Hi loves!
It's Aileen from Lavendaire.
Welcome to this video of me trying to get my life together again.
As we're getting closer to 2020,
I've been wanting to reset my space
and create a clean slate for the start of the new year.
I always feel best when my space is organized
because if my space is a mess, my mind is a mess.
Huge thanks to LG for sponsoring today's video.
I can't wait to show you guys the living room makeover we did.
First order of business is to fully unpack from my trips.
I spent the past six and a half weeks traveling
to Indonesia, China, and then a short trip to Dallas.
I felt kind of overwhelmed and also really jet lagged,
so I decided to take it slow this time
and let myself unpack and organize over a few days,
rather than trying to do it all at once.
After my trips, I've been more inspired to slow down
and take a more balanced approach to life.
Do a little a day and eventually it'll get done anyway.
Here, I'm organizing all my toiletries.
I like to keep all my travel size toiletries together in a pouch
and also keep my empty pouches together in a box.
That way, anytime I travel, everything is in one place
and I can just take out the toiletries or pouches I need for that trip.
Moving on, we've been wanting to revamp our living room TV area for a long time.
This setup is so old and unnecessarily cluttered.
The TV is over 15 years old
and we have a karaoke set that's over 20 years old.
There are players for VCR, DVD, and LCD.
Do you guys even know what an LCD is?
And we have five old speakers that we don't use
that are just taking up space.
Anyway, we've been long overdue for a living room makeover,
so this was one of our goals to do before 2020.
Out with the old and in with the new.
My brother also recently moved back,
so I'm happy that he and Wilson could help me out a little bit.
All right, time to move out the old equipment.
Oh my god, what a headache to see all these tangled cords in the back.
At this point, you can't even figure out what goes where.
So I just unplugged the chords from the machines and put those away first.
As you can see, I'm just frustrated with the wires here,
so I just thought I'd come back to this step.
In the meantime, I'll remove the smaller speakers first
and oh my goodness, it was so dusty.
All right, back to this guy.
Again, I decided to just remove the cords from the machine
and deal with the cords later.
It was so dusty, so now I'm just trying to wipe everything down.
And now I can finally say goodbye to these crazy cords.
Then I'm dusting off the TV shelf to prepare for our new look.
For the new setup, I picked up a couple of new plant babies:
a Majestic Palm and a Monstera Deliciosa,
also known as the Swiss Cheese plant.
I haven't named them yet, so what do you think I should need them?
Let me know down below.
I also picked up some cute pots for them.
For the palm, I just found this cute basket.
And for the Monstera, because it's shorter,
I opted for a pot with a plant stand.
I love the modern look.
I honestly wasn't planning to go with a lighter palette here,
because I knew we'd keep that black TV shelf, but I couldn't help it.
I only know this one style, guys.
In the end, I decided to put one plant on each side to balance it out.
And now it's time to decorate the TV shelf.
So I wanted to keep it simple
and I also didn't want to buy anything new for decor,
so I just found some pretty things around the house that we could put here.
There is a succulent I received as a gift
that I thought matched the Monstera plant pretty well,
an amethyst crystal, a candle, the Artist of Life Workbook, and some other books.
I also added a Tibetan singing bowl that was also a recent gift.
I guess the theme was loosely “purple and gold”.
In the end, I thought we also needed some more books, so here we are.
Afterwards, I just dusted off the coffee and side table in the living room.
The next day I decided to add this tapestry behind the TV
because I wanted to add a visual to the blank space we had above the TV.
I had this for years but never really had a place to put it.
I'm so happy it matched perfectly with my new plants.
And voila!
Our new living room: simplified and brought to life.
I love that the space is more light, clean, airy, modern, and beautiful.
It makes me feel happier
and I find myself wanting to spend more time here now.
The new addition to our home that I'm loving so much is our new LG OLED TV.
The LG B9 TV is one of the thinnest TVs in the world.
We were seriously astonished by how thin it was when we opened the box.
It's insane.
Look at how thin it is between my fingers.
And then see how that compares to our old TV that we just moved out.
I can't even wrap my hands around the old TV.
On top of that, the picture quality is so beautiful and crisp.
You can see all the details.
As a creative, I totally appreciate the color and quality on this TV,
and I'm excited to use this to preview my videos in the future.
This LGTV is a smart TV with an OLED screen,
perfect for watching TV and movies on web OS.
You have everything from Netflix to Amazon Prime, YouTube, and more.
It also comes with a magic remote for convenience, with voice control.
All you have to do is hold the mic button and say your command.
“Open YouTube.”
There's even Google assistant and Alexa built into the TV, which I love.
“What's the weather tomorrow?”
This new TV, along with our refreshed living room setup,
makes me so excited to have a comfortable space to relax.
Check the link in the box below to learn more about this TV.
Later that night, I was being extra
and decided to dust off my new plant babies.
New plants are always a little dusty from being in the store for a period of time,
so I like to wipe them down as a way to invite them into my home and into my life.
You already know I talk to my plants.
Plants are living things too, and they can feel my energy, okay?
Now it's time to declutter my office.
First things first, I got to give some love to my plants here as well.
Do you guys remember how small Lila was when I first got her?
I am such a proud plant mom.
Anyway, truth is: the day of my evening flight to Bali,
I actually had the photo shoots for the Pastel Notebooks
and Artist of Life Workbook launch.
So after the shoots, I rushed home to drop off my things,
pick up my suitcases, and head to the airport for my six week trip.
Now I'm finally back and yeah, it's about time I unpack
all my samples and props from the photo shoots.
Look at all the Pastel Notebooks.
These are from four rounds of samples
and I had them scattered all over the floor
so I could take notes and do comparison tests.
My floor has looked like this for months, honestly,
while I was working on the notebooks launch.
Now that they're launched, I can finally clean them up.
So here I'm just going through all the samples
and choosing which ones I want to keep
and which ones I want to give away.
I’m keeping anything from the first round
because I'm sentimental like that,
and also the ugliest ones that I wouldn't want to give away,
and you know, books that are in good condition
I'm putting in a box so I can gift to my friends and family.
Here's the box of notebook and workbook samples that I'm going to give away.
And here are the samples I'm going to keep.
A couple of notebooks I'm keeping are from my water test on Instagram.
I tested how water resistant the covers are
for my Pastel Notebooks and they did so well.
You can see the experiment on my IG highlights.
I decided to keep my notebook samples in this cabinets.
And now on to the bedroom.
The bedroom just needed a little dusting and organizing,
so since I'm in the cleaning mood today, I just decided to keep going.
What got me in the mood to clean today
was playing my older EDM playlist that I haven't heard in a while.
Because I was just enjoying the music,
I wanted to keep cleaning so I could keep listening to music as I clean.
It was a good time to do so because my room was pretty dusty.
Now let's move on to the bathroom.
You might notice that I like to use small towels to clean.
I feel like cloth towels hold more dust than paper towels or wipes,
and I like that they're reusable and eco-friendly.
I collect all the towels used for cleaning
and wash them in a separate load once we have enough used up.
At night, I decided to finally fold some laundry that I've had lying around.
I’m watching Queer Eye in Japan while folding,
and this first episode was honestly so good.
It combined so many things I love:
Queer Eye, Japan, and lots of self care, confidence building, and sparkle.
I love shows like this.
They can make me laugh and cry in one episode.
To be honest, I still think folding clothes is tedious,
but I know that whenever I get it done, I feel so better about myself.
I feel [exhale]: relieved, balanced, on top of things, and proud of myself.
And if that's what it takes to get those positive feelings,
then I'll do what I don't really feel like doing to get there.
Life's all about give and take, you know?
After folding, crying, and laughing,
I’m moving everything on over to my closet to put my clothes away.
I have one drawer where I keep my foldable shirts,
and it's starting to get a bit full now.
Once this happens, I try to see which items I can remove from my closet
to give away to make space for the new.
“Out with the old, in with the new” is the theme for today's video.
Then I'm putting away shorts and leggings which go in this bottom drawer.
And then pants, which either go in this drawer or are hung.
Lastly, I'm hanging up clothes that are happier when hung.
Not sure how long you guys have been following me,
but if you're new, then just know that I follow
the KonMari system of organizing and folding.
KonMari is short for Marie Kondo,
who wrote the book “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up”.
I hope you've heard of her.
If you haven't, you can check out my playlist of videos on KonMari
or pick up the book yourself.
I decluttered my entire life in 2015
and since then, I regularly declutter every now and then.
So here are the clothes I'm letting go from my closet
and adding to my donation boxes.
I've been collecting a lot of things to donate,
which I'm planning to bring to the women's shelter in downtown LA.
If you can, this is the best time to donate clothes, bedding, or anything else
to your local shelter, because it's getting colder
and it's also a really nice thing to do during the holiday season.
Anytime is a great time to give,
but I also think it's nice to know that your extra clothes or blankets
could help keep someone warm instead of sitting in your closet unused.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed decluttering and organizing my space with me.
Give this video a thumbs up if you liked it,
and subscribe for more videos on personal growth and lifestyle design.
By the way, new year is right around the corner,
so let me know in the comments
what new year-related videos you'd like to see from me.
I'm so excited to start a new decade with you all.
Yes, a new decade – how crazy is that?
Anyway, sending you so much love, and I'll see you next time.
Bye!