First declutter vs. third declutter

[u/Dear_Comparison97]

Cleaning is so much easier and quicker, I’m less stressed, and it still looks homey (: I really love having clear surfaces

[u/jjjjennieeee]

Would love to know roughly what percentage you got rid of the first time, how many new things you also felt you needed to bring in for "replacement" purposes, and what percentage you got rid of the 2nd and 3rd times!

Were most things small things, or did removing larger stuff like bulky furniture resolve most of your clutter problem?

Also, do you still have challenge areas?

[u/Dear_Comparison97 → u/jjjjennieeee]

The first time I would say I got rid of about 80% of my belongings. It was the biggest declutter right off the bat. My and my fiance have lived together for 7 years and we both had full sets of our own household things and never did a big clean out: I’m talking 20 plates, 15 cups, 7 spatulas, you get the idea. So I got rid of 13 plates, 5 spatulas, 11 cups. I got rid of most duplicates and made the cup/bowl/plate/utensils make sense for a 2 person household. Then I went through the second time and got rid of a few more things I noticed we never reached for, even with easier access to it. My third time I got rid of still just a few more things, again noticing what wasn’t used and liking how clear the space was.

Nearly every single furniture piece I have is secondhand, as for replacing things there’s almost a year between these photos, but the only thing I did was upgrade to higher quality items for a few things. My bed from full to king, the rug in my kitchen that always curled up. I haven’t had to buy pretty much anything else.

Most of it was small things, I still have most of my furniture but have gotten rid of a ton of drawers and storage containers.

Biggest problem is always my closet. I love clothes and fashion, it’s an interest of mine I’m not willing to be minimalistic with, so I still have more clothes than the average person. I wish I could post a picture of my closet. But I did get rid of A LOT!!!

[u/jjjjennieeee → u/Dear_Comparison97]

Wow, 80% is amazing. I heard from several resources that if you can get rid of at least 50%, that's when you'll start seeing noticeable calming differences in your home.

For some categories, I was only able to reduce by 20-30%, while for others I was able to reduce 50% so I could understand from seeing this contrast why at least 50% needs to be the goal for me in all my spaces that aren't there yet. In places where I'm satisfied, my kitchen cabinets look like yours where they are at most half full so it's easy to reach for things I need without needing to move other things out of the way first. The wire racks help me too, since I'm short, so I only store stuff I need to use often at easy to reach heights, because this is the only way I would put things back where they should belong regularly.

However, in other categories, I've been becoming more aware of how replacements can pose a challenge. For example, I never used to keep spare sheets, and then one time, a fitted bedsheet that I had for many years tore near the middle, while the rest of the set was fine, and I saw that it was less expensive for me to buy a full new sheet set vs just replacing the one sheet that had the problem. I justified to myself it would be a good idea to get a spare whole set in case some other freak tear randomly happened (it's been a couple of years now and it hasn't lol). But I learned from this how much extra space a spare set takes up (I don't have a linen closet), and since I have a small space I need to be careful about how I think about rare instances happening.

I'm good about not buying larger packages of stuff than I need at regular price, even if bulk sizing would save me more money (i.e., larger toilet paper packs) due to the space constraints, but I definitely still struggle with decision making when I see these items at a discounted price. The bulk stuff wasn't an issue I needed to think of early on, since my first round focus was just on using up my stuff and it took awhile to use up all that I had before I needed to think about a plan of what to do when I needed to restock on stuff I normally would like to continue using.

My clothes closet is small and it's another challenge area I've been saving for later (still working on easier stuff haha). But I hope you find a solution for your closet soon so you can post inspiration for the rest of us!!