Ultimate KonMari Declutter - Before & After
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZgbJmkTU7I&w=854&h=480]
When it comes to staying organized, I have never been very talented. I always had a messy room growing up and while I ended up marrying a super neat and tidy man and therefore have had to adapt in some ways, decluttering is still a big problem for me as you can tell from this picture of my childhood bedroom.
If you are new to our little corner of the internet, my name is Dana and my husband Lou and I live in Ody, an old Mercedes van in Europe that we converted ourselves. We absolutely love how living in a van has transformed our lives over the past 12 months - from scaling down our possessions to finding comfort in simple pleasures, to exploring parts of the world that would never have been possible without our home on wheels.
However, we might be the only people living in a van who have a major problem with clutter. Back in November, Lou and I left our van Ody in Portugal for the holidays and flew back to Connecticut to spend time with family and friends. During our comfortable stay at my parents' house, we stumbled upon the new Netflix show "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo" and were immediately drawn into Marie's KonMari Method.
Kondo's method of organizing is known as the KonMari method, and consists of gathering together all of one's belongings, one category at a time (clothing, books, paper, komono or miscellaneous items, and sentimental), and then keeping only those things that "spark joy." Her entire goal is to inspire you to really look at what you have, be grateful, but also allow things that no longer serve you to go on their way.
Watching her show was the perfect catalyst to tackle a project that has been weighing on my shoulders for almost a decade - finally making the time to extreme declutter my childhood bedroom!
When we started this decluttering project we had no idea that we would be embarking on a spiritual journey of our own, dealing with objects embodied with emotion from decades ago, with our own at times embarrassing mountains of consumption, with relics to a life we had moved away from spatially, but not yet made our peace with.
One of the aspects of the KonMari method I found the most fascinating is that once you fully understand how to apply her techniques to your home, you may find that her concept of "Spark Joy" starts overflowing into other aspects of your life from the people you surround yourself with to your current job or even the type of exercise you do.
Choosing things that make you feel fulfilled and whole is not always an option, or at least not always the easiest option. But I've found that it is definitely something worth aspiring towards because it feels incredible to look around and know that everything in my life is there intentionally.
I would love to hear what you thought of the Tidying Up show and if you’ve attempted to KonMari your house or apartment? Leave a comment below or comment on our Youtube video of the process :)