Decluttering 2012, this year, definitely ...

loopychriss

DawnW wrote: »

I would check out phone recycling web sites first - they give you cash for many brands of dead phones. Not much maybe, but better than nothing, and costs nothing to check :T

Thank you for this Dawn, but it's not a mobile, it's a land line phone, with a caller display. Hubby used to be a BT engineer and he can't fix it so it's probably not worth anything to anyone. Hmmm, maybe the local Am Dram group would like it?!!

Becky_2

I have had a really productive day today. Window cleaner came this morning to clean the windows inside and outside, he also cleaned the conservatory roof. It has made such a difference and well worth the money. This inspired me to wash the net curtains and the duvet. All blinds has been wiped and we have hoovered the whole house thoroughly. Several carboard boxed have also been put in the recycling bin.

Good luck with your decluttering.

marmiterulesok

I seem to have lost my get-up-and-go as far as decluttering goes.It might be the heat.

Hopefully I'll have something to report for tomorrow.:)

Possession

marmiterulesok wrote: »

I seem to have lost my get-up-and-go as far as decluttering goes.It might be the heat.

Hopefully I'll have something to report for tomorrow.:)

I'm feeling the same way I'm afraid, and I won't even be able to do any tomorrow as i'll be out. The living room is tidy and a load of washing has been done, that's the best I can say.

silentsister

Possession wrote: »

I'm feeling the same way I'm afraid.

Thank you both - I'm really feeling washed out with it all. All day I've been looking at a pile of cutlery that needs moving on but it's going soooo slowly. Ignoring that, the three days or so has seen:
portapuzzle to cs
17 books to cs
1 table to freecycling

Waiting for two chairs to be collected (freecycle).

pollys

I've slowed down a bit too. DH is on nights so trying to keep noise down to a minimum.

Still have lots of "small areas" to declutter indoors, odd bookshelf, document files etc but the larger areas understairs cupboards, wardrobes (not DH's) etc are all done. Still got the shed and garage to do though.

Will hopefully get it all done soon.

Pollys

valk_scot

DD has been decluttering her room...she's nearly 11 now and feeling a bit past the Disney Princess and pink with everything stage. So I've promised her a room makeover if she got rid of the tat. Five binbags of rubbish went out last week and this evening she's got two of her cul-de-sac friends round to pick over the better toys, games, clothes and accessories that she no longer wants. What they don't want can go to the charity shop and I know the mums don't mind, they happily pounce on outgrown school uniform and other clothes. I'll bag the residue up tomorrow and get OH to take it out to the car so I've got no excuse not to take it to the CS on Monday.

The room makeover btw is not going to involve much expense or buying of things. We went round the Ikea room sets last week and wht she really wants is (a) a dressing room area and (b) purple. So I bought her a £10 pair of purple curtains and we'll turn her current ones (white crushed velvet, bought by my mum for my bedroom 35 years ago!) to the rear to make good thick linings. A new duvet cover and sheets and one tin of purple Plasti-Cote to spray the drawers on her CofDs, also from my teenage bedroom. And I have some remnants of purple crushed velvet and sari fabric to make cushion covers from and cover her desk chair. So that's using things up, mostly, rather than buying in new. The rest is just rearranging.

Other things sitting in bags waiting to go to various places? A carrier bag of craft odds and ends for the school nursery, a bag of shredded paper for the compost bin, a bag of rag textiles, clearly marked, for the CS. It's not been a bad day all told on the dejunking front, none of it is stuff I'm attached to emotionally. I've got to work down through a layer or two of other stuff before I get to the items I'm attaxhed to emotionally. By which time, hopefully, I may be into the groove.

(I did take two very small soft toys out the CS bag to give to the new kitten though, oops. I threw out the box of well chewed cat toys a few months back...now that was a mistake!)

BabyBoots

Had my parents over today for a cuppa and chocolate tiffin, and the three of us had trouble walking into the lounge together - what a tip, I was quite embarrassed. I had been putting away my seventh post honeymoon load of laundry, but the place was still full of boxes and jumble.

Anyway, having now got through the mammoth ironing session and all being dry, we managed to get the kitchen table back in the kitchen for the first time in about 7 weeks (It got moved into the lounge so we could practise our first dance in the kitchen.)

I'm trying not to get disheartened with it; I do feel like a failure looking at all the mess, especially as I had managed to reduce the junk to one worksurface and about 4 boxes two months ago. It's now in every room!

On the positive side - laundry is all up to date now, table back in situ, and about 6 foot square of carpet newly visible in the lounge. I'll have another session tomorrow.

loopychriss

Had quite a productive day today: went to my quilt group this morning, took all my excess fabric that I had sorted out, and made about £50 for my grandson's future care fund. I'd put it all in a suitcase bag that had lost a wheel, so it is now living in the store cupboard where we have our meetings. Also sorted out another dozen or so bits of fabric to go in it and some other sewing-related bits. This afternoon I decluttered some weeds from the garden (or rather, I pulled them up, they've still got to be disposed of). Got someone viewing the house tomorrow so will have to spend the rest of my time getting it tidy for that.

So...

23. Suitcase bag with one wheel - quilt group
24. About 12 pieces of fabric - quilt group
25. 2 paper patterns - quilt group
26. 7 sewing items - quilt group
27. 1 pair of garden clogs - bin (they were really falling apart)
28. 6 part books of raffle tickets - 2 to quilt group bag, others binned
29. Half a pot of hair wax - homeless shelter bag
30. Clothes brush thingy that we never use - charity shop bag
31. Half a bottle of out of date (2009!!) cough medicine found in fridge
32. Manky plastic container that we used to have cheese in - bin
33. Plastic travel size bottle for shampoo etc. - homeless shelter bag
34. 20+ ink pads from my stamping days - going to friend for her granddaughters

Still got a big list to work through, but it's getting there.

I'm torn between being a minimalist and decluttering everything, yet hanging on to things in case they might come in useful. I also want to plan ahead for Christmas, but don't want to have to store the stuff! In the past I've bought things in the Jan sales and put them away for Christmas, only to dig them all out and dispose of them in the great summer declutter! So this year I've not done that, but it goes against my urge to get prepared and organised for Christmas!

BabyBoots

It's tricky isn't it loopychriss? I'm sure someone will have said this sort of thing before, but decluttering goes against a lot of what we pride ourselves on as money savers. Keeping things to reuse, buying something we expect to use later because it's available at a good price - these are basic money saving behaviours - but they can lead to clutter, and clutter is not moneysaving.

Our homes are usually the most expensive things we have, and if we spend our hard-saved pennies on the rent/mortgage of space we can't use because it's cluttered, it's a great waste of money.