The last couple of weeks I have spent most of my free time doing some work on the house. What is supposed to be the dining room has served as a playroom for many years. Most recently it had become the room that everything went into when we didn’t know where to put it. Well, one of the rooms. Now it is one of my favorite rooms in the house, and I am sitting in that room as I write this.
My kids enjoy being creative as much as I do. The room is still a “playroom” but as the kids have gotten older, the playroom needed an update. On one end I built a computer desk, designed for video editing and computer graphics. the other end is a sewing and crafts desk and a couple of small built in book cases. In the middle is actually a dining table that we actually used for dining today. The room has been cleaned out of all the clutter and it has a much nicer feel and is more conducive to creative thinking.
I don’t know about you, but clutter makes it difficult to think and be creative. All I see is everything that needs to be done. I’m not sure exactly how it happened. Maybe it is the ten years we have been in this house. Maybe it is the kids transitioning from toddlers to teenagers. Maybe it is just a bit of lazy. Our house had gotten to the point that the clutter was over running every room in the house. We make regular trips to donate items and clean out, but we still have managed to accumulate way too much stuff. The clutter affects our attitudes, our energy level, and our creativity.
We started with the girls room in January and have been working on the playroom in February. We have been doing complete overhauls of the rooms. We start by taking everything out of the rooms, even the furniture. We make any needed repairs and repaint the rooms. As we are taking stuff out of the rooms, we do our first pass of all the stuff and get rid of anything that is obviously trash or give away. While the repairs are being made and furniture being built, we sort through all the stuff again and say good bye to a few more treasures. After that, I look at everything that is left and go to work attempting to build or buy shelves and storage for what is left. As we begin to move the survivors back into the room, we make one final sort and cut a few more from the herd.
The process takes a few weeks and the rest of the house is a complete disaster, but the end result is well worth it. I still have a few details to finish in the girls’ room and have started working on some of the details in the playroom, but most of the work is done… at least until the checking account says I can do a little more work.
It is interesting as I sit in the empty rooms and start to imagine and plan where each piece of furniture will go and where each shelf will go. To see the blank walls and start to be creative with solutions for that particular room. I get to take a room and, while working within the confines of the room, create an entirely new look.
Sometimes we gather way too much clutter. Not just the physical clutter, but mental clutter. We allow other people to speak into our lives and tell us who we are supposed to be. We allow the media, the movies, our friends, and the books we read to shape our lives and begin to define what that room inside of us will look like. Sometimes we just need to empty ourselves of the clutter and sit and imagine what our lives should look like. To spend time in prayer and in the Bible to allow God to come in and shape our lives. He is the master builder. My work is, well, it works and looks o.k., but His work is amazing.
Working on my physical health has given me more energy and mental clarity over the last few weeks, but when I increase the amount of time I spend in prayer and studying the Bible, I think clearer and am more energized than any physical workout could ever do. It is so easy to accumulate the clutter over time. We begin to get so used to it that we almost don’t even realize how bad it is. When we start to clean out the clutter, it quickly becomes much harder than anticipated because there is always more clutter than we realized. As I study the Bible and spend time in prayer, I start to see more clutter that I didn’t even realize was there.
Take some time this spring to do some spring cleaning. Not just the house, though sometimes this is an important 1st step, but some mental and emotional spring cleaning. Begin to focus on God and put the rest behind. It does not matter what we have done, because we can’t change that. But focus on God and what’s next. We cannot change our past. We can only impact our future by focusing on what we are doing today. With God, we can do some remodeling and create an entirely new future for ourselves.
Comment below and let me know about you clutter problem and your creative solutions. Both the household clutter and your personal clutter.
We like physical clutter at our house. It means we are living life, we are doing.
We have so many interests, we have clutter. But it beats having a family that comes home and watches junk on television, or stays behind a computer screen all night. So…Here’s To Clutter!
We don’t like mental clutter. Boo. But we have it. But keeping our physical clutter helps keep us too busy to input into our small brains an overload of mental clutter.
Nice article to clutter my mind for the day. 😉
Wanda
I don’t mind some clutter. Like you, we have multiple interests and activities. The challenge comes when there is so much clutter that I can’t find what I am looking for and then the physical clutter begins to create mental clutter in the form of frustration. Sometimes we just need to take time to clean out and get rid of the past in order to move forward. It is good to keep some of the past to remind us where we come from, but not so much that it hinders our progress. Thanks for reading and commenting.