The Fridge and Visual Clutter

One of the things that can make a room—in this case, the kitchen—look cluttered is a whole lot of tiny things on the walls. Or, alternately, on the fridge:


All of that was right there at eye level in a place that I walk by dozens of times a day, and very little of it actually gets used. So I purged.

Unless a magnet had strong sentimental value or important information, I got rid of it. I replaced the large, mismatched flat magnets with cute, matching round magnets.*

I also consolidated what I left on the fridge in one area, so as to leave large expanses of empty space to diminish visual clutter.


I got rid of ten magnets and a list of house rules that has been entirely ignored by my family. Even though I made them all sign it. They did find time to graffiti on it, however.


Total items discarded: 11


* I got these magnets as a freebie at an Office Max fundraiser for teachers I attended at Janine's house. Also, if you know a teacher who could use an Office Max gift card to buy school supplies with, go by and enter Janine's contest by nominating him or her.

I did bring in 17,000 rubber bands too, in the form of three rubber band balls that I dropped in the street right outside Janine's house and had to chase down the sidewalk, but I'm not subtracting them from the count.