|
Post by Linda on Mar 16, 2021 1:13:10 GMT
and we traded an old iron (donation box) for a new iron tonight - one in, one out.
DD20 found 3 shirts in her room she no longer wanted - 2 went in donation and 1 was happily taken by DD14
|
|
|
Post by **GypsyGirl** on Mar 16, 2021 4:59:58 GMT
sues - Glad to see you back! You've done so much work! Isn't it great having a sewing studio set up?
|
|
|
Post by dewryce on Mar 16, 2021 12:52:28 GMT
Our big wins for the year have been 1) Finish decluttering entire house 2) Getting a lot of bulk items picked up 3) Our hazardous waste will be picked up tomorrow 4) A large bit of construction materials are out of the house. 5) Selling a few boxes of items we had been holding onto forever 6) The garage. I don’t work and DH hasn’t been able to work nearly as much because of the pandemic so we have been taking advantage and getting a lot done.
We have been through the entire house decluttering it, so that is no longer our main goal. I am still doing a couple of declutter calendars just to keep in the habit and giving areas another look is never a bad thing. But I am only finding an item here or there and that’s really exciting! At this point our goal is organizing and finishing projects. So right now I have a big room strictly dedicated to getting stuff done, it is marvelous. It was in the middle of renovation before the pandemic, so right now we have a plywood floor. So I set 5 of those 6 to 8 feet tables around the perimeter of the room.
One table has all of those projects from around the house that have been put off forever, each project is in its own ledger box or a plastic bin. Some examples of things on top of the table include boxes of coins/baseball cards DH wants to try and sell, the same with me and James Avery. A scanner I need to hook up and use, but need to fix my computer first, items for a large shadow box frame, misc. phones I want to try and charge and see if I can get any photos off of them before I throw them away, t-shirt quilt to send off, etc. Then under it are things that I need to repair or want to paint. This is my projects table [i/]so that all of this could be in queue and out of our day to day lives, because until it is done/fixed/whatever...these items are clutter and I don’t want to look at them in our fully decluttered home!
On a tiny table I have little bins of small, quick things to do like command hooks to hide wires, shoelaces to change out, post-it notes to be written on a more permanent place, new batteries to install for the fire alarms. Just those little things that we procrastinate doing in our every day lives.
Then on 3 other large tables I have separate projects set up that I am actively working on every day. Right now those are paperwork, manuals, and making alcohol ink ornaments. I just set a timer and work on each one every day. As these projects get finished, I take another box/item from the projects table and work on that. And throughout the day I grab one of the little projects and work on it at my main desk we set up. We moved a TV and DVD player in there, I have fresh flowers on the table and Alexa at my fingertips.
This is working out very well for me and I am getting so much done, some things that have been ignored for over 12 years!
Our garage looks better than it has since the first year we moved in. Nothing a single thing is just thrown in there for storage. Now we need to decide how to clean the floor before we can set up DH’s workout area. In the corner are a few more under cabinet pull-outs to install and a few other honey do items. But it has shrunk considerably during the pandemic and we should be able to finish in a month or two.
I also have a main room I am concentrating on every week. Doing things like organizing, deep cleaning, touching up paint, making sure wires don’t show, and little projects in there that have been out off like installing new hardware on cabinets. This week it is my craft room. The biggest thing to do is paint my sewing cabinet black and I’ll be excited when I’m done. I gave myself 3 weeks for the craft room and closet.
|
|
|
Post by tentoes on Mar 16, 2021 13:09:13 GMT
Wow girl! I loved reading about your progress!! You have done so many things!! Our big wins for the year have been 1) Finish decluttering entire house 2) Getting a lot of bulk items picked up 3) Our hazardous waste will be picked up tomorrow 4) A large bit of construction materials are out of the house. 5) Selling a few boxes of items we had been holding onto forever 6) The garage. I don’t work and DH hasn’t been able to work nearly as much because of the pandemic so we have been taking advantage and getting a lot done. We have been through the entire house decluttering it, so that is no longer our main goal. I am still doing a couple of declutter calendars just to keep in the habit and giving areas another look is never a bad thing. But I am only finding an item here or there and that’s really exciting! At this point our goal is organizing and finishing projects. So right now I have a big room strictly dedicated to getting stuff done, it is marvelous. It was in the middle of renovation before the pandemic, so right now we have a plywood floor. So I set 5 of those 6 to 8 feet tables around the perimeter of the room. One table has all of those projects from around the house that have been put off forever, each project is in its own ledger box or a plastic bin. Some examples of things on top of the table include boxes of coins/baseball cards DH wants to try and sell, the same with me and James Avery. A scanner I need to hook up and use, but need to fix my computer first, items for a large shadow box frame, misc. phones I want to try and charge and see if I can get any photos off of them before I throw them away, t-shirt quilt to send off, etc. Then under it are things that I need to repair or want to paint. This is my projects table [i/]so that all of this could be in queue and out of our day to day lives, because until it is done/fixed/whatever...these items are clutter and I don’t want to look at them in our fully decluttered home! On a tiny table I have little bins of small, quick things to do like command hooks to hide wires, shoelaces to change out, post-it notes to be written on a more permanent place, new batteries to install for the fire alarms. Just those little things that we procrastinate doing in our every day lives. Then on 3 other large tables I have separate projects set up that I am actively working on every day. Right now those are paperwork, manuals, and making alcohol ink ornaments. I just set a timer and work on each one every day. As these projects get finished, I take another box/item from the projects table and work on that. And throughout the day I grab one of the little projects and work on it at my main desk we set up. We moved a TV and DVD player in there, I have fresh flowers on the table and Alexa at my fingertips. This is working out very well for me and I am getting so much done, some things that have been ignored for over 12 years! Our garage looks better than it has since the first year we moved in. Nothing a single thing is just thrown in there for storage. Now we need to decide how to clean the floor before we can set up DH’s workout area. In the corner are a few more under cabinet pull-outs to install and a few other honey do items. But it has shrunk considerably during the pandemic and we should be able to finish in a month or two. I also have a main room I am concentrating on every week. Doing things like organizing, deep cleaning, touching up paint, making sure wires don’t show, and little projects in there that have been out off like installing new hardware on cabinets. This week it is my craft room. The biggest thing to do is paint my sewing cabinet black and I’ll be excited when I’m done. I gave myself 3 weeks for the craft room and closet.
|
|
|
Post by dewryce on Mar 16, 2021 13:27:50 GMT
Thanks tentoes! It has been a very productive year. It really helps that we have so much free time right now, as we still don’t go anywhere we don’t have to , so we both have had a lot of time to work on it and are both in a headspace to just get stuff done.
|
|
|
Post by **GypsyGirl** on Mar 16, 2021 14:45:44 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Linda on Mar 16, 2021 15:04:32 GMT
super impressed dewryceI wish DH and I were on the same page...he has SO much stuff.I'm hoping he'll purge some as he unpacks.
|
|
|
Post by dewryce on Mar 16, 2021 19:52:20 GMT
super impressed dewryce I wish DH and I were on the same page...he has SO much stuff.I'm hoping he'll purge some as he unpacks. Yeah, it definitely makes a difference having everyone on board. I hope he notices the effort you’re making, and the positive impact it has on your home and decides to follow suit.
|
|
|
Post by Linda on Mar 16, 2021 20:02:26 GMT
super impressed dewryce I wish DH and I were on the same page...he has SO much stuff.I'm hoping he'll purge some as he unpacks. Yeah, it definitely makes a difference having everyone on board. I hope he notices the effort you’re making, and the positive impact it has on your home and decides to follow suit. I think he's definitely noticed the difference between packing in advance with a plan and throwing stuff randomly into boxes. He's also discovered that it's hard to move furniture (bookcases, shelfing units etc...) into his room when every inch of floor space is covered with boxes and it means he has to keep moving the same boxes around. And I also think he's discovering that even when you have a 20x20ft room...it's still possible to have more stuff than space. We've run out of space to put his boxes of stuff (between the garage and his big room) so his side of the shed at the old house can't be moved yet... Now whether he puts these discoveries into action going forward....is a different question. BUT I can close the door to his room and I can close the door to the garage. I carefully delineated spaces for mine/household stuff (there are two small storage rooms off the garage - I claimed both) and there are two attics (we have one each) because I have learnt that he can and will spread into any space I declutter unless I put very clear boundaries in place.
|
|
|
Post by dewryce on Mar 16, 2021 20:14:45 GMT
linda I’m so glad he’s realizing just how much stuff he has, hopefully it does have an impact on him. And I’m jealous of your two closets and attics. Our attic is set up so that storage in there is impossible. So we are going to have to put sturdy shelving up there to hold all of our Christmas trees and totes, and there are tons of them. It’s going to make the garage feel like a cave and visually cluttered even though it won’t be. Because, right now at least, everything has a place and everything is in its place. So I’m not looking forward to that. That’s a good idea about delineating the spaces. I guess we did without even thinking about it. We each have a room of our own to do whatever with. That worked real well until COVID happened and we discovered DH really need more workout equipment for home since he couldn’t access the gym, and various pools around the area, and there just isn’t room in “his” room.for them. So we cleared out half the garage for his new toys. I was sooo looking forward to having a place to park my car. There just isn’t room on the other side between all of the holiday decorations totes and gardening equipment and tools. Anyway, when I think about it neither of us has really tried to bring items that are specifically “ours” into the rest of the house. It’s all “ours” type stuff. I am so disappointed, I have ordered some fabric samples for my craft room curtains, and was terribly excited to get them because there is just one that really spoke to me no I was going to base the chair I’m going to recover on how that worked as faux Roman shades. They came in yesterday and it looks nothing like it did online and I hate it. Making those curtains and recovering the chairs was going to be my reward for concentrating on my room and getting all the little things done that I’ve been ignoring. Boo. Does anyone have any fabric stores they can recommend. **GypsyGirl** I know you quilt so must have some sources!
|
|
|
Post by yodutchess on Mar 20, 2021 1:06:20 GMT
Three years ago this Memorial Day, we had a basement flood. What was not ruined, we carried upstairs to dry out. Photographs stayed in bins in the living room behind the whole length of the couch, and the rest of it went to a 20x20 storage bin. We put a few things from the garage there too. We have gone there to retrieve things as needed. We also had a rickety leaky shed, which we finally emptied and replaced in January. Now that weather is a little better, DS and DH emptied the bin yesterday. I was working, so did not go. DH asked in general if I knew of anything that could go in the dumpster. I said baskets. DS threw visible baskets away, as well as a few other things of his, and brought the bins home. Today I had a half day, and I purged that crap down to keeping 9 bins, including 3 North Pole Village bins and 3 bins of even more photos. The rest is in my car for donating tomorrow. I could live without the North Pole Village, someday. Among the donations are every scrap book item, and I thought I got rid of it all before. Kathy Davis box kits from QVC? in my car. Bags of 12x 12 in every ugly color from the who’s who of extinct LSS in Pennsylvania? in my car. The next big declutter will be the attic. Onward!
|
|
|
Post by Spongemom Scrappants on Mar 20, 2021 1:25:31 GMT
Everyone is making such progress and it's all inspirational. I love this thread.
Today I emptied out the largest closet in my laundry room. After living in this house a little over a year, I'm very clear on what I need to have in there and what I don't. I ended up with a donate pile, a move-to-garage-storage pile, and the necessary items that went back into the closet in a much more organized and sensible way. It also involved a mini-reorganization of the cabinet under the laundry room sink.
I'm so happy with the finished results and asking the usual "Why didn't I do this sooner?" And I'll confess to going in there and opening the door several times later in the day JUST to admire my handiwork. Yes, I did!
|
|
|
Post by mikklynn on Mar 22, 2021 12:15:18 GMT
I finally stopped procrastinating and dropped off 5 boxes of books, clothes, and craft items to Goodwill. My laundry room looks much better.
|
|
|
Post by Spongemom Scrappants on Mar 22, 2021 13:44:32 GMT
I finally stopped procrastinating and dropped off 5 boxes of books, clothes, and craft items to Goodwill. I had two boxes of donation stuff long tucked away in my husband's home office (not often used - he's been going IN to work the whole time). Adding the stuff from the laundry room purge was enough to motivate me to throw it all in the car and drop it off Friday. I seem to wait until I have an arbitrary "enough" to take in. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
|
|
|
Post by **GypsyGirl** on Mar 22, 2021 14:12:23 GMT
It seems like last week was unofficially "Laundry Room Week"! I have 2 small upper cabinets on either side of the laundry room sink (11" deep by 13" wide), with open shelves between the two. Some of the shelves were organized with bins, but the other shelves were a mess. I also had to pull everything out to get to the stuff in the back. Container Store to the rescue! Put a small lazy susan on the bottom shelf. It holds the starches, hand wash soaps, stain treaters, etc. Works so well that now I wonder why I never thought of that before! The upper shelves now have two of the narrow pantry bins. They have a handle cut out on the front that allows me to pull a bin down without dragging out the ladder! The very top shelf on the other side also got a bin for all the glues and spray adhesives. The baskets on the open shelves were sorted as well. Several things were tossed, donated or moved to the garage where they belong. I went through the lower cabinets and donated a few things, sent a dog bowl home with DD and added a couple of old towels to a donation bag for the rescue we support (they put out a call for more old towels and blankets). This week I will spend some time on the eBay pile in the office/dining room. The remodel we were planning for that room and adjoining kitchen wall has been postponed indefinitely and I quit working on clearing the room out. Time to get back to work on that and the guest room.
|
|
|
Post by **GypsyGirl** on Mar 22, 2021 19:04:22 GMT
Just spent a chunk of the morning doing a digital declutter of my gmail account. It had crept back up over 11,000 messages. Now I've got it down to just under 8,000, so 3,000+ messages gone. My method is to go into All Mail, then type a name in the search box to pull up all those messages (various bills, newsletters, etc). Discovered today that while it is pulling up some of them, it isn't pulling them all up. Very annoying as it ends up taking longer to search them all out. Oh well, at least I've made some progress!
|
|
|
Post by jenjie on Mar 25, 2021 18:45:58 GMT
I decluttered my MacBook using "Gemini 2:the duplicate finder" app. It's free for 3 days, then $20/year after. I only needed it for a few hours to get rid of my dups. There are similar apps available for Windows.
My laptop was overloaded so I transferred a bunch of files onto an external hard drive. These are from when I worked for a friend and I was trying to clear out everything. But I ended up with a bunch of copies of the same items. This app saved me a lot of time. I went through and scanned my entire laptop for dups and it cleared some other things out too. It gives you the option to see what you are deleting before making it permanent.
|
|
|
Post by **GypsyGirl** on Mar 25, 2021 19:50:27 GMT
Great idea jenjie! Will have to keep that in mind for future digital purges. DH's new Mac showed up yesterday, so now he's getting the old one ready to send back for a trade-in. I happened to mention we had some other old Apple products hanging around as well. So today I've pulled out everything, as well as the old boxes (we tend to keep most Apple product boxes). So far I have set up trade-ins for a 6 year old iPad ($30), a Series 3 watch ($90) and an 11 year old MacBook Pro ($140). By the time we get the trade in for DH's computer ($150), we will be able to buy him a new iPad mini for minimal money out of pocket! There are also a couple of old phones and an old AppleTv that they are sending me labels for recyling. We have two old time machines that can be recycled, so I need to clear that with DH. With everything on the cloud, not really seeing the need to keep those. We haven't used them in 6 or 7 years. Also tossed several old boxes and a stack of manuals that I found online and downloaded. Since the new Mac came with a new mouse and keyboard I am currently looking up comps to list the Apple Magic Mouse that uses batteries. Will list that later today. The keyboard has gone into the cabinet as my backup. I am really tough on keyboards and just replaced mine (again) a couple of weeks ago . It will be handy to have the next time I kill a keyboard. So nice to get rid of all these old electronics! Don't overlook the really old things when you are decluttering!
|
|
|
Post by **GypsyGirl** on Mar 25, 2021 21:16:28 GMT
DH went out to run an errand so I ran out to the garage to do a little organizing on the shelf in front of his car. Emptied a couple of small bins into a larger one so all Elfa supplies are in one bin now. Labeled the remaining shoe boxes I use to organize things. Shuffled some things around as well. Now I can find what I need at a glance. I also made a mental note of some things that need to be gotten rid of. This is the time of the year for garage work - and it won't last long. I don't mind doing the work, but I do need him to agree to get rid of some of these things. Pretty sure he'll be onboard, fingers crossed!
ETA: Got him to agree to get rid of an old Hunter's ceiling fan, as well as two light kits from other ceiling fans. YES! More room on shelves to get things off the floor! Progress!
|
|
|
Post by dewryce on Mar 29, 2021 8:30:18 GMT
DH went out to run an errand so I ran out to the garage to do a little organizing on the shelf in front of his car. Emptied a couple of small bins into a larger one so all Elfa supplies are in one bin now. Labeled the remaining shoe boxes I use to organize things. Shuffled some things around as well. Now I can find what I need at a glance. I also made a mental note of some things that need to be gotten rid of. This is the time of the year for garage work - and it won't last long. I don't mind doing the work, but I do need him to agree to get rid of some of these things. Pretty sure he'll be onboard, fingers crossed! ETA: Got him to agree to get rid of an old Hunter's ceiling fan, as well as two light kits from other ceiling fans. YES! More room on shelves to get things off the floor! Progress! I have one of these too! Well, it’s Elfa and Skandia. And it has been so very helpful. I hope he is onboard and you’re able to make great progress! My memory is terrible, so I have to keep written notes. One of the permanent lists I have is of things I’m even considering getting rid of, along with excuses to keep/reasons to get rid of. Anytime an it occurs to me that something might be able to go I write it down, think on it to decide if I’m using excuses or reasons, and then go through it with DH. Most of the time we decide to toss/donate. Right now there are zero items on the list and that makes me so happy! @spongemomsquarepants, I sometimes hold onto things to donate until I have enough too, but for a silly reason. I take photos of things as they leave our house, for motivational purposes. Just a file on my phone to look though if I’m not feeling it. And my favorite photos are when the back of the SUV is fairly full or we have a tabletop covered in donations. Sometimes that wasn’t a big deal because we were getting rid of so much, so quickly. But now that it’s down to a trickle, it takes too darn long for that. Once we’ve made the decision I just want it gone!
|
|
casii
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,449
Jun 29, 2014 14:40:44 GMT
|
Post by casii on Mar 29, 2021 14:06:49 GMT
I'm sneaking into this thread for inspiration.
DH is an aspirational hoarder.
Youngest DD and her new husband are selling their current house, building a new house and just moved into our basement. This meant a lot of decluttering, clearing out, etc. Most of it my stuff because DH holds strong. I sold some puzzles on FB marketplace and he nearly had a meltdown. We never repeat puzzles. He exclaimed "I guess our puzzle days are over! No more puzzles ever!" and would barely look at me the rest of the day. (He likes the $$ though because puzzles are still a hot ticket item) Also, I counted and we have 5 puzzles people have given us that we've not done yet.
I have craft supplies I'm still mulling over the simplicity of donating vs trying to sell some. With the post office still losing packages, I'm hesitant to offer shipping plus that's extra work.
But the kids are here now. They've brought their 4, yes FOUR cats. Our elderly dog is scandalized about the cat situation. And now the latest issue is food storage as DH refuses to let me clean out anything and he has a tendency to buy stuff on sale because it's a good deal. We have 2 extra people who need a little space in the fridge and pantry. DH says they can eat whatever we eat, but they are super picky plus DD has an autoimmune protocol and NO I'm not cooking for everyone every day and we have a family meeting to discuss a food & cooking schedule.
|
|
|
Post by Linda on Mar 29, 2021 14:16:23 GMT
casii - I'm sorry, I can relate somewhat. My DH is also an aspirational hoarder - one day he'll have time to build all the Lego sets, do all the puzzles, hang all the posters/artwork, build all the models, fix all the stuff (that isn't worth fixing), read all the books, use all the tools.... I can understand to a degree because I have more scrapbook supplies and unread books than I need or probably will ever get to but...when I run out of space, I stop buying...he doesn't. I think the family meeting on food/cooking is an excellent idea. I wish you all the best with the decluttering...most of what I declutter is mine because many years ago, DH made a rule that I couldn't get rid of anything of his (it's since been modified to allow me to toss socks and boxers with holes...with impunity)
|
|
|
Post by Linda on Mar 29, 2021 14:22:46 GMT
my current decluttering project is my Fisher Price collection. It's proving challenging in several ways.
I collect the old vintage Little People sets (from the 60s/70s). I loved them as a kid, saved ONE of mine (Hospital), and when I had kids, started finding them used for them to play with. They outgrew them and I put them into totes with the idea I could display them once we had space and they would be fun if we ever had grandchildren. I stopped buying years ago unless I found a specific piece I needed for an incomplete set. DH however buys any vintage FP he comes across because I 'might need it' so the collection continued growing.
We moved - I have a spot to display my sets so I'm going through the totes (of which there are more than I thought), washing them and putting them on display. The goal is to only keep what I can display. Having a few issues with DH over the potential discards...he's not as ready to let go as I am and he's 'collected for me' some stuff that IS really cute and nice but ISN'T Little People (pull toys etc...)...the latter may get ONE tote worth of space in the attic for the (remote possiblity) of grandkids.
|
|
|
Post by **GypsyGirl** on Mar 29, 2021 14:40:58 GMT
DH is an aspirational hoarder. I hate to admit it but I'm guilty of "aspirational hoarding" when it comes to fabrics, craft supplies/kits, sentimental clothing, baby clothes/toys, etc. Over the past few years I have improved, but am now down to the hard stuff to let go of. DH was even worse, but thankfully a few years ago the switch flipped with him and he's happy to purge things now. He's still hanging on to way too many books IMO, but he could say the same about me and my fabrics! As for the food, could you approach it from a humanitarian aspect of there being such a food crisis now? Food banks everywhere are in such need of donations. It's a shame to see all that go to waste when so many are in need. Linda - Good luck in sorting through your collections. You must be settled in enough to your new home to really be enjoying it!
|
|
|
Post by ntsf on Mar 29, 2021 16:32:32 GMT
I am back at my dad's.. getting rid of piles of paper, recycled a stack of empty boxes and just getting rid of old stuff. there is more to go!! my brother has talked dad into letting him do all the finances so am trying to gather all last years papers and also put together my dad's taxes.
then, when I go home next week, a bunch of the boat stuff that has been in our basement for a year will be gone. so I can start tackling the basement again!!!
I have been gone from home for 6 weeks. so ready to dive right in. and my husband won't be home to comment on the mess
|
|
|
Post by dewryce on Mar 29, 2021 19:00:50 GMT
DH is an aspirational hoarder. I hate to admit it but I'm guilty of "aspirational hoarding" when it comes to fabrics, craft supplies/kits, sentimental clothing, baby clothes/toys, etc. Over the past few years I have improved, but am now down to the hard stuff to let go of. DH was even worse, but thankfully a few years ago the switch flipped with him and he's happy to purge things now. He's still hanging on to way too many books IMO, but he could say the same about me and my fabrics! As for the food, could you approach it from a humanitarian aspect of there being such a food crisis now? Food banks everywhere are in such need of donations. It's a shame to see all that go to waste when so many are in need. Linda - Good luck in sorting through your collections. You must be settled in enough to your new home to really be enjoying it! We should probably make a club or something. casii Your husband is, of course, welcome. This was probably where most of my clutter came from. I want to do all the things and my mind and much of the time my body want to do none of the things and for years I just couldn’t accept this change. It was always “when I get better” and decluttering aspirational projects felt like admitting/accepting reality. But DH and I talked and if I improve more than expected, I can always buy new projects to work on. So, I kept my very favorites, let a LOT go, and I feel so much better. There isn’t that weight on me to get to them. I’ve even been enjoying my crafting time more and doing more because it is less overwhelming. linda, I think it’s great that you’re going to honor your favorite sets and put them where you can enjoy them! I get the frustration though with your DH not being on board. Same with casii’s husband. It can really put a wrench in things when you just want it all out...yesterday. My DH was the same for most of our marriage. It’s a wonder I never buried him in the backyard. Anyway, I hope y’all are able to make some progress, even with their inout!
|
|
scrappinmama
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,812
Member is Online
Jun 26, 2014 12:54:09 GMT
|
Post by scrappinmama on Mar 29, 2021 21:38:11 GMT
We donated some kitchen pots, pans, dishes and kitchen table to an organization that helps families who are moving out of shelters and in to their own apartments. They let us know what they are short on, so I'm going to go through the house and see if we have anything on their list. It's nice to see that our no longer wanted items are wanted by others. I'm tackling the dreaded garage soon. I know I will come across spiders, so I'm not looking forward to it.
|
|
|
Post by MissBianca on Mar 30, 2021 3:05:59 GMT
I’m back!! Lol I have not organized or purged anything in a while. I get so overwhelmed with all the crap and no help, I have no idea where to start. Well last week that changed when I finally got my plastic divided drawers from the container store (they are from the Home Edit ladies). So yesterday and today I completely gutted the linen closet and bathroom vanity. I tossed about a half a trash bag of old meds and stuff we won’t use, reorganized the drawers by group items, and got all the random stuff off the towel shelf. I still need 2 bins from target and some labels for the drawers but I’m really happy with how it turned out. Now if my kids will just keep it clean I’ll be happy. But they can’t just cram stuff in baskets until it falls out so hopefully they will push the drawers back in. Now I need to get the 4 boys in the house to go through all the shaving and beard stuff. They have more stuff in the bathroom than DD and I have. I kicked them out of a shelf so we have a place to put face care stuff.
Tomorrow I tackle laundry and I’m on the hunt for a bin to put winter shoes in. Mice got into one of the kids boots last year so I need something to store them in when they go back in the front hall closet.
Oh and I also took a load to goodwill this weekend. I have 2 more to go but I’m making a dent.
|
|
|
Post by dewryce on Mar 30, 2021 10:43:26 GMT
We donated some kitchen pots, pans, dishes and kitchen table to an organization that helps families who are moving out of shelters and in to their own apartments. They let us know what they are short on, so I'm going to go through the house and see if we have anything on their list. It's nice to see that our no longer wanted items are wanted by others. I'm tackling the dreaded garage soon. I know I will come across spiders, so I'm not looking forward to it. That sounds amazing, I wish I had heard of someplace like this years ago as we have donated so much! Do you remember the name of the organization? I’d like to see if they have a local chapter. We recently did our garage and didn’t come across a single one, I hope you have the same luck!
|
|
|
Post by Linda on Apr 6, 2021 21:45:55 GMT
not much decluttering - although 2 pairs of cords and a couple of tops went into the donation bin - but organising. ALL the stuff that was MINE from the shed at the old house has been sorted through and stored. ALL the toys got washed and sorted and labelled and stored in the attic. All the other sentimental stuff has been sorted and labelled and stored in the attic. The Christmas stuff is all labelled and separated into Advent and Christmas (we put up some stuff in time for the first Sunday of Advent and the rest not until close to Christmas) and is stored in the garage closet under the stairs. The Fall and Spring holiday decor is labelled and stored in the garage utility room.
I have three totes left - one is wooden trains and I'm just waiting for the last of that to dry before it goes up in the attic. Another is waiting for some stuff to come out of the washer/dryer and it'll also go up in the attic. The third - I need to go through still.
There is still a collection of empty totes, plastic drawer units, and magazine holders in the garage - I'm waiting to see if anyone wants them (not everyone here is completely unpacked yet) before donating the leftovers but they are neat.
Feeling rather accomplished.
Next project is my craft room. I ordered 4 6-cube units (the smaller 11" cubes) to make a cutting surface/storage space for sewing supplies and they arrived yesterday. They aren't assembled yet but once they are, I'm hoping to get them filled up and some of the piles off the floor in there. I also have 2 3-cube units - one assembled so far - and I need to deal with those also. Then I need to replace the broken 8-cube unit for my albums and the room should be done.
We're still emptying the sheds at the old house - one is about 5/8s empty ( the bigger one), the other we haven't so much as looked in yet. Hopefully this weekend we can make more progress.
|
|