Home Makeover Project: Bookshelf

I shared this picture on my Instagram a week ago, but I wanted to share a few more photos on the blog as well. I have a bit of an obsession with shelves, I feel like you can't really have enough. Actually, maybe I just have an obsession with furniture in general. Especially if it's a really good deal. We bought this shelf at a thrift store for less than $40 almost two years ago. Other than a few nicks, it was pretty sturdy and a really good deal. I bought it with the intention to paint it, but at the time I had never painted anything, and so it got put off for a really long time. These were the inspiration pictures I had in mind:

I used the same paint I used for our front door, a dark bluish gray, and I mixed it with the plain gray I used in Ez's bedroom to make it a slightly lighter gray. The wood soaked up a lot of paint, so it took three coats till I was happy with the results. All in all it took about a week's worth of naptimes. Well worth the work, because I'm in love with the results. 

Even if we didn't paint though, I think just the fact that I cleaned up, got rid of some clutter, and organized made a huge difference. I've been following along with the Living Well Spending Less: 31 Days to Clutter Free Challenge. Not all of the daily challenges apply to me, but days 4, 5, and 6 inspired this project. Almost as much as I love shopping for furniture at thrift stores, I love collecting clutter around the house and sending it off to Goodwill. I'm not a neat freak by any means, but I just like everything to have a home (even if it's not put away, it puts my mind at ease to know it could be). I gather up clothes and other random things several times a year for donation. Since we just moved in July, I thought I'd already sorted and discarded most of our unwanted stuff. But toward the end of our move a lot of stuff just wound up getting thrown into boxes without getting sorted like I'd hoped, so our bookshelf was way too cluttered. I got rid of a lot of DVDs, some still unwrapped that we agreed we'd never watch. I put the rest in those gray chevron baskets that I got at TJ Maxx. I also got rid of a ton of books I knew I'd never read again, moved all of Joe's trivia books to the bathroom (we have a shelf in there and it seems more like bathroom reading to me), and moved a few books to our shelf in the bedroom. I love how organized the living room feels now. I really believe that clutter produces anxiety, and I love walking through the door and seeing our organized, (and currently pumpkin-filled) bookshelf. 

So that's my latest home makeover project! Because it was so time-intensive (and because I'm running out of stuff to paint) it may be the last one for a little while. We're heading into the holiday season, which means things are about to get hectic! In a fun way, of course :)

PS - do you have any fast, surefire ways to keep clutter under control? I feel like it's a constant battle in our house (which I'm betting all parents can relate to).