This project has been a long time coming. Years in the making in fact. It’s not done yet, but my goal is to have it completed by the end of 2025, at which point I will share the before and after. What’s the project, you ask? Organizing (and decluttering) my mom’s basement.
When our family moved into my mom’s current home 20+ years ago, we brought a bunch of stuff from our considerably larger house, and I think a lot of it has sat in Rubbermaid bins stacked in the storage room ever since.
For several years, since my dad passed, my mom has been saying we have to go through the bins in the basement (among other things down there). One bin or box at a time. I always resisted, it sounded like a total nightmare.
Finally, this summer I started the dreaded task. And truthfully, it hasn’t been all bad. I actually really like going through stuff and sorting, and organizing. We haven’t gotten to anything terribly sentimental yet though…
My Decluttering Approach
First, I created a plan:
- I evaluated the spaces (an unfinished storage room with shelving and all those bins, three closets, and a finished area where there’s a recliner, TV and until just recently my dad’s giant desk where he worked from home).
- I sketched out the storage room and figured out where I wanted all the remaining items to go once they were decluttered and organized, something that made logical sense for access and need.
- I made a checklist of all the categories of items that needed to be tackled so I could track my progress (I also assigned a loose timeline for what I wanted to tackle and by when).
And then I set a goal to spend at least one hour per week on the decluttering process. Usually this was one hour on Sunday afternoon. Other times it was 15 minutes here, or 30 minutes there. But it all adds up. No amount of time is too small to make some progress. Even one free minute can be used to make a decision to keep or get rid of one item.
Implementing the Plan
Time to get my hands dirty! Step one was to pull all those bins and boxes out into the main area (pictured above), and then do a rough sort of everything. There were random things everywhere. No real rhyme or reason. You may be able to skip this step if you’re not in the same boat. But this step allowed me to group like items together and see exactly what we were dealing with before getting to the harder part of letting things go.
After I did an initial sort, I got my mom involved because these were mostly her things (or my dad’s) and I wasn’t going to ruthlessly say to recycle/trash or donate vs keep. I was anxious to have her join me, thinking she’d be mulling over items for a long time, but she proved to be easily agreeable that things needed to go and didn’t hem and haw much at all. Hooray!
I set up a folding table in the finished area of the basement, and staged one category at a time. We approached our decluttering sessions with the intent to do at least one box/bin/bag. Small steps to build momentum. Many times we would get through three boxes or more.
We worked within the typical keep, donate and trash/recycle categories. Our keep pile was further split into three: mom keeping, me taking home or mom holding for me at a later date.
As of today we have:
- Gone through all the bins. Amazing!
- Sorted through Christmas decorations and already took those donations to Goodwill. Yay!
- Made a pile to bring to my coworker for his church rummage sale. Awesome!
This month I’m currently tackling my dad’s tools and all sorts of hardware. Holy. Moly!
The last category before I organize everything and put it in it’s place, is sentimental items and paperwork. That is slated for next month, and will definitely be the hardest.
A lot of organizing experts will tell you to do sentimental items last, and for good reason. It requires the most emotional bandwidth. Start with easy wins like obvious trash or items that are broken beyond repair, then things you know you don’t want or need anymore, and finally work your way up to the hard stuff.
Considering where we started, I think we’re making good progress and if I can keep up the momentum (or maybe even increase it) through the rest of the year, I will be on track to complete this mammoth project before December 31.
Are you tackling a major declutter project this year or planning to in 2026?
