Book Review – Making Room For You by Meghan Hill

Each chapter of this helpful book on getting organized starts with an inspirational quote such as this one from Alexandra Stoddard that leads off Chapter Nine, “When we keep our spaces simple, simply beautiful living takes place” In that chapter, Meghan takes the reader through a house room by room, suggesting ways to make each room cleaner, neater and more organized. She suggests taking items such as knick knacks off of shelves and tables and putting them into a bin that you can then sort in another room, deciding which items will stay and which will go. The key to sorting elsewhere is so you don’t give in to the urge to just put it back where it has been for so long. I know I tend to do that. “Oh, I just loved that little angel right there on the shelf next to the books.”

I found Chapter Nine most helpful as I consider downsizing my living space and cluttering my life. I am a pack rat, for all the reasons Meghan mentions early in the book about how and why we get so attached to things, and I especially liked her gentle approach to evaluating all this. “The purpose of getting organized boils down to discernment. It is the process of separating the wheat from the chaff so that the useful and beautiful in your life can stand out instead of being eclipsed by all the things you don’t like or use.“

How many of you reading this have boxes of stuff in closets and tucked in corners of rooms? Raise your hand along with me. I did recently de-clutter some of my office, which has had boxes in the closet, in the corners, and under my desk, but I cringed when I read this, “Anything sitting around unused in boxes is not serving you no matter how hard you try to convince yourself you ‘can’t’ let it go.”