Starting to Tame the Beast

You know what they say - anyone can eat an elephant, you just have to take it one bite at a time.  So it is with clutter.  Some days the thought of clearing it up is overwhelming and other days, I know it can be done, as long as I do a little bit at a time. 

On this rainy Saturday in Toronto, I decided to tackle a corner of my living room.  It looked like this when I started:

(Don't you love that little yellow child's dresser sitting on top? I got that 2 weeks ago at the Junction Flea.)

First I pulled everything out of the corner and rearranged the furniture.  It only took me an hour to get to this stage:

Then I decided that before I put the magazines back in the shelving unit, I wanted to decorate the side of it with pages of sheet music from a stack of vintage music books I had pulled out of the clutter.  A little bit of ModPodge, a wide brush and voila!

I love how it looks.  From the chair I usually sit in, I just turn my head to left and I can see the side panel with the music on it and it makes me happy.

Then I got busy loading magazines and some of my vintage photo albums back on the newly labelled shelves. 

Here's how the corner looks now, so much better!