Week two of the Catholic Minimalism challenge is bathrooms. We have four of them! Last time around, I thoroughly minimized the two upstairs. In the time since, the one on the main floor was repurposed when Emily moved all her things to the basement bathroom, which I won’t be dealing with at this moment as she is sharing it with her brother and his wife, who are moving out soon.
So . . . all this is to say that I did a quick go-over of the bathrooms on the first day and then devoted the rest of the week to the upstairs hallway, including the linen closet and the laundry room, all of which have been long-time disaster areas. Here are some before pictures:
This is the hallway at the top of our stairs, which leads to three bedrooms, a bathroom, the laundry room, the playroom, and the linen closet.
These are pictures of the terrible laundry room with the ridiculous amounts of tablecloths I needed to go through as well as things we actually use but never put away.
I did not take any before pictures of the linen closet because it had been minimized already and did not really look that bad.
Here’s what I did: First I bought four new laundry baskets from the Dollar General Store and organized all that laundry (clean!) from the first picture. All that belongs to my son and daughter-in-law, who are only here temporarily. There is nowhere to put it, and it’s not mine to minimize, but it looks much better coralled. I also got William to carry all those boxes down to Lorelei’s room, because she was too lazy to do it and they have been sitting there for weeks.
Next I got Emily for moral support and we went through all the tablecloths and placemats in the laundry room plus all the towels and bedding in the linen closet and got rid of SO MUCH and put the rest away. Everyone has their own towels already, and I only kept three extra emergency towels. I was able to get rid of things I had held on to last time we did this, and I am sure that I will be able to let go of more tablecloths especially next time around. Minimizing is an ongoing process and a mindset and you don’t have to everything all at once!
We will be going to Goodwill later this afternoon with three kitchen garbage bags full of towels, bedding, and table linens in good condition that someone else can enjoy!
The last step was to get Lorelei to help me go through the clothes that she never puts away in the laundry room. We got rid of some and sent the rest downstairs to her room. I also purchased two additional laundry baskets to keep her and William’s clothes organized as they leave the dryer and make it easier for them to be transported to their real home.
Here are the linen closets, the laundry room, and the hallway now:

A little Catholic decor to finish things off

Next Week: Kitchen!
For more adventures in minimalism, read on:
My explanation of Catholic Minimalism.
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week One Redux
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