CLEANING MY ROOM + UNCLOGGING & DECLUTTERING MY SPACE! FT. BEFORE AND AFTER PICS | yikes™😫🤯🤷‍♀️

Hi, my name is Ellyn and I get busy and then I get messy and then I get anxious and then I get anxious about being anxious and then I freeze up and live in a zone of nothingness. My bedroom was pretty much a mess for the end of 2017 and all of 2018. Most of you guys will know this, but I have gotten a few more followers this year so you can check out this post if you’re curious, but last year I had a lot of family and school troubles so the tidiness of my room was the least of my troubles.

I actually start school this week so I wanted to make sure that I could start the school year off as stress-free as possible, starting with my bedroom. I don’t enjoy living in a room that basically looks like a sty, but I also have a very small room that *certain* members of my family seem to think they can dump their stuff in whenever they don’t want to deal with it. So, I had a lot of rubbish and a lot of other people’s stuff clogging up my space, and nobody wants to go into the new year with that. So, I decided to take a few days and clean up my space to hopefully help clear up my mind as well as make being in my own room a less stressful experience.

PS: If you can’t handle mess, maybe don’t read any further?

BEFORE

BEFORE – Look how bad my desk and floor were yikes™

Look, I’m not going to use any excuses – my room was disgusting. But, I think the reason it got that bad, aside from the fact, I have literally no space, is that when the school season hits I get ridiculously stressed. So year 12 and my first year of Uni sort of made it so my room just became a place where I would sleep and store stuff which is why it sort of looks like a messy storage container with a bed.

But, what I learned from this experience is that I also don’t enjoy spending too much time with my family, because I’m sorry but there are a lot of people and I get tired very quickly. So, my room and eventually, the entire house because somewhere I would avoid like the plague.

Basically, I didn’t want this to be the case for 2019. I’m going into my second year of Uni and I don’t want to have to deal with the bad mojo I got in previous years with not being able to stand to be in my own space. I wanted to be able to sort of take control of my space and find a way to make it work for me, which you’ll see I did in the after photos.

BEFORE – The aftermath of not going near my shelves for basically 2 years

Yeah, you saw how bad the surfaces in my room got, but here’s how ridiculous my shelves got. Honestly, they were probably the worst part, though they don’t look it. I love book, hell, I have a book blog. But, my books became something that were starting to make me uncomfortable. I started using the library and Audible to read most of my books (something I find I’m more comfortable with and still do) and avoided my bookshelves, again, like the plague.

I started to become super anxious whenever I would look at my shelves or even have to go near them, hence the mini barrier I subconsciously created to keep me around 1 metre away from it.

This was also a massive reason for why I unhauled over 100+ books throughout 2018. I couldn’t stand to look at all the books I hadn’t read and so, I did the only thing I could think to do to get rid of the anxiety immediately and so, I got rid of a lot of the books I had no interest in or that made me feel unhappy.

-Basically I spent the most time outside of my bedroom because looking at my shelves made me anxious and sad. But, my DVDs made me happy and 2018 was definitely a movie year for me, so I was happier with that shelf, which was great because it’s closer to my bed.

AFTER

AFTER –  Look how much bigger my room looks now that I’ve moved my desk & shelf!

Once I had cleaned my floor and desk off, I decided to go the full monty and rearrange some of the furniture in my room because, why not? So, I moved my white bookshelf and my desk around and it worked out so well! I obviously still have the same amount of room but, having the extra bit of space in the doorway to get in and out makes all the difference!

Also, side note, but totally important: My dog is loving having that extra space to lie down!

AFTER – I finally rearranged my shelf and it was actually so much fun???

Yes, I have three and a half shelves! I have my purple shelf which I mostly use for DVDs and comics, my white shelf which I use for my favourite reads and storage, and my red shelf which you guys can only barely see but, sits in the doorway and mostly houses my classics and again, storage (I have a seriously small room guys, the photos actually make it look bigger than it is). I also have my bed head which I use as a small shelf for my books and the DVDs I’d like to watch asap. Fun fact, my bedhead used to be the only shelf I had and I would literally stack my books on top of each other until the books were halfway up the wall.

I don’t know if you can really tell this through my shotty pictures, but I also got rid of a few Funko Pops. I love Funkos but I really do enjoy having clean shelves and, honestly, I feel like my room is cluttered enough as it is. That being said, I’ll probably collect another one or two throughout this year because I am dying to get a Toothless Pop for my top DVD shelf!

It’s been a long and very stressful journey but I finally feel like I’m at a place where I’m happy with my room and I’m actually happy to be here. I usually write my blog posts in the living room on the couch, but today I’m actually sitting at my desk which is already doing wonders for my posture and my productivity! So, it’s a positive result so far!

DOES HAVING A CLUTTERED SPACE EFFECT YOUR MENTAL SPACE?

HOW OFTEN DO YOU CLEAN OUT YOUR SPACE?

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