Cleaning Your Childhood Bedroom: 4 Things I Learned

Childhood, in retrospect, can be a time of dreams and possibility, mixed with bouts of confusion and angst. Your childhood room is the silent witness to all of these personal struggles. Within its walls lies your memories: your nerves the night before a school presentation, your excitement trying on your first day of kindergarten outfit…and then years later trying on your prom dress. It was home to your childhood pets, and the memories of their squeaks or purrs still echo within your mind. Now in my thirties, I still somehow expect to greet one of my past guinea pigs in my old room. 

You’ve graduated from high school, you’ve perhaps gone to university or even graduate school, and you’ve lived elsewhere for a while. Life keeps moving quickly and you keep moving cities and apartments, with each move hopefully becoming more independently established. Visits to your parents’ home become even more rare, and now, if you’re anything like me, you realize your parents really should be able to reclaim that extra square footage of their house that you still refer to as “my room.”

I’ve been extremely privileged in the fact that my parents never have asked me to clean out my old room, despite my not actually living there since graduating high school. Aside from a few summer weeks here and there, it mainly became a dumping ground for things from various phases of my life. Knowing that it needed cleaning and organizing, I would make a small attempt on each rare visit over the last handful of years, but never had enough time to really dedicate to that task. 

Now in my early(ish) thirties, married, and feeling established in a different home halfway across the country, it was beyond time to get this room in order and put that part of my life to rest. My husband and I hopped in the car and made the long drive to my parents’ house to concentrate on this task (well, my husband was more along for the ride). 

Getting Started

Arriving late at night, I opened the door to the bedroom and immediately was greeted by a cloud of dust. Coughing, I could make out the dark shapes of boxes and random items piled throughout the dimly lit room. Some of the items I recognized, others I didn’t. I took note of the enormity of the task ahead and closed the door, deciding to get a good night’s rest first. 

The next morning, I held my breath and opened the door. Expecting the dust this time, I gingerly made it about two feet into the room before I had to start moving things. Things that I did not recognize. Things that were not mine. Apparently, my parents had indeed claimed a bit of the room as a storage room! After relocating at least six large boxes of their things (deviously putting four of those boxes in their master bedroom), I could finally make my way more into the room. 

Its amazing how much stuff was in the room! Obviously, most of it I did did not really need, as I have been living without it it. Luckily, I had given myself approximately a week to get this room sorted. Here’s what I learned: 

1) Allow Yourself Time to Concentrate on the Task 

From my previous visits, I had realized I needed to devote a visit purely to cleaning the room. Visiting parents, friends, and celebrating holidays could not be the main point of the trip. The room was too much of a task to just spend an hour here and there every few years. Plus, I had only managed to clear the bed each previous visit…only to find myself doing the same thing again two years later! (My mom would gather mail and potentially interesting articles and leave them on my bed.) 

This time, I had allowed a week for this task. I would spend a little time with family and for remote work, but the main bulk of the time would be for the room. 

2) Take Breaks 

Sorting your childhood things can be overwhelming and also brings up a lot of memories. It’s easy to suddenly start lingering over an item or, at least for me, just start staring at the overwhelming amount of stuff to get through. But to make the most of the time you have, you have to limit these inactions. You have to keep moving through things. 

If I found myself starting to go a bit too far down memory lane, I would stop and take a short break. I would leave the room, grab a snack, do a bit of work, read a chapter of my book, check in on my husband…anything that was different to the task of cleaning. Afterward I would go back and get started again, objectively focused on the task. Sometimes an hour of working in the room would become interspersed with multiple short breaks. Even a five minute break would make all the difference to refocus my mind. 

3) Be Honest in What You Keep 

As you are weeding through things, it is so easy to suddenly come across previously important items and then want to keep them. However, I urge you to consider two thoughts: you’ve been living without these items for “x” years and you only have a certain amount of room in your current home. In my case, I had clearly been living without most of the items in my old room for at least a decade. Therefore those items were not necessary to my current life, especially if I didn’t remember them before coming across them. I also live in a New York City apartment: space is precious. I cannot bring many items with me. 

Consequently, I have to carefully chose what to keep. Some childhood toys are on that list: my teddy bear, a stuffed animal with my grandmother’s voice recording, my American Girl doll, and, for now, my Playmobil dollhouse. The dollhouse will likely be passed along to a child in my life, perhaps my own. But I’ll save it for a few more years to see if that happens! Most of the other toys are not as important, so I will say “good bye” to them and pass them along to a new owner. You can find so many places to donate your old items, whether that be a shelter, school, or church. They will treasure your old items as much, if not more, than you did. 

4) Arrange the Stuff You Still Have to Reflect the Room’s Current Use 

I’m really fortunate in the fact that my parents are, for now, still living in my childhood house. They also are not impatient for my old room to be completely cleared out. I have the consequent luxury of leaving items in the room, but wanted to rearrange and use the items to reflect the room’s current purpose of a guest bedroom/office. I made sure the desk and dresser surfaces were cleared and decorated appropriately. The books on the bookcase were rearranged. And of course everything was dusted and vacuumed! Even though I still have (quite a bit) of stuff in the room, the room is now functional and comfortable. It is a place that has gone from childhood to storage room to a more grown-up room. 

The End of the Week 

Despite spending a week working on the room I was unable to completely finish it. There are still things to go through. I never got through the desk drawers or the clothing. There are still items that will be donated or thrown out. There are also some items that will be coming to NYC in the future. Furniture will probably be rearranged again at some point (the head of the bed against the window is not the best idea). In any case, the room went through a major transformation from dusty storage room back to a sunny bedroom/office. My parents can now host more guests if they wish—and my mom can use the desk space. I just hope they don’t keep treating it as their storage room!!