The Great Declutter - 18 months on

Hollyberry

Money_maker wrote: »

We moved in here 5 years ago and still have unpacked boxes!......This is going to be a long haul.

We're in a similar position, and we moved in in 1992. The problem is that we never needed all the space, and I just haven't got around to sorting through things. However, OH and I have now set ourselves the challenge of going through the boxes and turning our storage room into an upstairs sitting room. We've set ourselves a target date of the end of February to have the room cleared, and the following week to have both the room painted and the floorboards either treated or painted depending on their condition (can't see much of them yet!).

So I'll let you know what weird and wonderful stuff we find. I know that there is a tea chest of my old children's games, including my spinning top, zoo animals and Lego. Other than that, I have no idea what could be lurking. An added incentive is that I have bought a lovely sofa from eBay for the bargain price of £20, and it is currently parked in the offsty where it is getting in my way and needs to move pronto.

Today's tally is:

IN: nothing

OUT:
- three plastic/four glass bottles for recycling (the results of too much diet coke and elderflower swilling at the pc)
- three old work jackets that are beyond repair, cleaning or the charity shop - no idea why I haven't got rid of them before :rolleyes:
- one bag of old bills for shredding
- 1/3 bin bag of general rubbish
- a small bag of toiletries that make me scaly (to MIL's friend's daughter)
- a load of packing materials for some office bins/racks to recycling
- a cheque to Mr T for his bonus rate internet savings account :cool:

greent

IN:
3 new saucepans

OUT:
3 old saucepans
lots of coathangars
an album or two's worth of old photos (why did I keep that blurry one? who IS that? etc!)
girls clothes
lots of paper etc recycling
garden watse recycling
a full wheelie bin of rubbish!

PendinG:
a box of books, a brand new oven glove, an unused coffee set and a 2009 diary going to WI tonight - hopefully not returning home with me!

I also phoned up for a seller's pack for the next NCT sale (Feb) - 90+ items going in that one (not that they'll all sell, but I'll be happy with half!)


I'm in the mood to sort/ declutter! But my hips hurt too much today and I'm shattered from poor night's sleep Oh well.....

greent
x

champys

I did a little bit again today - if I can keep it up like this, that would be brilliant.

IN: DH went to town and came back with some newspapers and magazines, also a huge tin of varnish (for varnishing beehives, I believe).

OUT: a lot of very old paperwork I found, stuff from 1993! Oh dear. The same bag contained a lot of foreign coins from pre-Euro, so all the German Marks, French Francs and Dutch Guilders now useless. There were however also some UK coins, and Swiss Francs and US coins which are still OK.
I also took out an old lava-lamp (it used to be DH's so it will have to be 'attic'd' for a while) and replaced it on the ornaments shelf with a lovely Moroccan silver teapot from my Mum's collection.

Still no resolve on where to take the redundant crockery. I'm going to the community afternoon in the village tomorrow so will ask the residents. But somehow I think they are going to find this an odd question!

Yorkielass

I didn't get anything in the boots sale today - so I've avoided more clutter

Work's really busy atm so not got much energy to do things in the evenings but our recycling bins and regular bins are needing emptying a lot so I guess we must be decluttering some stuff, getting really good at getting rid of leaflets that come in magazines etc.

Money_maker

champys wrote: »

Still no resolve on where to take the redundant crockery. I'm going to the community afternoon in the village tomorrow so will ask the residents. But somehow I think they are going to find this an odd question!

How about a charity shop? Alternatively, your local scout/cub or brownie/guide hut may appreciate them as they often do sleepovers.

skint_chick

champys you could put an ad on freecycle - i recently advertised stuff on there -just a dvd and remote control cars and got a huge response.

In
2 new car tyres
new baby card for friend
stamps

Out
New baby card and present to friend
letters
old dvds that don't work in the bin
remote control cars to freecycler
dvds to freecyclers
selection of clothes that don't fit to charity shop
2ebay items
binliner of assorted items to charity shop

angelavdavis

In

USB turntable I won on ebay so I can record my records and put them onto my IPAQ. Guess where the records will be heading afterwards?

Out

Another wheelie bin full of cardboard and other recycling for collection tomorrow. I can't fit any more in!
Half a wheelie bin full of polystyrene packaging
A large sack of straw which my fruit plants were packaged in (I took delivery of these before Christmas!) - into the compost heap!

Still doing ebay stuff to list today.
Will need to clear the compost heaps to make more room!

liloandstitch

angelavdavis wrote: »

In

USB turntable I won on ebay so I can record my records and put them onto my IPAQ. Guess where the records will be heading afterwards?

Make sure that you sell them - some can be quite valuable!
Lilo

angelavdavis

Thanks Lilo, yes I thought I would list the better ones on ebay. Many are pretty old and probably won't transfer very well to the Ipod but I will give it a go and of course put the turntable back on ebay when done!

I have just been able to give my old inset fire which I removed from my fireplace to a freecycler - hopefully they will collect it this pm. I didn't think it would go - nothing wrong with it, but it is old.

Well, that saves me a journey to the tip!

poorbutrich

skint_chick wrote: »

old dvds that don't work in the bin

Have you tried playing the DVDs in a DVD player? Sorry couldn't help myself! :rotfl:

Am having a terrible time of decluttering over here! Had an influx of objects inwards and it now looks like we will have to move out of our rented house pretty sharpish, so am desperately looking for car boot sales in this area!

Hope everyone else is having better luck! Onwards and outwards!