I heard last week that my Stuff is finally on its way across the Pond, and in a few weeks I hope to discover what a total cod I've made of declutterage.
I confess I was quite ruthless with D's stuff: what use to me would a load of clothes for a tall thin bloke be? However, I've since heard about a company that makes teddy-bears trimmed with bits of fabric from favourite clothes, and I wish I'd known about them earlier, as that would have been a Good Thing to have.
There are quite a few people and companies who make those keepsakes, all with slightly different styles, some really not to my taste. I'd try looking for "keepsakes of lost loved ones" and choose a style or pattern you like.
We are working on a tidying project or there won't be space for Dragonlet 3 in the autumn. The big challenge is getting the Dragonlets' bedroom sorted as it is in a rapid mess - tidy cycle. Our room also needs homes finding for a lot of things, but is slower getting into dissaray again.
The thrift shops around here are beginning to open, so I can get rid of some of the boxes of stuff piled in my guest room. The library opened their used book donation box a couple of weeks ago. Hooray!
Today’s decluttering involving much sorting, renaming, deleting and reorganising of files on my laptop, as I am about to upgrade it for a new one. Of course I should have tackled this long ago. At least I have made a start, not that it makes any difference to the state of the house, of course.
Biggest job remaining is all the photos, hundreds of them. Then there are the real ones as well, which I probably can’t bear to part with, even if I do digitise them. I just keep reminding myself that nobody else will have any interest in them when I am gone.
I really don't think I kept anything of his: when I was selling up, I wanted to have as little stuff to take back over the Pond as possible, and all his things were given to the charity shop (or binned if they weren't good enough). If I'd known about Burra Bears I'd certainly have kept a shirt or jacket; I suppose when my stuff arrives I could get material from something he liked me in and see what they can do with it.
Mrs C made a couple of cushions with bits of our wedding garb and bridesmaid's dresses, which were lovely to have around, except that we've now put them away 'cause they're too precious to have the kids misuse them. I suppose we'll get them out again when the kids are grown.
I bought a good-quality kilted skirt in the MacLeod of Lewis tartan when I was spent a semester at University College London. A few years ago, I had it made into cushions, and, keeping one, distributed the others to family and a friend who is also descended from Clan MacLeod. They are bright, cheery, and different. (And when the Pater died, I took his home and put it on the guest bed where he used to sleep when visiting.)
The loft is cleared, the spare bedroom is cleared - the pile of bags ready for the charity shop is huge. I’m sure when they are ready to collect again the virtual queue will be long!
Never mind, it will go in the shed until then.
Now to decorate and prepare the room - the fun bit!
I bought a good-quality kilted skirt in the MacLeod of Lewis tartan ...They are bright, cheery, and different.
The yellow one? Aptly nicknamed the Loud MacLeod.
Yes, that's what the Mrs. Danvers-like woman who separated the sheep from the goats (or those claiming MacLeod heritage from lesser mortals, because two separate guest books are maintained, one for each) at Dunvegan Castle called it.
In recent years I've been wearing my Henderson tartan kilted skirt for St. Andrew's Day observations; it's a lot more understated.
Since lockdown started, the Quinie and I have been working our way round the house, the loft, the shed and the garage, and we are now only one cupboard away from finishing. (The Loon's room has not been part of this, as it is Beyond Hope. Also we are not allowed to touch his stuff.)
I wouldn't say that the house is now clutter-free, but it's a lot better than it was, and I know where everything is.
I've been teetering on the edge of having a tidy study for the last couple of weeks. Progress keeps stalling as piles of paperwork are unearthed from elsewhere and added to the pile in the study. But the end is in sight....
I could never work out why I seemed incapable of getting on top of the house. Now I have my answer - it was a 100 day job! Not that I've been doing it every day, but I have had a 100 day run in which our usual method of tidying for visitors - scoop up everything and dump it in the study - has not happened because we have had no visitors. And so the usual two steps forward, one step back hasn't been happening.
We have got 3/4 of the way through our room (where most things get dumped in our house),as we had to find some little used keys yesterday. Turns out they were somewhere else, but we can see carpet!
I finished work this week which was meant to be the start of great plans to sort and declutter the house and do some serious gardening. All that can happen, of course, but I'm struggling to find a good routine at present. I need a Plan.
I did have A Good Plan for a while - I divided the house into zones and did 15 minutes in the zone each day, as well as keeping the usual dusting, vacuuming, and the cleaning of bathrooms and kitchen going. Lately it's all rather gone to pot. Although the garden is looking pretty; we're more on top of it than we have been for years.
I feel so behind with it now that I need a few blitzes to get me back on track. But there's always something more enjoyable to do...
My problem is I tend to keep containers because they Look Useful... and then end up with a cupboard full of empty containers.
I'm currently debating whether I can fit a new bookshelf in somewhere, as I've bought several new books during lockdown, and books are Not Clutter (except when they don't have a bookshelf to live on).
I started my family tree long before I had a computer, and by the time I did have a computer, I had too many handwritten notes and not enough time to transfer them.
Tonight I am going through a file of correspondence with a distant cousin. In one letter, dated 18 July 1985, he sympathises "I appreciate your problems with myriad scraps of paper"
Little did I guess that I would still have those myriad scraps of paper in files 35 years later!
...I'm currently debating whether I can fit a new bookshelf in somewhere, as I've bought several new books during lockdown, and books are Not Clutter (except when they don't have a bookshelf to live on).
I knew I was in trouble with what turned out to be my singularly bad choice of real estate agents (she gave me a slightly higher asking price for my old house than I was expecting, and then almost immediately started taking it down once I'd signed on) when she waved airily at my wall of books and CDs, and said, "Of course, you'll have to get rid of the clutter." What clutter? I asked, "Oh, all those books and things." I replied, "Books and compact discs are not clutter," and she gave me A Look.
The thrift stores are open and again taking donations, but after all these months what I had cleaned out are winter things, so now I must hang on to the boxes and bags until fall.
The thrift stores are open and again taking donations, but after all these months what I had cleaned out are winter things, so now I must hang on to the boxes and bags until fall.
Or just throw them out.
I know it is better for pre-used and much-loved possessions to have another twirl around the dance floor with someone who might need them, but what was your real purpose for de-cluttering in the first place? Lightening the load or passing the baton?
...I'm currently debating whether I can fit a new bookshelf in somewhere, as I've bought several new books during lockdown, and books are Not Clutter (except when they don't have a bookshelf to live on).
I knew I was in trouble with what turned out to be my singularly bad choice of real estate agents (she gave me a slightly higher asking price for my old house than I was expecting, and then almost immediately started taking it down once I'd signed on) when she waved airily at my wall of books and CDs, and said, "Of course, you'll have to get rid of the clutter." What clutter? I asked, "Oh, all those books and things." I replied, "Books and compact discs are not clutter," and she gave me A Look.
The thrift stores are open and again taking donations, but after all these months what I had cleaned out are winter things, so now I must hang on to the boxes and bags until fall.
Or just throw them out.
I know it is better for pre-used and much-loved possessions to have another twirl around the dance floor with someone who might need them, but what was your real purpose for de-cluttering in the first place? Lightening the load or passing the baton?
When I was a kid, if I picked something up in the street (like you do, as a small boy) then Mum would say 'you touched it last' - and not let me drop it again in the road as it was now *my* litter, and it had to get used, or come home to our bin or a public one in the road (which were intermittently a feature of my childhood, depending on whether anyone was currently thought likely to be slipping bombs into them).
That attitude of 'I touched it last' has sunk in rather deeply with me. I hate throwing anything out and I can find a use for most things. One way round it has been flogging things on ebay and giving the money to a charity we used to support at church, before everyone was too old to go round doing street collections. It's a bit of hassle, and I currently need to deal with a bit of a selling backlog; but it's satisfying in its own way for someone with my particular set of hang-ups. Mentioned here (possibly again - oh my memory) since you (pl) might want to try it with your clutter.
Mr S tells me that selling via ebay turned sour all at once, in that fees went up just as buyers started getting more difficult to deal with. And freecycle just seemed to be a pain, in that if people weren't paying for something they weren't really committed and would often just Not Turn Up (grrrrrr).
I'm packing up after 4 years in the same apartment to change countries. I've known about the move for 6 months, but I'm only just starting boxing stuff to send on ahead. I'm leaving a week Thursday. Some of my furniture sold on Facebook market place (first time I've used it. I guess about a half, or a bit less, of all the stuff I posted sold. Other stuff has been sold off cheaply to friends or given away.
Selling online, though is a pain. buyers message to ask if it's still available, then you hear nothing more from them, or they just message and ask for a cheaper price, but then don't respond to a slightly discounted price. It seems that stuff sells well if it is CHEAP, but if you're going to sell for a minimum price, then it's not really worth all the waiting in and phone tag and time wasting, so a lot of stuff is being given away.
My biggest worry was my balcony garden (lush!). I'd arranged for some people to come and take out all the plants and pots and paraphernalia and scrub down the tiles, but the landlord, against expectation, asked me to leave the plants. The landlords (elderly couple) and their 'agent' (nephew? Son?) are ok with me leaving quite a bit of stuff, mainly cheap cupboards and shelves, but they are annoying in the way they express this. I say to the agent, do you want my tool kit? and he'll say, no matter, just leave it, we will throw away or keep. So I say, no matter, I'll give it to someone who really wants it - I made them beg me to leave the balcony garden intact.
Having watched a couple of episodes of the Marie Kondo show, and seen YouTube vids of the same ilk, I have been slowly but surely decluttering for the past couple of years. The general lack of clutter has made the final close down a lot more manageable. My colleague who is leaving in October (after 6 years) claims to leaving with just a suitcase and a backpack (and I believe her).
The thrift stores are open and again taking donations, but after all these months what I had cleaned out are winter things, so now I must hang on to the boxes and bags until fall.
Or just throw them out.
I know it is better for pre-used and much-loved possessions to have another twirl around the dance floor with someone who might need them, but what was your real purpose for de-cluttering in the first place? Lightening the load or passing the baton?
A bit of both. I did want to size down, but I also want to support the good work that the thrift store does for the community. They use the money earned to buy life saving equipment for our local fire department. They made it easier to choose some nicer things to pass on knowing it was going to them. I only need keep stuff until September and they will be setting up fall and winter things.
I find that once stuff is boxed up ready to go, it's no longer considered clutter. I have five boxes to take to my newly-reopened favorite thrift shop next week. I also have a couple of boxes of Christmas things for them. Those boxes can sit here, sealed up and ready to go in a couple of months.
The one thing I have not been decluttering is clothing. If I were to go through my closet and drawers and remove anything not recently worn --- that would be just about everything! I've been living in my grubbiest old jeans and t-shirts, with a few slightly nicer ones for when I venture out to the grocery store, and a couple of nice tops for Zoom meetings.
Today we cleared out the kick-space under the floor.
We have now been through the entire house, loft to underfloor and the shed and the garage.
The house isn't tidy (as if!!) but the clutter in each room belongs to that room. So it should now be possible to work through the house again, safe in the knowledge that sorting one room won't result in causing chaos in another room.
I am ridiculously pleased. I can finally say that we have completely unpacked from our house move here, in March 2003.
Many years ago, we had a burst water pipe and there was a mad scramble to buy bottled water. As we live in a village, there were limited supplies locally, so people went off questing for miles around. Some people returned with their bottled water only to find the pipe had been fixed and the water was back on.
I thought it made sense to tuck 8 litres away in the underfloor kick-space, which would tide us over if it happened again.
A year later, the 8 litres went out of date, so I marked it as suitable for handwashing / toilet flushing and bought another 8 litres.
Rinse, repeat approx every 18 months since.
I've currently got 75 litres of out of date bottled water under my floor, plus 8 litres in date.
I can keep the unopened out-of-date stuff indefinitely for toilet flushing, can't I? And anything less than, say 8 years out-of-date would be ok for handwashing?
You might also look into options for water purification (tablets, iodine, charcoal, etc.), in case that might allow you to use the water for drinking. FWIW, YMMV.
Thanks, Golden Key. I know I've looked at their decluttering website before. I especially appreciate the rule:
Would I keep this if I moved? Would it be worth packing up, moving, and unpacking in a new space? We tend to be a little more ruthless and honest with ourselves about what stays and what goes when we’re moving from one home to another.
I've been planning for several years to move into a very nice "senior living" place near me, and last week I applied. It will probably be about a year and a half or so until I move. But this rule about taking things with me has been at the back of my mind for a long time. My cottage will be almost the size of my current house, but why take things that I won't use? I'll have a full kitchen, but why take along kitchen clutter* when my meals will be included? So I've been working on that for quite a while, and this pandemic has given me more time to do so, especially now that the thrift shops have reopened.
*I will certainly take plates, glasses, and some cooking items -- just not all the clutter.
My husband is getting a new desk this week; it looks as though he will be working from home for at least part of the time for months to come, and his existing desk isn't ideal. His old desk had drawers which were full of clutter. He has decluttered some of it into my room.
He is trying to offload the old desk onto our daughter and her boyfriend. I have insisted my daughter send photos to her boyfriend as I suspect that what he hears when my husband says "useful desk with drawers" may bear no resemblance to the reality.
I do wish I had been more conscientious in tidying up these last few weeks. My equipment and stationery have arrived to do my voluntary work from home and I would deal with it better if I didn't already have piles of stuff around.
I am working through the post return to school, pre baby sort and tidy. This morning I have done the cupboard where all the "Tupperware" lives. (Although a fair bit is of the plastic takeaway container type). I have just chucked out 17 lids that have no tub to put them on!
Comments
I confess I was quite ruthless with D's stuff: what use to me would a load of clothes for a tall thin bloke be? However, I've since heard about a company that makes teddy-bears trimmed with bits of fabric from favourite clothes, and I wish I'd known about them earlier, as that would have been a Good Thing to have.
Could I possibly have their website? I have a jacket of Dad’s I can’t throw away.
Biggest job remaining is all the photos, hundreds of them. Then there are the real ones as well, which I probably can’t bear to part with, even if I do digitise them. I just keep reminding myself that nobody else will have any interest in them when I am gone.
Burra Bears.
I really don't think I kept anything of his: when I was selling up, I wanted to have as little stuff to take back over the Pond as possible, and all his things were given to the charity shop (or binned if they weren't good enough). If I'd known about Burra Bears I'd certainly have kept a shirt or jacket; I suppose when my stuff arrives I could get material from something he liked me in and see what they can do with it.
That last sounds like a good option, FWIW.
Never mind, it will go in the shed until then.
Now to decorate and prepare the room - the fun bit!
In recent years I've been wearing my Henderson tartan kilted skirt for St. Andrew's Day observations; it's a lot more understated.
I wouldn't say that the house is now clutter-free, but it's a lot better than it was, and I know where everything is.
I've been teetering on the edge of having a tidy study for the last couple of weeks. Progress keeps stalling as piles of paperwork are unearthed from elsewhere and added to the pile in the study. But the end is in sight....
We have one room done - onwards and upwards with the rest!
I did have A Good Plan for a while - I divided the house into zones and did 15 minutes in the zone each day, as well as keeping the usual dusting, vacuuming, and the cleaning of bathrooms and kitchen going. Lately it's all rather gone to pot. Although the garden is looking pretty; we're more on top of it than we have been for years.
I feel so behind with it now that I need a few blitzes to get me back on track. But there's always something more enjoyable to do...
...making some progress...
I'm currently debating whether I can fit a new bookshelf in somewhere, as I've bought several new books during lockdown, and books are Not Clutter (except when they don't have a bookshelf to live on).
Tonight I am going through a file of correspondence with a distant cousin. In one letter, dated 18 July 1985, he sympathises "I appreciate your problems with myriad scraps of paper"
Little did I guess that I would still have those myriad scraps of paper in files 35 years later!
Or just throw them out.
I know it is better for pre-used and much-loved possessions to have another twirl around the dance floor with someone who might need them, but what was your real purpose for de-cluttering in the first place? Lightening the load or passing the baton?
(clutches head) the insanity. (reels away to bed)
When I was a kid, if I picked something up in the street (like you do, as a small boy) then Mum would say 'you touched it last' - and not let me drop it again in the road as it was now *my* litter, and it had to get used, or come home to our bin or a public one in the road (which were intermittently a feature of my childhood, depending on whether anyone was currently thought likely to be slipping bombs into them).
That attitude of 'I touched it last' has sunk in rather deeply with me. I hate throwing anything out and I can find a use for most things. One way round it has been flogging things on ebay and giving the money to a charity we used to support at church, before everyone was too old to go round doing street collections. It's a bit of hassle, and I currently need to deal with a bit of a selling backlog; but it's satisfying in its own way for someone with my particular set of hang-ups. Mentioned here (possibly again - oh my memory) since you (pl) might want to try it with your clutter.
Then it stopped and I can’t for the life of me remember why!
Maybe shared computer? Certainly Mr Alba started selling at the exact same time that I started having problems.
Until lockdown had I moved to freecycle / green cycle / freebie / whatever....
The bags are piling up now though.
Selling online, though is a pain. buyers message to ask if it's still available, then you hear nothing more from them, or they just message and ask for a cheaper price, but then don't respond to a slightly discounted price. It seems that stuff sells well if it is CHEAP, but if you're going to sell for a minimum price, then it's not really worth all the waiting in and phone tag and time wasting, so a lot of stuff is being given away.
My biggest worry was my balcony garden (lush!). I'd arranged for some people to come and take out all the plants and pots and paraphernalia and scrub down the tiles, but the landlord, against expectation, asked me to leave the plants. The landlords (elderly couple) and their 'agent' (nephew? Son?) are ok with me leaving quite a bit of stuff, mainly cheap cupboards and shelves, but they are annoying in the way they express this. I say to the agent, do you want my tool kit? and he'll say, no matter, just leave it, we will throw away or keep. So I say, no matter, I'll give it to someone who really wants it - I made them beg me to leave the balcony garden intact.
Having watched a couple of episodes of the Marie Kondo show, and seen YouTube vids of the same ilk, I have been slowly but surely decluttering for the past couple of years. The general lack of clutter has made the final close down a lot more manageable. My colleague who is leaving in October (after 6 years) claims to leaving with just a suitcase and a backpack (and I believe her).
A bit of both. I did want to size down, but I also want to support the good work that the thrift store does for the community. They use the money earned to buy life saving equipment for our local fire department. They made it easier to choose some nicer things to pass on knowing it was going to them. I only need keep stuff until September and they will be setting up fall and winter things.
The one thing I have not been decluttering is clothing. If I were to go through my closet and drawers and remove anything not recently worn --- that would be just about everything! I've been living in my grubbiest old jeans and t-shirts, with a few slightly nicer ones for when I venture out to the grocery store, and a couple of nice tops for Zoom meetings.
We have now been through the entire house, loft to underfloor and the shed and the garage.
The house isn't tidy (as if!!) but the clutter in each room belongs to that room. So it should now be possible to work through the house again, safe in the knowledge that sorting one room won't result in causing chaos in another room.
I am ridiculously pleased. I can finally say that we have completely unpacked from our house move here, in March 2003.
I agree that it’s all too easy to move clutter from one room to another. 🙄
I’m (sort of) looking forward to getting back to decluttering again when we get home from Germany.
Many years ago, we had a burst water pipe and there was a mad scramble to buy bottled water. As we live in a village, there were limited supplies locally, so people went off questing for miles around. Some people returned with their bottled water only to find the pipe had been fixed and the water was back on.
I thought it made sense to tuck 8 litres away in the underfloor kick-space, which would tide us over if it happened again.
A year later, the 8 litres went out of date, so I marked it as suitable for handwashing / toilet flushing and bought another 8 litres.
Rinse, repeat approx every 18 months since.
I've currently got 75 litres of out of date bottled water under my floor, plus 8 litres in date.
I can keep the unopened out-of-date stuff indefinitely for toilet flushing, can't I? And anything less than, say 8 years out-of-date would be ok for handwashing?
I'm puttering along.
Oh, this might be useful:
Apartment Therapy periodically runs various "decluttering cure" challenges. They send you e-mails, and have articles and resources on their site. The current one started last week, and runs for 20 days.
Here's Day 3: Living Room, as an example.
If you sign up now, you'll still get last week's lessons, too.
FWIW, YMMV, have fun!
*I will certainly take plates, glasses, and some cooking items -- just not all the clutter.
He is trying to offload the old desk onto our daughter and her boyfriend. I have insisted my daughter send photos to her boyfriend as I suspect that what he hears when my husband says "useful desk with drawers" may bear no resemblance to the reality.