De-cluttering

For the longest time the kids room has been the only decent room in the house. Their room contains only their furniture (which actually matches!), a handful of stuffed animals and books (no toys!), and their current clothing. I make the girls make their beds every morning, and the room is the only place in the house that is clean and uncluttered.

The rest of the upstairs, including my bedroom and the hallway, is a total mess. Except for a few narrow paths connecting door-to-door, I haven't seen the floor in years. I am a pack-rat and hate to get rid of anything. Instead I just dump the latest thing on top of the ever growing pile of stuff. When I see junk lying around, I think of how much it costed and what it could potentially be used for and I don't want to get rid of it.

The downstairs isn't much better. The counters and tables are dumping grounds for everything -- paperwork of every sort, objects with broken or missing parts, kid's crafts, unwashed dishes, pencils missing their erasers, etc. The floor does get swept once in a while because I hate stepping on crunchy stuff when I'm barefoot. I make the kids clean up their toys twice a day and that helps with their clutter, but my clutter is what's taking over the house.

Nevertheless, I'm trying to get rid of some of the clutter in the house. My goal is to get rid of enough stuff so that I can actually make sense out of what is left.