I have been doing that for decades.

I remove everything except the large pieces of furniture.

I clean, paint, re-do window treatments... whatever to make the room wonderful!

Then I only put back what I love and what I use.

It is a method that works very well for me.

I've done something similar throughout the house but without emptying the room. I'd start at one end and start sorting until I made it around the room. I might only get a drawer or part of a cupboard done in one sitting and come back a few days later to continue on and do some more. I think if I'd emptied a whole room I'd just get overwhelmed and end up with stuff everywhere, so I found it easier to focus on a small part of the room at a time and there was no disruption to the house when I did it. I could also see realistically how much storage space there was as went through, which made it a bit easier to purge more things if they didn't fit.

Some years ago when I embarked on a drawer cleaning undertaking that was just too overwhelming when you figure you have scads of drawers/cabs in a kitchen, I made a rule for myself. I said to myself you cannot leave the house until you clean one drawer each day. Ok, just one drawer a day!! After 30 days you would be surprised how far along you have gotten and it's pretty easy.

It worked but that was a while ago and now I have got to get back to my rule!!. I was doing really well with it for a while but then hit a big snag with a really messy drawer and I got thrown off kilter. Motivation, ah, if we could just bottle that!!!

I was doing a Clean Sweep of my own. Love that TV show, it's my secret guilt that I watch it. Then in January DH was hospitalized for 2 weeks and my whole system fell apart. I managed to get the house "clean enough" that he could come home with a wheelchair and manage to get from room to room, but there's still a pile of "miscellaneous" outside my bedroom closet door. I'm back on the bandwagon now, removing a minimum of 5 items from that pile each day. This was a good reminder.

You can also do a "clean sweep" of just a closet or dresser.

I think whatever works is the right way. I agree that emptying the room, though a GREAT idea, in reality would be overwhelming to me and I might just throw most of the stuff back in. I like the idea of a drawer or counter or whatever each day or week. I used to be very good at this but seem to have lost my momentum.
Part of my problem is that my kids are grown, have moved out, and I still kind of think tossing some useful and decent kitchen stuff or bedding (which is stored in the attic or basement so really not in my way).... would be great but I KNOW as soon as I do that someone will need it. AS I type this I guess I should maybe just look at OTHER stuff I have around and deal with those useful items AFTER I deal with the obvious stuff (the stuff that you scratch your head and wonder why you thought it made sense to save).... I am going to try to check back here with any accomplishments I manage.Thanks for the motivation!

When I did my kitchen I took 2 days. I removed everything from 1/2 the room & took it outside. I scrubbed the cabinets inside and out, then replaced what I was keeping. The next work day I removed everything from the other 1/2 the room and scrubbed. I had help from my friend. We even scrubbed the walls and ceiling. Both days were sunny and nice and we just put stuff in boxes and set the boxes on a tarp in the back yard.

My youngest son and I did his room last week. We took apart & removed the bed. We just propped it up in the hall while we worked. We moved the other furniture to the middle of the room while we scrubbed and dusted. We took everything out of drawers & off shelves and put it all in boxes and laundry baskets. He sorted the clothes and put them back in the dresser. We sorted the books together & put them back in the bookcase.

His floor is wood so I scrubbed around the outside while the furniture was moved in, then scrubbed the middle when we moved the furniture back. The last thing we did was put the bed back.

Getting the bed out of the room gave us all the room we needed to work. There is no way we could have done it wiht the bed still set up.

When I did my room, there was enough room to leave the bed set up and and just push the rest of the furniture up against it.

Now, on to my other 2 sons' rooms! They are disasters!

The only way to make this idea work is to commit to an entire day, dawn to dusk. You can't start moving things out and let them sit for days. Ask a really good friend to help, or even pay someone you know to help. Having two people makes the world of difference. My friend is a really hard worker, too, so she kept me on task. She wouldn't sit down even for a minute!

I didn't do any painting in the process, just cleaning. I'm going to go back and do painting later in the winter.