I came, I saw, I KonMari'd. Like it did for so many others, Marie Kondo's Netflix series Tidying Up sparked something in me to finally get organized in 2019. When her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up first came out, I resisted the movement. "I'm really more of a more is more kind of gal," I thought at the time. Meanwhile, my small one-bedroom apartment that I share with my husband was slowly accumulating dusty piles of useless, well, crap in every nook and cranny. Closets were overflowing, bookshelves bending under pressure, floor space was becoming a precious commodity. Something had to change.
Enter: KonMari, 2019 edition. This time around, I was ready to embrace the magic, and honestly, it was life-changing. I followed Marie Kondo's steps in order, tackling each of her recommended categories on the weekends for the first two months of the year. I would make it my goal to finish a category in a weekend, including donating, selling, and trashing what I didn't want to keep by Sunday night so that I could start fresh the following weekend. As bag after bag of old-school papers, blurry photographs of scenery from a vacation we took in 1998, stained towels, broken kitchen utensils, unused hand-me-downs, ill-fitting clothing, and just plain garbage left our apartment, a literal weight was lifted off of me. I would do a happy dance every Sunday night as another category bit the dust. Now that my apartment was free of what didn't spark joy, it was time to make some strategic new purchases.
While it may seem counterintuitive, the process of KonMari-ing (or Spring cleaning) does involve purchasing new things along the way. Besides the obvious boxes and baskets, drawer organizers, and other storage and organizational products, clearing away the clutter causes you to reevaluate what's left and possibly replace that side table your parents gave you years ago that you never really liked or finally find some smarter space-saving solutions for art that's sat in your closet or clutter taking up valuable counter space in your kitchen.
Ahead, here are the organizers, furniture pieces, and other home products I bought to make sure my apartment continues to spark joy and stay organized for years to come.
from POPSUGAR https://www.popsugar.com/home/Best-Organization-Products-45885286
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