Not quite a horder - decluttering
Comments
-
I discovered another junk find today. After my mom passed away I kept all her antique vases because I thought they were valuable. Well today I unwrapped them all to find that they all had cracks that she had glued back together. There goes the value. I think I will keep one that was her favorite but the others are history. I have a few friends that will love them. I love this thread. That box would still be there if not for getting motivated by everyone here.
0 -
Paula, you don't need a bulldozer, they leave their own big mess behind.
You are still in the middle of chemo, and need to take care of yourself right now. What you might want to do is pick a surface or a piece of furniture in the room you spend the most time in, and sort through, clean out, and set up one surface, one shelf or one drawer at a time. That way you get the immediate benefit of using the area you have gone through, and seeing the progress you are making has a calming effect rather than bothering you as something that needs to be dealt with.
Major overhaul cleaning can wait, and if you are persistent at getting to one area every day, you may find that much of the cleaning will be complete by the time you feel up to tackling a major overhaul.
0 -
I may not have mentioned this before, but when I left my marriage 9+ years ago, I just wanted out with my life and left much of my possessions in the home I shared with my ex. He held the stuff hostage, but about a year and a half later he conceded and brought a bunch of stuff to my condo. I just poured it out in my garage floor. There was so much stuff. Yes there were some boxes but he claims I just left the stuff without boxes so that's how he delivered it. SO, I packed boxes quickly, thinking I would soon get to them. Now I am just getting to the stuff I had scooped from the floor. I packed up four boxes for my newly married son and found two boxes of my middle son's stuff. I also found my stamp collection in a box, so I am setting it aside for DS2. I can't wait for them to come visit this coming week. It means 6 midsize boxes and one small box are out of my garage! I'd bet it's close to 20 cubic feet!
It's monotenous work going through boxes of stuff, but it will be so rewarding when it will be finished.
0 -
I admire your stong will Meece!
Ginger
0 -
My goal will be to clean up the garage enough to get my woodworking tools out and use them. I wouldn't even attempt to get them out right now. No room to park the car!
0 -
@meece, I will be in a similar situation when I get into the house I bought to move into when I retire (planned for sometime this spring if not sooner). When I was diagnosed, I wasn't sure I would be able to work at all but not quite ready to officially retire and thought I might have hardly any income for several months during treatment. All I could think of to do was clear out my townhouse as fast as possible for immediate sale. I had planned to have a year (starting last spring) to go through, sort, discard etc, but BC threw a monkey wrench into that plan. I threw everything in boxes and put it in storage, no sorting, no culling. I will take all the boxes from storage to my garage, and I guess then the thing to do will be to set up a sorting area in my garage and not even bring items into the house (which is about 1/3 smaller than the townhouse was) unless I'm going to keep them. That is going to be a job and a half. I went to a decluttering class with my mom, who is planning to relocate to a retirement community after 30+ years in the same house. I asked the teacher if I should do one box a day (or a week) until I get through them all. She said that was a good plan.
I'll be busier than a one-armed paperhanger. Hopefully too busy to worry about BC
.0 -
Teka - in the beginning, I found the Hoarders episodes fascinating. (I've always been interested in what makes people behave the way they do.)
But after a while, the shows got so graphically gross (piles of dirty adult diapers in the corner, plastic bags of human waste, dead animals in the refrigerator) I just couldn't watch it any more.
On the other hand, it was great for my diet. Who could eat after watching that?
0 -
Teka,
I watched a ton of Hoarders but OMG that is awful. I have a cousin I stayed with for several months while they painted my house and she is borderline. Not so much the nasty stuff but the clutter. She had trails in her home you could get through because of so much furniture and stuff. She had in her family room 3 exercisers, 2 tvs 2 sofas and several other large pieces of furniture. She had all this little stuff sitting on tables everywhere. It made me so sick I came home and started to clean out the house. That is what prompted this whole thing. Then I slowed down when things got better but the BC started me up again.
I still can not believe how many magazines I had in under bed storage and cookbooks. Yesterday I went into the basement that I cleaned two years ago. Well I still have a lot of old furniture from my mom and several defunct dehumidifiers etc that need to go. Working on that this week. It is going to be 4 degrees here Tuesday.
0 -
When my ex delivered my stuff to me he had mixed in dirty sock and opened packages of jello mix. He also "gave" me clothes he was going to give to charity in case I wanted to sell them. Geesh! I sorted through and got most of that stuff gone early on.
We worked in the garage more yesterday. I am plodding along becaus ethis time everything will be going to it's propper place, even if it's in the trash. There will still be boxes of stuff in the garage, but if I want craft stuff, it will all be in the craft stuff box!
0 -
Whoohoo! DS came over and took his stuff, all but a one box, some canvases and a couple of leaded glass cabinet doors. My garage looks better. There is dancing room in it now!
0 -
Dance party at Meece's garage!!!! WooHOO!!!
0 -
Sounds fun. Can't wait until more than 3 of us can dance in it.
0 -
No worries...I'll just come for the chips and dips!!!
0 -
Mmmm my favorite snack foods!
0 -
I have some boxes to go through which are in the middle of my office floor. I need to get through them this week. Then I will start back on my sewing room since I have brought things in there which I found in the garage. Those things need to be put where they belong.
0 -
Well yesterday I went to the basement and cleaned both freezers and my storage shelves. Lots of out dated stuff down there. It took me all day but tomorrow is trash day so I needed to get done. I found 2 broken dehumidifiers my parents had and the new one I got 2 years ago just broke. Out they all go. The junk man can take them. They do not make things to last anymore. All this new digital stuff they put on everything goes bad quickly and it cost more to repair it than to buy a new one. Today I am tired so nothing to do but go through more......MAGAZINES. Yes I still have more.
0 -
Boy did I declutter this weekend! We moved our 30 year old son to his new home in Irving, Texas from OKC! He had been living with us for the last 6 months post broken engagement. He has a beautiful new home and a new job he is very excited about. Yeah ! I have a bedroom and closets back!
0 -
Good for both of you! It's amazing what you can do with a spare closet!
0 -
Yes, Daughter finally moved alot of her stuff out of her room (she has not really lived at home since she finished college four years ago) and I have a spare closet! I was able to straighten up my closet and put summer clothes in the spare closet (we have small closets in this house). I also shredded two bags of papers and got them collected with the recycling today! My goal is to just keep up with the papers and to shred what I need to each week...here's hoping!
0 -
Dh is encouraging me to go through reciepts and dump most of them.
0 -
This thread has been inspiring. I check it every so often to remind myself to keep at it. I'm making headway, but I have sooooo much stuff. It's nice to take a load to the dump, some to charity and be rewarded with space where there was none.
I'd just like to caution people to be very certain that every piece of clothing they donate is actually donate-able. That means that the donor would be comfortable giving it to their best friend as a gift to wear: No stains or underarm marks, no holes, no fabric tears - or pulls if it is a knit, no off smells. Nothing worn out or that has lost its shape anywhere, and nothing dirty.
I have volunteered at both the local church's free-clothing store and for disaster drives and can tell you from years of experience even the nicest people sometimes give the worst things. God knows why.
It's just awful having to sort through items that are stained, damaged or that smell - sometimes of urine or BO, or are mildewed and/or have bugs - moths or black beetles. Yup, that happens, especially when bags of clothing have been stored awhile before being donated and no one checked inside them before giving them away.
The sheer amount of donations that can't be used is amazing. Things with stains or discolorations that no one would want to wear, things with tears or holes in them, or hems and linings hanging, and things so out-dated that they are unusable.
That kind of stuff, honestly, ought to be thrown out, never donated, because the poor charity that gets it will have to toss it and possibly have to pay for its disposal, which creates an added burden. There are a few charities that take clothing in any condition because they sell it by the pound. If one of those has a drop box near you, by all means use it for everything you need to get rid of.
I have become far more careful about what I donate as a result of what I have encountered. I would like to ask that everyone here, please, just take a moment to look over each item carefully before giving it to a charity. You might be surprised by what you find.
Best wishes for decluttering!
0 -
Hortense - you are absolutely right. We often get hideous donations at church for our homeless ministry, and have to ask ourselves..."What were they thinking?"
However, Clutter Busters - before you toss anything into the garbage, read this article. Many local agencies actually recycle fabric, keeping the majority of it out of landfill, and putting it to use to make other products.
0 -
Thanks for posting that Blessings.
0 -
Good goals.
I am still trudging through the garage, although it looks so much better. Things were brought into the house to be put away. I went through the office stuff, now I need to really work on my sewing room. Some day I will have everything in it's place. Working in that room this morning.
0 -
Meece - one room at a time. You are making good progress. We all are.
I am done with the living room, dining room, den/ most of the kitchen and the powder room. I am also done with my bedroom and the main bathroom. Now I am starting the guest room. My dads old raggedy dressers are still in there and the room has no headboard. I am looking for a older headboard that has lost its smell of stain they use. I live in a cottage style home so it has all these little weird shaped areas in the rooms. I need a storage unit that is built to fit the drop ceiling corner and do not know where to look. Someone said that those closet building stores can build one special. If I can do that I can dump the dressers because they are empty and I use them to hold stuff stacked on top. Even the TV is on one. I am trying to only purchase furniture I can take when I leave and sell the house. I want to be ready to move in two years. After that the basement is my last room to tackle. It is an old style rec room with ugly paneling and I use it to store stuff. It would be nice to have it redone to be another family type room. My house is paid for so I am trying not to take out loans against it to do these changes but on my budget it is hard.
Anyone have any ideas?
0 -
If the paneling is in good shape, you can lightly sand the surface and paint it. It looks like beadboard, and is a good solution if you want to change the color of the walls without spending a fortune tearing out the paneling and repairing the damage to the wall underneath which is probably why the former owner paneled the walls in the first place.
0 -
Bunkie - Echoing PatMom's suggestion. That is what we did with our living room/dining room combo. It had dark paneling but oddly enough previous owner had painted the gable end and had put up a chair rail. We repeated the chair rail with light paint above and slightly darker (beige tones, I know boring) below. I'm with you on cost. NO WAY was DH sheetrocking whatever was in there so it was my only choice. I would like to re-do the colors one day but like the look. It is a large area but broken up with 3 doors, fireplace, large window. We lived in another house for 18 years with a dark paneled den that I detested. Only window was a French door. Wish I had done this to that house. I also had him add inexpensive vinyl crown molding just one layer as room does not really support formal look and we are not formal people. I'm sure everything came from Lowe's, his favorite place.
0 -
BUNKIE10 - Years ago, I was thrilled to get my first king-sized bed... but after buying it, there was no money left for a headboard.
DH and I went down to the Salvation Army and found a hideous, dark, Mediterranean headboard that appeared to have the look of beadboard in between the bigger sections. It cost us $17 !!!
We spent a few days cleaning it up, covering it with KILLZ primer, and finally some glossy white paint.
It looks amazing in our beach-cottage style bedroom! We have pale blue walls, glossy white crown molding and trim, and white beachy furniture. We've sure gotten our money's worth out of that headboard!
Does your guest room have a closet? Is there room for one of the dressers to go in there? Just a thought...gives you more space in the room, and if it's a guest room, you might not need all the hanging space.
Another good way to add surface space is to use those round particle board tables (get a bigger one with four legs) and a glass top. You can put a round tablecloth and topper over it, and put a lamp or even the TV on it. And a box will fit underneath.
You could also find an old rattan trunk...fill it with extra bedding and linens, and use that for your TV stand.
If you don't use the table, you can also use a cheap, two-drawer filing cabinet as a base, put a round tablecloth and topper on it, and use THAT as a table, with plenty of storage for important papers underneath.
We did take one of our more ratty dressers out to the garage to store things like extra office supplies.
0 -
I like the pressboard table idea. I actually use a TV tray as a nightstand in the guestroom. I have the long tablecloth over it and a small box fits under the table. I use an on sewingmachine cabinet as my other nightstand and do the same with it. Makes a great place to put the Lego box for the grandkids when the come over.
I have a dresser in my sewing room closet to help store fabric and it does make more space in that room. I could make more space in the sewing room by actually completeling a project or two. I had everything I needed to make window treatments for the windows in there and completed them last week. That got fabric and curtain hooks out of the sewingroom and a curatin rod out of the garage. Baby steps.
I have been sick this week and haven't felt like doing much, but I think actually sewing up something that I have the pattern cut out already.
0 -
That is a good idea blessings20. I have to look at the walls in this old house. I have a cape cod cottage style and the bedrooms have all these alcoves and not much wall space. If not an alcove then a window. Makes it hard to create anything.
Well I have been in bed with some weird symptoms from possible parathyroid disease....just great. Waiting for some tests to see if rads messed with my thyroid. In the meantime I am down to a few special copies of my favorite magazines and I still have more cookbooks to go through. That is what I have been doing. All my closets are clean except one. I call it the toxic room. My handyman put some smelly glue or caulk in it to cover a crack in the wall last summer and it still bothers me. Gives me a headache so I closed it up. It has all my cowboy boots and purses etc. Will have to go in there this summer and clean them out.
0
