisingly, we have managed to fill up this house with ample amounts of stuff. And, not stuff that brings us a greater sense of happiness, just stuff because we have space.

So, a few months back, Kelsey and I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing and it really hit a chord. For those of you who haven't read it, basically the goal is to review each item in your home by category and evaluate whether is sparks joy. If it doesn't it leaves. We got inspired and tackled the first category, clothes. We donated more than 13 bags of clothes last winter! But, like so many decluttering projects, we didn't maintain the momentum and while our wardrobe was much more manageable, we still had way more books, paper and other stuff that we didn't need.

Thankfully, my sister-in-law Ashlee, is about the most organized and decluttered person I know. She's considering starting a little side hustle to help well-meaning folks like us organize their houses. So, we volunteered to be client #1. OMG Thank you, Ashlee! Oh - and if she decides to create a little business, you should totally hire her.

We dove in last weekend and did the first category of clothes. We also tackled all the linens in the house. Yes! More stuff for the garage sale pile*. And, about 100+ hangers that we no longer need.

*A note on the garage sale. We had considered donating everything immediately, but decided we might be able to buy a cabinet or two with the proceeds from a sale.

Today's task was shoes, outerwear, and paper.

Kelsey's shoe pile was much more manageable. But, I had 29 pairs! Yikes, definitely not necessary. I was able to part with about 10 pairs, many of which I still sort of liked, but didn't meet that requirement of sparking joy. For example, the tall Patagonia boots that I basically break out in a sweat trying to get on...yea, not sparking joy...

Next...paper. I was amazed at how much stuff from year's past that was just taking up space in our filing cabinet that we didn't need. Do we really need our 401k statements from 2006? Ummm no.

So, after a few hours of work, everything fits in ONE drawer of the filing cabinet and we have tiny stack of stuff we to-do soon. What a relief!

Here's the shred (aka backyard bonfire) pile.

Decluttering is hard emotionally. It's kind of crazy how much energy was tied up in those papers, clothes and shoes.

What are your favorite decluttering tips?