In February I tackle organizing and decluttering my spare bedroom. I choose to do this in February because I use my bedroom as off site storage for my office. In January I cleared and organized my office and overflow items were placed in the spare bedroom knowing it would be tackled next. Most spare bedrooms serve multiple purposes. Mine serves as a place for guests to stay, a place to store wrapping paper, a place to store off season or rarely used clothes, a place to store some pictures and memorabilia, and a place to keep items for my office that I don’t use on a daily or weekly basis. When organizing the bedroom I think of all of the different zones in that room (guests, wrapping, clothes, memorabilia storage, office) and then I organize my items in that zone to maximize the space available. As more items come into the area, some items need to be purged. Last year I did a major revamp of the closet you see on the right. This year the closet beside it will need reworking. Thankfully the elfa sale is still on at the Container Store. I have 2 closet areas not shown in the picture. One is currently holding shoes, handbags, linens for guests, and some items for decorating. The other closet is holding clothes and memorabilia. I want my room to look open and relaxing. I want it to be welcoming to guests. I also want my office needs to be readily at hand when I need them. I want gift wrap materials to be easy to access. Pictures and memorabilia to not need to me as accessible. I want this done by the end of the month. The first week I will tackle the closets on the wall side shown. Then each week I will attack another wall. By the end of the month I hope to have this zone the way I want it for another year. Consider how you want your spare bedroom to look and feel and make a plan for this to happen. Let me know your results.
Jonda S. Beattie Professional Organizer
