52 in 52: Declutter a closet (aka get rid of the *shit*)

I’m not going to lie, declutter and cleaning out our cupboard was probably my most favourite one on my entire 52 in 52 list. My hubby is notorious for hanging onto things “in case”. I have those moments too, I’ll admit. But once it gets to a certain point I go insane, and I do a throw out.

That point has been approaching for the past 12 months.

Of course I would choose the hottest day in probably the last 12 months, but it needed to be done. I had timing on my side. We’re going to moving into our new house in about a month, which meant we were going to have to deal with this eventually. I pointed out that it would be good to just do the charity bin/rubbish tip runs now, instead of when we’re overwhelmed by the rest of the house move. Finally, he agreed.

The clean out begins

The main bedroom

I eased him into it by starting with the cupboards in our bedroom. They’re full, but we are constantly removing stuff we don’t need so I knew it would be too bad. We each picked a side, made calls as we went, and it was done within 15 minutes.

I’m a sucker for a good board game, and my collection has grown more than I realised. I love that more than half of these have come from our op shop board game nights! That also explains the One Direction board game, thanks Kat! 🙂

board game collection
I was stunned that during the clean out we uncovered that Mario possessed a pirate costume. I’ve lived with him now for 3 years, and never seen it before. Somehow it has survived the clean out, so friends, if we invite you to a random dress up party its so that he can justify its existence. I’m sure that I could throw it out and he would never know.

The linen “kitchen equipment” cupboard

The linen cupboard upstairs is actually more of a kitchen equipment cupboard. It contains so many bits and pieces of cooking equipment, with a few towels and clothes  crammed in on the side. I’m so grateful that we’ll be gaining an extra 2 rooms with the new house – I’m betting one of those cupboards will become storage for our linen, so the more easily accessible linen cupboard is dedicated to his stuff. Not that I’m complaining – he whips up some amazing food with this stuff!

Given that it was 90% cooking equipment I hadn’t included this in my plan, but Mario was so caught up in the moment he threw open the doors and got into it. Only a few things went from here, but that’s more than I expected. One of the sacrifices was a meat slicer that had only been used once – hopefully someone from the op shop will appreciate that more than we did.

And then we found this – what the hell??

The shit we find when cleaning out the cupboard. Never used. My god.

A photo posted by @kelsbells on

The spare bedroom

Now this, this is the area I was excited to tackle. It has been the bane of my existence for a long time. This cupboard was a major eye sore. And once we got stuck into it, boy, did the piles grow quickly!

I did a before and after on this cupboard, which you can see below. The kitchen aid box wasn’t in the before, but rather something we’d brought from downstairs up. We’ll need that when it comes time for the house move so that we can move the kitchen aid mixer easily. But otherwise, look at the difference!

The before and after of the cupboard clean…I think we can declare it a success!!

A photo posted by @kelsbells on


Some of the noteable items to be tossed/donated:

  • A thousand of Mario’s Michael Buble CDs (hello spotify subscription – we love you)
  • A telstra touch dial phone (almost forgot these existed)
  • A joystick for the computer that Mario wanted to keep in case he played computer games again, then realised he hasn’t in years, so donated it
  • Computer games, see above. It included Half Life, Call of Duty, Battlefield 1, 2 & 3, a flight simulator etc etc.
  • A slap bracelet!

The aftermath

Right now my car boot is completely filled to the brink with stuff to donate to the stores. On top of all the stuff from the cupboards, I also included piles of clothes of mine that I’ve been gradually weeding out. There’s even a Roxy luggage piece in there that I bought when I was in Las Vegas – I love it but I never use it, so it’s just taking up space. It had to go.

car boot with stuff to donate
I’m so thrilled with how it went. We’re not too worried about the organisation of it right now due to the imminent move – that’s something I’ll concern myself with later. The cupboard is now organised, and we know that everything that’s in there is actually worth the space it sits in.

The best part is I can now go upstairs and not feel constantly overwhelmed by the cupboard – thank god! And another 52 in 52 done and dusted, woohoo!

For the full list of my 52 in 52 for 2017 click here.

3 thoughts on “52 in 52: Declutter a closet (aka get rid of the *shit*)”

Let me know your thoughts!