Messy Mittwoch: A clean house does not a home create

Have you seen our study lately?  Here's a shot, taken on the 16th of January, when I was in the midst of packing in preparation for my in-laws to visit:

Terrible, aint it?  I can assure you it was way neater after I was done (you should see the huge pile of papers/magazines I cleared), but then I think the study still has a long way to go before reaching the ideal cozy, clean room that it should be.  Same goes for most of the house I guess, but more so for this room since it tends to be the dumping ground for stuff in general. :p  Doesn't help that my scrap/craft stuff keeps accumulating there too!

I've been rather inspired by the clean-ups going over at "Project Simplify" over at Simple Mom, however, I think its rather tough to follow through with the weekly clean-ups, not with all that we already have to accomplish each day.  Its so tempting to plunge in and go into a major purging session everyday, but I'm also reminded that while I want the house to be beautiful, clean does not equate to comfortable (this I totally know, since my mum was a fastidious cleaner.  She insisted on having those stiff antique Chinese wooden chairs in the living room, as they were easier to clean than sofas.  No one sat in them, except when we had the occasional guest, and the living room became more or less "dead", or just a place to sit on the floor and veg out in front of the TV)... and I'd rather have love in the home than sparkling windows .  Last week, there also came this reminder that "homemaking is making a home, not about making perfection".  :)

So for the next few months, I thought I'd be simple with regards to de-cluttering (No clutter diet for me, thank you very much).  We do need to clear loads of stuff since most of what we have needs to be in storage when we move to Germany next year, and I can't imagine having to store all 6 (and more) full Billy bookshelves stuffed with books, and a cupboard chockfull of craft stuff... However I probably can only spare about 1/2 an hour a day just working on this, since there's the usual housework, cooking, cuddling and storybook reading that needs to be done.  The plan would be to use 20 minutes a day, either to target an area in the house, or to clear/pack/repair 20 items in the house.  Hopefully this works out, meanwhile, you'd probably have to endure me rambling about this for the next few weeks!

So... have you been de-cluttering or making improvements to your home lately?  What are your tips for making a house a home?

PS: If you're wondering, Mittwoch = Wednesday in German.  I ended up using the term so that I could get my alliterations (sorry, am rather obsessed by that)!