Function & Style: Wallpaper Used in Small, Organized Spaces!

Who else has the organizing bug?? Besides the fact that my house is becoming overrun with toys & other baby paraphernalia from this little cutie pie; I am beginning to truly crave simplicity amongst the hustle & bustle of running a business and raising a baby. I am practicing being present daily…really soaking in all the feels of this new life as a mommy/boss lady. But I’ll tell ya, it’s hard when there’s a lot of “stuff” around. And it’s not that I want everything to look perfect (well maybe sometimes ; ) …what I’m realizing, is it’s completely unnecessary to live with all this extra “stuff”.

I just read “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying”…and let me say…it truly IS life changing. I would love to share my journey to my new completely decluttered, only living with things that spark joy lifestyle. It started about 3 weeks ago & I’m pretty amazed at the progress. Marie Kondo, the author of the book, says the whole process should be done quickly & completely (quickly being about 6 months). When I first read that, I got a little nervous about the word “quickly”. But, after going through the first stage with my clothes, I realized it’s addicting. I also realized that 6 months is totally doable. Here’s a sneak peak at the result after getting rid of 17 bags of clothes that did not bring me joy. Looking at this every morning DOES bring me joy.

Marie Kondo, the author of the book & the creator of the KonMari Method suggests that you go through your things in a very specific order. First is clothing (which I’ve now completed and will share more in the coming weeks!). I’ll share more details about the book as I go through this…but today I want to show you a little project I did to get myself excited about the next step of the process.

I have this space in my basement that leads into another den area. We don’t really spend a ton of time down there, but I do workout there pretty much every day. It’s also where we keep overflow guests when we have a full house. But the space leading into the extra den area has been overrun by my gift wrapping supplies, extra baby gear since my baby shower & furniture that did not end up in Madison’s nursery. ATROCIOUS. And I have to walk through this space every day to go work out. Draining…and sparks the exact opposite of joy.

So, according to the Konmari Method, you need to go through items by category, not location. So, in other words, don’t go through a room at a time, rather gather all the like items in one space and go through it all at once. It really makes a lot of sense to truly grasp how much “stuff” we really have.

Before Madison was born, I renovated our laundry room. I’ll have to share more about that soon too. My idea was to put all my crafting & gift wrap stuff in the laundry room. So, some of that is in there, but most of it was in this storage/walk through room to the extra den. So, I figured, let me get it all together in the laundry room and then spruce up this little space so I can have happy thoughts when I walk through here to work my buns off…literally.

We just got in this new Cynthia Rowley pattern of Tempaper®, and I just had to have it.

See that little pegboard wall?  It used to house my gift bags, but they’re not going to live there anymore. And also, I thought this little walk through/storage room should look pretty besides being functional since it’s part of our living space.

So, I decided to cover the pegboard with Tempaper®. If I ever decide I want the pegboard back…easy peasy, just peel it off the wall! Tempaper® is temporary as long as it’s applied to a wall painted with a satin sheen or higher. So you don’t want to apply to a flat or matte wall paint if you’d like to easily remove and not damage the wall. It can be applied to flat or matte paint, it just won’t come off the wall nicely. Make sense?

This project took me about 12 minutes. The Tempaper® part, not the decluttering part..lol. It was soooooo super easy. Take a peek at this quick video I did on Tempaper® basics. The video refers to a cabinet we worked on, but the concept is the same for the wall.

So where did everything go?

Lots of it went to the trash, things that did not bring me joy. Crinkled bags & tissue paper, that I would never give away anyway, boxes with obscure stores that again, I would never use, extra paint cans, excess vases from floral arrangements that were sent to me, etc…that all went to the trash. The rest of it is now on the floor of my laundry room. The counters are filled with more craft supplies & gift wrap stuff. I’ll be going through this next.

The key point is this, and it’s the core of Marie Kondo’s book…if it does not spark joy in your life, it should not live in your home or your life. Wouldn’t you LOVE to look around you and feel nothing but JOY as you see the things in your life? I am so hooked on this concept and I’m looking forward to sharing my journey with all of you. I’m translating this into my business life as well. And that means exciting stuff for our wonderful customers & followers. It’s a thrilling time to be following along! I can’t wait to share all of it with you. See you next week!!