Purging

When AB & I moved to San Francisco from the Midwest, we were thrilled by the amount of space in our apartment. We weren't expecting to find a place we could afford that was bigger than a shoebox, let alone a 2-bedroom apartment with four large closets! And yet, there we were, with more room than we knew what to do with.

Oh, how times have changed... Like most people, we have an amazing ability to fill up any space we're given. Three years after moving into our spacious apartment, our closet doors will barely close, every last inch of cabinet space is filled, and now our collection of junk has spread to most of the flat surfaces in our house. As I write this, my desk is covered with stacks of paper, and the dining room table is covered with an assortment of Christmas gifts that we haven't yet found a place for.

Up until recently, we still had enough storage space to hide the clutter for the rare occasions when we would have guests over, but we recently moved AB's drum kit back into the house (he recently gave up a shared practice space), and we took a bunch of stuff from a friend when he moved out of his apartment a couple of weeks ago. We literally have no place to put this new stuff, and for me, that turned out to be the last straw.

So, last weekend AB & I started a major de-cluttering project. Unfortunately, the job was even bigger than we first thought... We only managed to clean one room in our house that weekend, mostly because we discovered three boxes (that hadn't been opened since we lived in Illinois) filled with random junk that needed to be sorted through to decide what to keep.

But even that small bit of progress was extremely satisfying. We were able to throw out and give away a TON of crap, and now we have at least one spot in our house that's organized. Only five more rooms and three more closets to go!

Here's a photo of all the junk we're getting rid of: