Flat surfaces tend to collect clutter. My kids' dressers are no exception. During my organization of Sweetie Pie's bedroom (you can see part 1 HERE), I tackled her dresser and desk tops.
After I organized an American Girl Doll play corner as seen in the picture below, I decided I'd tackle the next clutter culprit - her dresser. It had become a dumping ground for anything and everything.
One technique to decluttering is to remove everything from a space (whether it be a drawer, corner or entire room) and then put the items into piles such as trash, donate/sell, elsewhere.... Then to put back only what you want to keep. Rather than dump the contents of her dresser onto her bed and then separate them into piles, I put things away as I went. Call it my organized way of decluttering. A lot of the stuff on her dresser were hair accessories and jewelry. She has bins in her closet for these items so I just removed them from the dresser and put them in the right bins. I also threw away any trash while I was at it. A few things I moved over to her new nightstand and what was left I laid out on her bed. Most of the things would go back on her dresser, but a few things were relocated to her miscellaneous bin. That's a bin in her closet for all the stuff we don't know what to do with. Sounds better than calling it a junk drawer, but it's basically the same thing. We just try to keep it contained to one bin.
Once I was left with an empty dresser top, I dusted it and put back only what I wanted on it.
Ah, much better.
But, I'm still not done with her room. Next up was the desk area and closet. Below is a before and after of her desk. I followed the same technique as with her dressers. I threw away trash and anything that went somewhere else I put it away. While I didn't clear off the entire desk (I left most things on the shelves), I did clear off the writing area and put back only what I wanted there.
And finally there was her closet. I was in such an organizing mood, I forgot to take a before picture. Just image crafty stuff, tote bags, clothes and other random toys spilling out of it into the floor.
That bin of drawers in the middle and some of the bins on the shelves are actually empty. What a great feeling. There is still some work to be done such having my daughter go through each bin or drawer to see what we can get rid of. And then there is that mess at the top, but it is so much better. And so far it's been staying neat.
