A cabinet door that will not close is a small annoyance, but live with it long enough and it starts to nag at you every time you walk into the kitchen. For one home creator, a set of oversized dinner plates left her cabinet hanging ajar for more than a year, and it finally pushed her into a full day of decluttering.
The creator, Rachelleea, opens her YouTube video by saying she desperately needs a deep clean and a deep declutter. She jokes that she will just call it one word, a “deep clutter,” then corrects herself because she wants to free up space, not add to the mess. Her home is crowded and messy, and she says she needs a day of cleaning, decluttering, and organizing.
A project like this would normally take a couple of days, she says, but this time she wants to see how much she can get done in one afternoon. She plans to lock in and power through.
The Plates That Started It All
The one thing that prompted the whole project is a set of dinner plates. She bought them about a year ago, and they are too large for the cabinet. As a result, the cabinet has been sitting ajar for over a year. The plates barely fit in the dishwasher, either. She wonders aloud why she never replaced them with plates that actually fit, and decides now is the time.
She picks the corner of the dining room as the spot where everything she no longer wants will go. From there, she moves on to mugs. Three of them are leaving. She explains that one was a great size until the maker changed the line to a larger size, and she does not like a mug that is too big.
Counters, Jars, And The Bar Cart
A cluttered corner of the counter is next. She does not love the wooden board there, calling the wood too orange. She is also over a picture she has had for more than 10 years. Food jars and vitamins need sorting, either into the cupboard, consolidated, or tossed.
After a break, she says it looks much better. She moved a chopping board from the wall, put a bunch of stuff in the cupboard, and brought out cookbooks that were sitting on another shelf. She gets rid of a couple of extra cookbooks and gets ready to vacuum.
The bar cart area comes next, and it is always messy. She had tried turning wine bottles into candle holders, but the shape of the bottle made the wax clump at the top. Two bottles go in the trash, and she keeps two with a better shape, which should let the wax drip further down. The syrups, sauces, and extra pieces on the cart move into the cupboard so there is less going on out in the open.
She decides to part with a mirror she loves, because it no longer fits the vibe, and she plans to list it for sale. Then she turns to the jars. She admits it is hard to throw out glass jars, since glass seems so much better than plastic packaging, but she cannot have a million of them. She keeps one that held apple juice and uses as a vase, keeps four uniform olive jars from Costco olives, and lets go of the mismatched ones and lids that fit nothing.
Closets, Drawers, And Seasonal Swaps
Her wardrobe was next. A couple of weeks earlier she did her full autumn switchover, but she felt like not decluttering that day. Now she is feeling “cutthroat.” She packs the last of the spring and summer items into storage boxes, including green jeans, white jeans, light blue denim, spring cardigans, and summer gym clothing. She also lets go of a shirt she never wears. One of the storage boxes is broken, so she tapes it shut and plans to buy matching IKEA ones next season.
In her dresser she goes through pajamas, tops, bodysuits, socks, and more. She realizes part of the problem was that she never put away her off-season pajamas. Six tops go in the discard pile, including stained and thinning ones. Her bodysuits stay, as does her shapewear, but she parts with socks she does not like and gives the colorful ones to her husband.
Her beauty drawer gets sorted and its contents moved to proper bins for hair, nails, medicine, and pouches. A box of decor in the corner gets a pass too, and she sets aside a shelf, a frame, a vase, and a wrong-sized curtain rod to donate.
Steal These Ideas For Your Own Home
Her video is full of ideas that work in any house. Try a few of them this weekend.
- Find the thing that bugs you most. A cabinet that will not close or a drawer that sticks is a great place to start, because fixing it gives an instant payoff.
- Create a drop zone for discards, like her dining room corner, so everything leaving the house is in one spot.
- Rotate clothes by season. Moving off-season pajamas and clothes to storage keeps drawers from overflowing.
- Set a jar limit. Keep a uniform set with matching lids and let the rest go.
- Check the fit before you buy. Dinner plates, storage bins, and even curtain rods should be measured first.
By the end of the afternoon, she says it felt like a successful day. She cleared a good amount of stuff, hit every area she wanted to hit, and calls it a good start. A single oversized set of plates may have kicked it off, but it was the small decisions that added up to a home she is happy to walk through again.
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