A decluttering masterpiece

This weekend I completed a Herculean feat! I decluttered the Homeschool Room, aka, the Dining Room. Now, don't be confused. We don't actually do school in this room. Nor do we eat there. Once, a long time ago, when I had less stuff, we did do school there. It lasted only a few weeks. At the time my youngest was a toddler. She would stand at the gate and cry while I tried to teach Rachel. I soon realized that we should switch to the kitchen, so my little ones could have easy access to Mommy. This created it's own problems, but a least the pathetic crying ended. So, even though we haven't used it for school for 3 years, it's still the Homeschool Room. And it can legitimately called that, as that's were we store all our school "stuff". It started with a bookcase that I painted with a lovely faux finish. I also had a tall drawer storage unit, mostly for craft supplies. Under the window was a cedar chest filled with wedding gifts. Over the past 3+ years an explosion has taken place. Every year it got worse. Between my curriculum addiction, and materials from my years of teaching, the books and papers gradually overtook the room. The bookcase was framed by 3 feet tall piles. The ceder chest had been emptied and filled with things I thought "I might need". Next to the cedar chest was another huge stack of books, very important papers and the occasional history project. I purchased a storage/filing bin somewhere along the way. Unfortunately, it too was covered with a tall stack of yet more stuff. Last year I invested in three wooden vegetable bins. These are the kids lockers. They keep their work and books in these. I also had an overflowing basket of things I planned on selling on ebay. From time to time I would "organize". This basically amounted to straightening the piles, and occasionally rotating what books sat in the coveted bookcase. The fact that I'm an admitted curriculum and ebay junkie didn't help. I also apparently have major issues with just getting rid of things. This year there was just no place left to put things. So the dining room table, which often has it's own assortment of junk deposited there, became my next victim. It became the place I put all those teacher editions I needed to have on hand. The math manipulatives landed there, wayward mail and anything else I happened to have in my hands when I walked in the door. I so wish I had taken a "before" picture! The decluttering happened quite by accident. We have a wicker trunk, that had served as a toy box. We replaced that with a new piece of furniture, so I decided to get rid of the cedar chest, with it's broken top. On Friday afternoon, I started sorting through the cedar chest. I quickly realized I had many, many things that really didn't need to be in the homeschool room. Materials from last year that I wanted to save, completed workbooks from past years, that for some reason I felt compelled to keep. I also found many things I'd searched high and low for, like Rachel's test scores from last year. I thought those were gone for good. I don't know what happened, but I just kept going. I found a large empty bin in the basement to store some of the books I wanted to keep, but just didn't need this year. I filled 2 garbage bags with junk! I worked into the night. The next day, my husband sensed that a good thing was happening, so he took the kids out for several hours. I managed to eliminate every pile! I rearranged some of the storage to make it look almost like a dining room again. The bookcase is full of books I'll actually use this year, and there are no stacks of books to navigate around. I was able to position the trunk in such a way that it hides the filing bin somewhat (and it actually has files in it!). The copier fits nicely on top, and out of the way. Every flat surface, including the table, is clear!! Everyone is amazed at how big the room looks and what a nice table we have! And guess what! Everything now has a place to go!!! So if all goes well, I might be able to keep it this way! Wish me luck!