Mom's Study: HTCI, Part 3

This is part of a series of posts on The House that Cleans Itself by Mindy Starns Clark. I will be recording what I'm doing to transform my house into "one that cleans itself." I will also be helping my Mom work on her house and she has graciously given me permission to blog about her transformation, too. You can find all the posts in the series by looking for the label HTCI. Today we're talking about Mom's place. Part One is here. Part Two is here.

Getting Sidetracked

Honestly, I don't know.

Is it better to declutter first, then try and fit your stuff into the furniture you have?

Or, is it better to figure out what furniture you want and how you want it put into the room--and then keep only what will fit into the furniture?

Monday, My husband and I went over to Mom's. Me to choose colours to paint her front entry way and him to install her baseboards.

What we found was Mom is the throes of cleaning out her study--a room she had told me she wasn't going to tackle until "next year."

But, she said, she was so sick of "looking at the mess" that she just had to do something about it--and she had an idea what she wanted to do.

One of the things Clark talks about in both editions of her book is sightlines--what you see from the doorway of the room. She has several suggestions about how to deal with them to give people a first impression of a clean home.

This is what you see when you come in Mom's front door (and look to the left to the study).

Sorry for the blurriness. I had a lot of trouble with the camera that day, it seems.

Apparently, it was all that stuff behind the piano and against that far wall in the study which was driving her nuts. The pictures on the wall were fine, she said, the pictures could stay.

So, while my husband worked on baseboards for the front entry, Mom and I moved furniture and cleaned walls. This is what we ended up with.

However, Mom hasn't really decluttered yet.

I honestly don't know if this is good or bad. On the one hand, there's only so much space and whatever she wants to keep in here will have to fit in it--and no more. It shifts the question in her head from: "what do I let go of?" to "What do I need to keep?" It may be a helpful exercise in self-limiting. (And that's a good thing).

On the other hand, there may end up being no room for all this stuff so it may stay right here. She may get tired of all the decisions which need to be made to deal with it--and everything will stay right here.

I don't know what's going to happen: but the sight-line from the front door does look better!