Not quite a horder - decluttering
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MinusTwo--Oh my, what a dream and I know how disorienting it can be to be feeling the emotions of a dream hours later. Good idea to pass on the clothing sorting for a day or two. Grieving follows its own time table.
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Happy gray, rainy Sunday everyone! I want to be cremated at the right time, many years from now, so our family giggle is that they will make a huge pyre of my treasures with me on top, that way I do 'take them with me'...My DH retires May 31 and his first goal is to get rid of 'my' stuff
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Janky, I just had an image from Game of Thrones, where Khal Drogo was burned with all his treasures, plus Daenerys' Dragon Eggs. Maybe you'll be the next Mother of Dragons!
Bwa ha ha!!
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Ha! Ha! With the antics of my 4 kids over the years, I feel like the Mother of Dragons!!
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Janky, my husband is retiring on June 30th. We collectively have LOTS of stuff to get rid of. Unfortunately, he has been diagnosed with a thoracic aortic aneurysm, so I now have to do all the heavy lifting.
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Hello ladies- been in the closets again and took another round of clothing to consignment. I have scored a couple really nice items on credit, including a nice pair of earrings and a really lovely tooled leather tote bag. I went through some jewelry and taking that in today to add to my account, along with a few misc scarves!
My challenge is a couple bins of misc junk that I need to get through. I seem to procrastinate with it but going to start on one bin today. It has to begin some time.....
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I'm proud of all of us who have been successfully downsizing our "extras." Believe me when I say, Your kids will thank you for it. My mother passed away last June and left a massive hoard for us. She was a Depression Baby and you know what that means--she saved absolutely EVERYTHING. It took us 6 weeks to deal with all the stuff. By the time I got back home I was ready to light a match to all MY stuff!
Instead, I let the kids have first pick. Surprise! They don't want our stuff, at least, not much of it. They're still in their 20s & 30s, so I still want save some of the more meaningful family things. So, I rented a 10'x10' storage unit--everything we wanted to save had to fit in there, including furniture, pictures, and piano. I plan to keep it for about 2 years, after which I'll go through it and cull whatever is still there. We live in a camper, so NONE of that stuff is going to move back in with me any time soon!
Honestly, it was harder going through my mom's stuff than going through mine. She saved it all. All the letters she wrote to her mother as a young mother; all the letters I wrote to her from college on. Tax returns, old college papers from 1960, textbooks from the 50s. As MinusTwo mentioned upthread, all this stuff is pretty interesting from an historical perspective. I wish I was interested in saving all the letters and stuff. I truly do. I read through a small portion of it, maybe 10% of it, and it was an interesting capsule in time. But I don't have time, nor the real interest in editing, transcribing, and publishing this MOUNTAIN of papers for my siblings, and frankly, they don't care about it at all. Sorry, Mom, but it all went in the trash. She's probably rolling in her grave right now.
Anyway, my kids probably don't appreciate it now, but they will when I'm gone. Instead of a 2200 sq ft house filled to the gun'ales with questionable stuff, my kids will have exactly ONE small storage unit and a Fifth Wheel to go through.
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zogo - Ouch, that won't be fun at all as your hubby may be 'directing' you lol!
jazzygirl - good on you for reinvesting your unneeded items for something more precious! I have sooooo many miscellaneous bins, as I used to go to Auctions and bring home stuff that I didn't want/need, in order to get the items in the pile that I did want
I rent a space in an Antique Mall so I am trying to get rid of it...mustlovepoodles - When we had to deal with my MIL's treasures a couple of years ago, is when it hit home that I had to start dealing with my own treasures, this last year has really reinforced that issue
Wising everyone a happy, healthy, painfree, SE free week with lots of sunshine!
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Poodles, I so agree that our kids will appreciate that we took time to declutter best as we could. Back in the 90s, within 4 years, my grandmother, who was 102, my mom, my dad and an aunt all passed. Parents were divorced, so there were four homes to....well, what would the word be? Or phrase? They needed disassembled, I guess. Grandma had a houseful of nice stuff. My aunt was a mild hoarder. Nothing disgusting, but lots of paper work, any bill she ever received, saved in the envelope it came in. Lots of old stuff. And my mom and dad had a reasonable amount of things, both were tidy, and my many siblings helped, but that brings its own kind of stress. It was simply the downsizing of four homes in four years that really highlighted the need to keep things simple for my son when that time comes. I have to guard against keeping too much because I have a big house, and it’s easy to tuck things in here and there and not realize its adding up.0
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Divine, I'm not a "collector" of things, so I figured culling my possessions would be a piece of cake. Holy cow! I had a TON of stuff tucked here and there. DH & I had to get pretty ruthless about our decision-making. And it continues... it is so easy to acquire things and so hard to keep it reined in.
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I just love this thread! I have it marked as one of my favorites and always read the post. I am getting things in order at my house as well. We had a big move a few years ago and still have boxed that have not been opened! Apparently I'm not missing whatever is in them. I try to take a load to the thrift store once a week. The more organized I get the simpler daily life becomes.
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Minus Hope you've gotten over your blues. I finally feel better. Did more ruthless sorting and sifting today. Wonder if I can finally pass on the winter clothes?
The school has a yard sale so that's where the majority of our stuff goes. Told them I wasn't working the first day. Don't want to hear the kids about their stuff.
One is a creative magpie and her toybox is stuffed full. He just lets things collect under the bed.
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Zills - yes, thanks. I finally decided to hit the kitchen & cook. I drank a couple of glasses of nice wine while I worked. Then I went to bed early. Blues gone the next day.
Varga - good to see you here.
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MinusTwo - I need the support of this group! I have 1250 square feet of basement and it is packed! My DH is in property management and owns rental property. When people move out and leave things if it's worth anything it ends up downstairs! We have several nice pieces we are using and Im ready to haul the maybes off!! If we haven't found a spot for in it a year it's probably not going to have one!
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Vargadoll--sounds like you have quite the challenge ahead of you! Is the collection mostly furniture type things? I'm thinking that furniture might be harder to deal with than ordinary junk. Maybe a re-sale place will take the items? If there is anything that could be used in an office setting some local non-profits might come look and lug off what they can use. A women's shelter or homeless shelter may use even more than office things, like beds and dressers. When I was helping my cousin clean out her mom's place I found out how affordable roll off dumpster can be. They come in different sizes. They may not look pretty in the driveway, but being able to fill it over time is a help. Being able to move a large amount of stuff at one go is a great motivator, so is watching the dumpster fill up. Not to mention the number of steps you can get just going back and forth between the house and the dumpster! You are very probably right, if you haven't used it in a year, you probably won't use it. Welcome to the club!
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Varagoll, I can imagine that line of work lends itself to those kinds of accumulations of “stuff”. Another thing to consider is a yearly garage sale. You could mark the stuff cheap as you got it free anyway, but still make some profit. I’m sure people leave behind some surprising things, too.
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There was an organization here that took household goods and gave them to people getting their first housing. I think they had to discontinue the project because their warehouse rent went up too much (story of everywhere in Seattle). You might contact a social service agency to see if anyone has a similar service there. There are also churches here that take donations for new households.
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Varadoll- there are places like Big Brothers/Sisters, shelters, etc. that will come pick things up with a truck. But they usually won't come in and move them out of your house (they don't want the liability of causing a problem in the home, I think). When we cleaned out our mom's house (2000 square feet with full basement and attic), we got a big dumpster to just throw out the old and broken, and then gave things to others.
We lived out of state when we had to clean out our parents home, and were under a time crunch, so no estate/yard sale possible for us. But you may want to think about that per Divine. I see yard sales as a way to get people to carry away my junk (and you can make a few bucks to use for something else). Price it to go. Spring and fall are great times to do these types of sales. Get some friends to help manage the process the day of.
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This week's de-cluttering focuses on cleaning out a storage bench for yard and gardening things. I cannot remember the last time I did this, although I have looked in that space a lot and told myself it needed to be cleaned out. I finally did this am and got a lot of old broken things thrown out, plus there are a lot (too many) pots in there accumulated through time. I got a nice big box at Sam's Club yesterday I saved and going to take my extras of the pots I don't want to my favorite donation place. I found some things I have been looking for too!
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Jazzygirl - that is one of the benefits of actually doing the 'purge' - you find things you actually want!
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Janky- the last time I cleaned out that storage bin, I found a family of mice living in there (eek). I used to keep my bird seed in there for my winter feeder and had found a huge hole chewed through the bottom (this bin is hard plastic, they were determined!) I was a bit afraid of what surprises I might find in there today, but have sealed up that hole (and did so again today when I cleaned it out. I got a air tight bin to store the birdseed so that kept that from being a future problem.
Put everything back in I want to keep and cleaning the extra pots to put in the box to take to donations. Anyone know how to get scale off pots? I am trying bleach but so far no luck?
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Jazzy, The animal shelter has to keep dry food in the freezer unit along with corn and wheat based cat litter. Kind of funny when you think about how many cats would be willing to help out. Deer mice carry a couple of really bad things here. They tell you to wet down an area with bleach before trying to clean up their mess.
Not sure what you mean by scale on the pots.
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Jazzy, I've had good luck soaking pots overnight in vinegar (either full strength or diluted with water) & then scrubbing them with a brush or even fine steel wool. I've heard that equal amounts of vinegar, rubbing alcohol & water mixed together & sprayed on will also work. If you can't get them totally clean just spray paint them a fun color!
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We have big pieces of furniture, lots of lamps, a punching bag that's most of the big stuff. The rest of it is just boxes that need to be gone through. We have a rescue mission less than a mile from our house and I try to take a bag every time I go by there!
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JKL- thanks. I am trying some CRL solution tonight I found under the sink for lime scale, and letting it soak over night but will try vinegar next if that does not work!
Wren- no mice this time, but the time before. I hear you though about the diseases mice carry. We have had issues out here in NM with hantavirus. More in the rural areas on the ranches, but don't think the mice discriminate between urban and rural with their viruses.
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heard NJ got a new species of ticks. Ugh. Slowly still working on the bags. Kids sideline me. Will post next week. Thinking five?
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A couple photos to inspire. I've mentioned that awhile ago, we re-did an old bathroom, tearing out ancient, broken down fixtures, removing wallpaper then painting and carpeting. Yes, it is a long, narrow room! Our house was built in the 1920s and this is all they were gonna allot for that room back then!! Thankfully, the bathroom we use on the other side of the right wall of this room had, at some point, been widen three more feet! I turned this into my “gift wrap room". I read that Candy Spelling, rich widow of Aaron, had a huge mansion with a gift wrap room, and while hers is no doubt humongous, I at least can say I, too, have one in my home! I must guard against buying too much wrap and bows, a weakness of mine. A black trunk peeking out in the back holds nothing, my grandmother brought it to America in the 1920s from Italy. The polka dotted bag on the right holds extra toilet paper. Fancy, huh?
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Here is what we call our storage room. Our house was originally a duplex, and we opened it up and live in the whole thing. It gave me lots of space to store stuff, and that is not always good. This room used to have two additional shelving units crammed full, a closet to the left which you can't see was filled, and the whole middle of the floor was heaped with miscellaneous junk. I spent last year sifting through it all, tossing, selling or donating so much. Now this is where I keep seasonal items. The two big bags on the floor contain two Christmas trees. There is luggage, a carefully selected collection of ds's childhood toys, and several boxes of paper memorobilia. The closet is empty. That clock, we got years ago. It ticks too loud, and I never wanted to hang it anywhere in the hiuse. Dh doesn’t want to get rid of it, so there it is.
I don't have an attic, so this is it. Our basement has only two small shelves of miscellaneous stuff. Our garage has stuff around the outside walls, but we park our cars in the garage, no junk in there preventing us from doing that.
It really requires effort, though, to keep things simple! But worth it.
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DH agreed today that we probably could get rid of our old National Geographics (2000-2014) since we haven't opened them in years and probably won't ever. Hopefully he'll keep that attitude.
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That's a lot of magazines.
Too funny about the clock.
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