Confession: I’m a magazine hoarder.
I have stacks of magazines spread throughout our house. When I don’t make time to read AND sort my magazines, they quickly start piling up. You can imagine how many stacks I have since I have about 8 different subscriptions. My magazine hoard usually rests on my side of the bed, on the coffee table, or on my computer desk (see above). I also have a problem with not putting my cookbooks back in my bookcase! Yes–I’m bad. When I got out of bed this morning and knocked a stack of books on the floor, I knew it was time to tackle my hoard. Today was the day!
Here’s what my bedside looked like this AM:
I started off by stacking my magazines & sorting them into piles.
Whenever I’m tackling a project like this, I always imagine how much easier it would be to move into a new place without these items. Motivates me like nothing else!
I went throughout the house & gathered ALL of my magazines in every nook imaginable.
After much thought, I decided to recycle about 80% of my Martha Stewart Living magazines. Since I have issues dating back to 2002, I wanted to keep all of my favorite themed issues: Valentines/Organizing and a limited amount of Summer & Decorating issues. It took a lot for me to say goodbye, but I figured the internet will continue to supply me with inspiration, so why not let it go? The best part is that now I don’t have to house that inspiration. I have pinterest!
These are the ones from upstairs:
When I finished the magazine sorting, I tackled my Everyday Food Collection! 2002-2011 (whoa.)
After I separated them by year, I realized that on the side of each issue was a number.
You have NO idea how happy this made me. Thank you Everyday Food for being so organized!
***In retrospect, it might have been better if I sorted them by month!***
So on the side of my bed, I put all of my Donna Hay magazines in a nice stack.
And here’s all of the sorted Everyday Food Magazines to the side.
This is what my side of the bed looks like now! What a difference!
So now…what to do with those cookbooks?
In our sitting room, we have a pretty large bookcase that houses my cookbooks, art books, novels & magazines.
I had it organized once, but didn’t put my cookbooks back properly so things got pretty jammed up.
Here’s what it looked like before I got a hold on it this AM:
In the upper top left of that bookcase, I have camera gear. You wouldn’t know it because there’s a lot of crap shoved in there. I decided to take a few empty storage containers and sort my stuff.
Here’s what it looks like now! My magazine collection has been reduced to this!
I can’t part with my Domino & Blueprint collection, so they’re staying!
So after a bit of rearranging, I was able to fit all of my cookbooks on my bookshelf!
I organized them by color. I always remember where to find stuff that way.
Here’s another angle:
So that’s what I tackled today. Took about 3 hours. DAMN, it feels good to depart with this much clutter.
I hope this helps inspire you to tackle your own magazine hoard. Just remember, you can always rip things out & save them! You don’t always need to keep an entire magazine. Keep in mind that you’ll have to organize that collection too! You can check out how I organized recipes from my magazines HERE.
