Organizing @ Home the Guest Room
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thanks for your patience!
Otherwise known as the storage room đ
Today we will discuss:
– Assess & Reflect
– Organize
– How Long Will It Take?
– Homework
Are your in-laws, siblings or parents coming for a stay? If itâs been a while since you popped your head into the guest room, today is the day. We want our guests to feel welcomed, comfortable and loved when they stay with us. All the clutter that has been banished to the guest room will need to go for it to truly be a place of rest!
The Plan is to create a comfortable and inviting room for your guests by thoughtfully and intentionally removing the clutter â and addressing it along the way.
Put on your favorite music â something that really makes you HAPPY! Something that makes you feel love and joy so that while you work in this room that energy is brought into the space! Take a moment to ask for help from your higher power. Spend a few extra moments reflecting on things you are grateful for. Each of these things on their own are wonderful, but with all three combined â look out! You will be supercharged and will make this process much easier and even fun! Before you begin set the intention to be productive. Believe you can do it.
Assess & Reflect
Items that wind up in the guest room are things rarely used.
Here are some possibilities:
- Items to get rid of but for some reason you’re still holding onto them. Todayâs the day to make the decision.
- When was the last time you used it or wanted to use it?
- Â Can it be returned to the store? Or to the person?
- Items you no longer need or use but were expensive.
- Can it be sold on Craigslist, Facebook, OfferUpNow.com, NextDoor.com, Vinted.com, Tradesy.com or other resale sites?
- Consider what it is costing you in mental energy to have to continually shuffle it around.
- There is a price to pay that canât be measured in dollars.
- Home dĂ©cor that hasnât been used.
- If you are hanging onto items that you âmight use one dayâ or really like but never found a good place for, think about whether you will ever really use it. If the answer is yes, hang onto it. If not, let it go.
- The guest room is a good place for home decor. Consider storing it in the closet on the upper shelf or back corner of the closet. An out of the way area that a guest might not use.
Many items relegated to the guest room are postponed decisions. Kindly, but decisively make those decisions today.
Deliver
As you assess and reflect on every item, place them in the corresponding boxes for donate, distribute and of course trash.
Where to begin? In guest rooms trash is typically not a major issue, so instead start with whatever is the easiest thing to make decisions on. If you get stuck move on to something you can make a decision on as to continually make forward progress.
Organize it
Reorganizing the closet will go a long way to get everything that must stay in the room to fit.
Here are some tips to help make that happen:
- Framed art can stack tightly in the back of the closet, or possibly on a shelf if they are small enough. Stack largest to smallest.
- If things fit into containers, group by like kind and secure the lids so containers can stack.
- For items that canât fit into containers, you might place them on top of the lidded containers.
- Bulky and heavy items can stay on the floor.
- Tall and slender items like lamps or vases are safer on a shelf.
- Often there are cardboard boxes found in guest room closets. When you examine the contents to determine whether to keep, toss or donate, it’s also the perfect opportunity to replace the cardboard box with a plastic box. Cardboard boxes are known to attract bugs, and no one likes that!
Stick With It!
Be sure to not leave the room until you are finished making decisions. This room might be a challenge for you and walking out to go put something away is a no-no. You will waste valuable time with distractions that are easier to contend with than the guest room.
Keep your end goal in mind
A welcoming room for your guest to stay in. It might be easy to reason away why you canât get this accomplished, but donât. Spend a few minutes reminding yourself why you are doing this: for people you love and care for. People you have chosen to spend time with. Even if those people are in-laws you donât particularly like, they are the parents of the person you love. Focus on that. Chose to infuse the room with positivity and love no matter what. An attitude like that will make you happy no matter who is coming to visit!
How Long Will It Take?
Guest rooms are a mixed bag. Four hours is the magic number when we are organizing clients homes, but that includes the ability to stay totally focused and on task.
If your plan is just to get everything to fit into the guest room closet without any purging, it will take less time, but you are wise to at least take the time to sort and group like items together – they are usually the same shapes and that will help make better use of the space. By sorting and grouping tight spaces can accommodate much more than you think it can.
If your room is full and the closet is full, chances are it will take longer than 4 hours to sort and purge.
This guest room and closet took about 6 hours to complete.
The client took the time to make decisions about what to purge which freed up space in the closet. When we were finished, she had a lot of items to distribute to her adult children, family and friends so although the closet was organized and functioning, there was still more “work” to be done. She immediately sent texts to coordinate pick ups and deliveries to expedite getting everything out the door!
 Today’s Assignment
– Clear out the Guest Room.
– Send love and positivity to the room so your guests feel loved and welcomed!
– Worksheet: Action Plan Worksheet
If you have any questions, comments or thoughts, reach out on Facebook or join us on our bi-weekly ZOOM video conference calls! Join the Clutter to Clarity Club here!
Until next time…
