Not quite a horder - decluttering
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Teka - You are right but where does it all come from? I really thought I had gone down about 50% of my stuff and moms and then I look around and it seems like so much more. I guess compared to what I started with it is a lot but still I have way more than a 2bed/2bth could hold unless I had 9 closets.
RunFree- Next week????????? Lets see the last one I had I hired my cleaning lady for the day to sit out there. I had 2 long tables and all that leftover art stuff went fast. Cookie Jars (still have 35 I think) clothes, kitchen stuff. I did not have kids stuff but I would say put them all together in an area because moms like to rummage through that stuff. Do you have a hanging rack? If so display your nicer stuff so they see it when they drive by. Furniture? Price it low as you can. Mi people love tables and stuff they can put in the car. Not sure what sells in your area. What have you done so far?
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Oh boy Bunkie, this will be a lot of work. Good point about pricing furniture low. I want to get rid of it, not max the money. My big categories are toys toys toys, some kids' clothes and sports equipment, some kids furniture and some regular furniture, and some books. Not too many adult clothes because I really don't want to see my clothes on my college students! I usually take those to a Goodwill 45 mintues away when I'm in the "city" (it's all relative). I have been putting things in a corner of the room over the garage for a couple of years. What I should probably do is start parking the cars outside and assembling things on tables and in boxes in the garage. Then they can be moved outdoors if the weather is nice. Because there is a map, I am sure people will come even if everything's inside the garage. But if it does rain, I will look for something I can still put out by the street. I'll have a yard sign showing that I'm on the map too.
BTW, I love Teka's point about the attractiveness of your plants!
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Well, I finally have my office nearly cleared out. Since I've been back, paperwork has been absolutely beyond me, and I've had piles and piles of stuff from the home office and client files and to do stuff all mixed together. I've been moving things from one side of my desk and back, over, and over, and over again. Finally, I acknowledged that I can't do it myself. I handed it all to my assistant (usually she just makes phone calls) and asked her to just pile all the things that look alike together, and anything with client info in another pile. "Feel free to use the floor," I said. In a couple of hours, she had everything neatly corralled, with similar things clipped together, and all the client folders in the file cabinet. Now, all I have to do is grab one category at a time and decide what to do with it.
I cleared off my desk completely, and also the table where she works, rubbed in the lemon oil, and left an office I haven't seen in months.
Good gosh, all it took was a couple of hours and, for months, it had been totally beyond me. Post rads brain fog has real power!
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Brookside, can you please send your assistant over to my house???!!!
I had my yard sale today and it was rather disappointing. The town-wide map thing was a fiasco. A new person was coordinating the yard sale and she was in way over her head, somehow just did not get what to do at all. Many people who'd paid for official signs never got them, and worse, the maps were essentially not available--only for sale at one remote non-logical location, and even there, someone told me they had to ask six people and run around for half an hour before they found the one person who had the maps. So the traffic we got was all by happenstance, which means we didn't get much, since we live on a little circle that hardly anyone knows is here. I would say we sold maybe 20% of what we put out. We did get rid of a couple of larger things but have several left over, and a lot of kid stuff left too. Grrrr--been gathering stuff for two years and I did NOT want to see it again!
There was one part that was actually a bit traumatic. My parents bought a really good quality Danish modern couch in around 1967, when they were super poor. We had it all through my childhood all the zillion places we moved. My mom reupholstered it, a huge job, in about 1983. All four of us kids have had it in our houses at some point. But none of us wanted it anymore and I got the OK to sell it, though we all felt rather sentimental about it. It's been in my attic for a while, and I found that it had some mouse poop on it--I'm thinking hanta virus!--and was in sorrier shape than I remembered. One missing cushion, rips, fades, missing straps on the bottom. I would know how to fix it, but then it would still be a couch I didn't want. I put a sign on it that said "Vintage 1967 sofa, needs some rehab, please ask, $25." And nobody even looked at it! Again, that was partly because there was no map so the college students didn't know to come to my house. So after the yard sale, my husband and I loaded it into the van and took it to the recycling center, where people often leave furniture and it's picked up by others. But the guy said to put it in the "mashing room" which was full of food garbage and wet sofas and actual trash and smelled like it too. It was a degraded end for a proud and storied item. I wish I'd let my husband take it by himself.
Think I have some hoarder tendencies? I'm giving myself the Circle of Life talk....circle of life.....
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Brookside - Keep the assistant!!! Sometimes we just can not get to that kind of stuff. Rads brain etc does it. bet you feel better now.
RunFree - That is disappointing. That is what happened to mine too. Long hours to prepare, had someone sitting there and sold very little. Had people coming back waiting for me to put an end of the day sale price on stuff. Never happened. I donated it all. My mom had one of those sofas too. Low to the ground...long and had been upholstered several times. She loved it. She was 5ft2. My dad and I were too tall for the thing and would get stuck sitting on it. I gave it to her gardener for his basement when he moved to a really large house. He is very handy so he recovered it again. There were these little Henry the 8th chairs too. All donated to friends etc. Yes you have hoarder tendencies. Most of us do. It takes time.
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See, I would have snapped it up. Ikea had a similar sofa 2 years ago. When I went back it was gone and they haven't had anything like it since. I think I'm going to try to recover the sofa I have now. I don't think it could look much worse. It's just so expensive to buy that much material!
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Oh phooey Wren! I would LOVE to have given it to you. Too bad you don't live in central NH or I'd go get it back from the recycling center, trash smell and all. Bunkie, it's amazing that your family had a similar sofa. Ours was low but not sinky as long as the webbing was tight, so even my dad, who was 6' 1", didn't have any trouble with it. The way you got rid of yours is so much what I would rather have done, or passed it along to Wren. I wanted someone to fix it up properly and love it. But we just could not face lugging it back up the stairs and having it again take up so much space in the attic, so away it went.
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Hello, Clutter Busters!
Been gone a while... Anastrozole took its toll on me, and I didn't have the energy or strength or motivation to clean. I went off it 3 weeks ago, and the pain has diminished enough to get me going again!
DH and I tried a yard sale. Once. It was awful... sooo much work, rude customers, and selling stuff for pennies.
Then we found that the Turbo Tax software would give us GREAT prices on stuff we donated. Now everything we purge goes to our local hospice thrift store, and we get the write-off. Win-win!
We also have my in-law's house to deal with... MIL (93) is in a nursing home, FIL still lives in their house. Filled to the rafters with stuff, and barely a path along the carpet to walk. He finally allowed me and DH to come clean out the hallway so he wouldn't trip and fall (he's 92) and I was so excited! A start! But "cleaning" meant shoving everything into bankers boxes and stacking them in an already crowded back room. Oh well...
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I've just got to share this--After I organized my office on Friday, I put lemon oil on the desk and table, didn't feel like waiting for it to dry, so I just left, table and desk tops clean, stuff that belongs on them on chairs and floor and so forth.
This morning I found an email from my assistant, who had stopped by on Saturday. She, the shrink across the hall, and even the young guy who lives upstairs, were all afraid something was terribly wrong.
Oops! Sorry. I cleaned. Probably won't do it again--don't want to frighten these delicate souls.
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Brookside that's hilarious!
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Wren - speaking of IKEA they had a chaise lounge a couple years ago. I just got the new catalogue and it is no longer there. I always wanted a chaise for my bedroom. Drat. All my furniture from Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn is well made and I like it. However I refuse to pay that price for a bedroom chaise. Still looking. Saw that one at Ikea and thought I might try it. Could not afford it at first and then last year with BC forgot about it. Oh well. There will be another that will come along. Who knows. It might not have fit in my new place anyway. I already have 2 sofas, 2 big chairs, and a lot of tables. I dragged a Mexican coffee table from Cali when I moved and now it just looks so worn and the stain is gone. I guess I could have someone stain it....darker. Too much work.
Brookside - Too funny. Bet you won't declutter again. Haha!!
Blessings - What kind of a write off do you get for Turbo tax? A good one? Do you have to itemize it all or lump it into one claim?
RunFree - How you feeling? Better or worst? Did you at least clean out some space?
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Brookside, My boss called me in one day and said I wasn't doing my job, that I needed to pull my own weight in the group. I was totally blindsided. I went back to my group and asked if that was true. They all said no, I was working as hard as them. Then one guy said it was because my desk was too neat. So every night I put all my scrap paper in the drawer. Next morning I pulled it out and scattered it around my desk, leaving a small spot for my actual work. Boss called me back in and complemented me on taking his talk to heart and reforming my ways.
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So funny, Wren. Your group must have had a really good laugh!
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Wren, that's an amazing story! Let me guess--your boss is a messy-desk type?
Bunkie, thanks for asking. We did clear out some space in the attic. Still have to get rid of the bed, hopefully mid-week, and then we will put everything that's left back and see what we've achieved. I've donated things for tax write-offs a lot, although it's not as good a deal if you don't already itemize. We make a receipt with our estimated market value (we look for something similar on Craigslist or Amazon, depending on what it is) and have someone sign the receipt. We've donated a car, brand new windows, dryer, and $20K worth of my dad's academic books, and we've gotten nice tax refunds from it. The stuff I'm dealing with now, except for the bed, is too small-potatoes and there's too much of it for a thrift shop to want it all, at least our little local one. I will go to the larger one next time I'm in the big city and see if they have enough space for what I have. It can be a real burden on a small place to donate too much, so I'm trying to be mindful of that. As for my other stuff, after feeling better yesterday, my cold is back with a vengeance and my legs look somewhat worse again, with new hivey areas. Pooh. But at least my MO will have something to look at tomorrow.
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We've been a quiet group for the past couple of weeks. Hope all are well. I have been quietly working and today brought 14 large trash sized bags of assorted clothing, books, household goods etc to a local charity shop as well as two computer printer/scanner/copiers and a suitcase. I organized everything so that the charity shop could use it and picked a shop where the things I had would do some good. The printers are fine but I don't need them so I gathered the papers for them and sent them on their way. I still have a long way to go, but it is a beginning. So I wanted to share that with this group. Hope you all have a glorious fall.
Hugs.
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Mandy, FOURTEEN bags??? I hope you are giving yourself some kind of a treat! That is a huge accomplishment! And you included the paperwork with the printers??? Gold star again! Very very impressive.
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Thanks RunFree. I really appreciate your support.
I was prompted to start because I have a house guest arriving in a week---I figure she needs me to have an organized living room, kitchen, bathroom and guest room. I had a friend come over today so we could figure out what I still have to do and I think I will be ready for my guest. And although I have not "treated " myself, it does feel really good to get those things out of my house so maybe that is the treat.
Thanks again.
Mandy
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Mandy, great accomplishment!
I know what you mean about company. I'm hosting my book club next weekend and planning to finish the bathroom before then. We're ready to paint the walls tomorrow.
I have to confess, though. Today I took 3 long-sleeve shirts out of my donation bag. It was so cold here and I don't have any old shirts to wear to paint walls and medicate cats. They were mock necks, which I hate, so I cut the mock off.
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Wow, busy busy ladies!
I have been working as a substitute in the clerical dept of a large school district. I sub at whatever school needs me, but over the summer I worked most of the time at the facilities planning dept. They were going through an audit and with my bookkeeping background I was able to help. Anyway, that work is waning and my boss wants to keep me on as much as possible so he decided to have me help someone who is "digitizing" all of the blueprints for all of the schools.
Yesterday he started me on a related project which is organizing the plan room. This room has thousands of blueprints for over 20 school sites. Hundreds of plans were in the floor, in boxes and on the plan veiwing tables. In one day I was able to look at each plan and put it where it belonged. Why can't I organized like that at home? It does make me want to come home and get something done, but did I???
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Mandy - That is really good. Now I feel behind. I have had a difficult couple of weeks with heath and This Old House but I feel a declutter week end coming on. I have a big bag in the guest room on the floor ready to roll. Need to give away those size 16 pants and jeans still. Time to do it. I keep thinking I will need them again but I doubt it. I have been a size 10/12 for 2 years. Even if I gain some I will be a 14. I have a few of those stashed too but that is it.
Meece - Darn you are good!!!It is always easy to do that stuff for someone else. When I lived in Cali I used to do that for my friends. Go to their house and reorganize the pantry or photos etc. They used to call me and ask when I was coming over.
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I wish I could get all of you to my house and I could go to yours. We could do a decluttering swap. It is definitely easier when it's someone else's stuff. There's a clue in there that should help make it easier to do my own, but so far I think I'm missing the clue. Meece, that is a great day of work. Maybe you should have dragged it out a little bit if you're paid per diem! Bunkie, I'm rooting for a productive weekend. It will feel great to get rid of your bigger sizes!
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BUNKIE10 - We always itemize our taxes and need every write-off we can get. As far as charitable donations go, most places just hand you a blank, dated receipt when you drop stuff off.
I always list each item I donate, and before it goes in the box or bag, I photograph groups of items together. We are some SERIOUS donators here!!! I just want proof in case we're ever audited by the IRS.
As for TurboTax, yes, you have enter each item. But the real benefit to doing that is that they allow you incredibly high prices for each item you donate.
I used to just use yard sale prices as my “fair market value” for an item. But according to IRS guidelines, which TurboTax uses, let’s say I donate a pair of work slacks. I might value them at $2, which I’d sell them for at a yard sale. TurboTax, on the other hand, may value them at as much as $8! (I’m totally guessing here, as I don’t have my tax return in front of me.)
Once we saw how much money we got to deduct on our taxes, we never had another yard sale again. So not worth it!
Teka – “Busy” doesn’t begin to describe it. There are no words for how much crap is stuffed into my in-laws' little house. They lived there for over 60 years, and never threw one thing away.
BrooksideVT –
Wren, that’s funny…
Mandy1313 – Good job!!!
RunFree – do you still have a lot to get rid of? If it’s too much for a thrift store, perhaps a living estate sale would work for you? They do take like 30% of the proceeds, but they do all the setting up and cleaning up for you, and even take the unsold stuff, itemize it, and donate it for you.
Meece – I’d rather organize anything besides my own home. All my colleagues used to say “You’re so ORGANIZED!!!” but then again, they never saw the piles of unrelated papers and junk crammed into my file cabinets.
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SO – I’ve got the purging bug again. I want new bedroom furniture, which means getting rid of hand-me-down pieces I’ve had forever. Some are even just stored in the shed because there’s no room for them. In order for me to “earn” this new furniture, I’ve told myself I have to get rid of ALL the excess furniture in the house.
Either it goes to our local hospice thrift store, or to one of our local consignment shops if it’s a big piece.
Last week we had the Garage Organizer guy come out to measure for storage cabinets. I’m sure that when we opened the door he wanted to scream and run for his car. Seriously, it looks like a hoarder’s garage.
So we’ve been attacking it piece by piece. Yesterday and today we filled up both the recycle bin and the garbage bin, PLUS the back of the truck with donations.
Fortunately, I’m taking pictures along the way. The “before” pics really do look like crazy people live here. At least it’s just boxes and furniture, and assorted other dumb stuff, not garbage and filth! I took lots of pics to remind us we NEVER want it to get this bad again.
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Blessings, thanks for the suggestion. What we have is mostly really petty stuff, children's games and toys, that level of thing. I love your idea to take pictures of it before donating. I can load it in the car and take it to the bigger Goodwill 45 minutes away, along with my clothes. I love it that you have a garage organizer guy. It would be so great to have someone come in and build shelves. There's nobody like that where I live, which is a rural area. I do take before & after pictures of rooms I'm cleaning. I love that. I haven't found myself looking at them but that's not to say I won't. It's OK to be a hoarder with digital pictures....
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Like Blessings, I made a very detailed list of what I donate. I handed one copy of it (several pages long) to the charity thrift shop and kept a second copy which the the charity had stamped. They did give a receipt that said as per attached list. I never thought of taking photos but with the quanitity that I donated. it would have taken forever. But my thrift shop requires that we estimate the fmv on the list you give them--so I explained where I got my calcualtions from ( amazon for used books for example). This is the first time I have gone over the $500 limit so I see that I will need to show when and how I received the items (bought them all; it is the when that will be challenging)....anyway I plan to keep this up (going through the house and donating items, until the clutter is gone). :-)
I am now organizing the guest room for my house guest. There is some stuff in there that will need to be taken out temporarily. A friend has lent me a luggage rack so my guest will have a place for her suitcase and I don't have to remove everything from the desk. At least there is hope!
I am thankful for all of the support this thread has given me--it helps to know that others are in the same situation and are lending support. And try not to be hard on yourselves if you don't do as much as you think you should. My thrift shop run took quite a while for me to gather up---and then (embarressing to say this), some of the bags sat in my living room waiting for me to move them out for a while.
One thing that I did do which felt good. I came across a book about an artist that had been a private printing by a cultural organization. I knew the artist had sons who were in their 60s now and perhaps even grandchildren. So rather than putting the book in the thrift shop pile, I took the time to locate one of the sons and to send him the book (isn't the internet wonderful for things like that). He has 3 children and did not have enough copies of the book on his father for each to have one. It just felt so right to return that book to its proper home.
Wishing everyone here a wonderful weekend.
Hugs
Mandy
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I finished putting the plans away, but there were boxes and boxes of Submittals, Contract Books, O & M Manuals and papers. I finally got most of that sorted through and finished sorting yesterday. Things were boxed up to go to my other office.
Now I must take all of those plans off their shelf and pull all of the duplicates. we are talking about thousands of plans. Job Security.
We were gone last weekend and my house has not been straightened up in two weeks, so I will try to do that today. Then I need to decide what to organize. I want to get something accomplished at home.0 -
I got my "room of doom" cleaned up completely finally and got some more exercise equipment to replace the piles of junk.
Now I just have to USE it to lose this post-chemo weight. Ugh!!!
Hugs to all and good luck cleaning0 -
del
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Takes my DH about 30 min to totally trash a hotel room. If it's printed, he wants it. Especially brochures for attractions we have neither time nor interest to see.0 -
Teka and CCFW - my DH and I learned from one of those "Organizing" HGTV shows that we are "Surface Abusers"....
In other words, no surface remains empty for long in our house. If it's horizontal, it was meant to pile stuff on!!!
Poor DH if he ever takes a long nap on the couch :-O0 -
Count me in as a surface abuser too. You should see my dining room table!0
