Goodbye, primary colors

In trying to do major reorganization of our house between now and when a new little person should arrive in July, I've been spending a lot of time just sitting and looking and thinking.  Trying to figure out what is an eyesore, what is too crowded, what is inconvenient, and so on.  It seemed wise to plan out at least some of the changes before I jump into buying new organizers or furniture, which is admittedly what I prefer to do.

In any case, I finally decided a few weeks ago that although babies and small children love brightly colored objects, I do NOT.  I want them all to more or less disappear after little people go to bed at night so that I can just be an adult and not have various items visually shouting at me.  If we had a basement or separate playroom, that would be one thing.  But Sebastian's toys live either in his room or in our living room, and I decided that one small step I could make was to get rid of a brightly colored organizer that I had from my classroom (which I have also learned, by the way, should not include a bunch of brightly colored objects because it irritates me there just as much as at home), and replace it with one that is more neutral.

Out with the old:

 

In with the new:

 

I know, the books are still pretty bright, but the rest of it is so much better.  I really am not even sure the pictures do justice to what a difference it is making.  This isn't the final resting place for this, but we still haven't taken down our Christmas tree and put the living room back how it belongs.  I know, it's February, but we're working on cleaning out our garage and my husband maintains that it's silly to put something that large back in when we're still busy clearing things out.  

But I digress.  One other point I want to make about the organizer is that the new one holds less.  This is a wonderful thing for me, because it forced me to get rid of a bunch of toys or books that were either repeats, too young for SP (those went into a closet to be pulled out again in the summer or fall for the new Rasler), or were just mediocre.  

That's right:  My decluttering is leading me to rid myself of as much mediocrity in my life as possible. 

What a relief.