Organising and streamling my home

Hermia

scrabbles wrote: »

:T I agree wholeheartedly. Stuff doesn't 'say' anything about you - not to people whose opinions matter, anyway. Keep hold of stuff that you love or regularly use, get rid of the stuff you don't. It's really that simple.

I couldn't agree more! I often hear people say they judge someone by what's in their home (e.g. I've heard people say they couldn't be friends with someone who doesn't have art of books in their home, but they don't know WHY they don't have them). I live in a tiny flat and rent (so may need to move at any time) so I am definitely try to streamline everything.

Books - I am getting rid of books and just keep a shelf of my favourite authors and my craft/cookery books. All my other reading will be via the Kindle or from the library. I don't re-read books often so I am not sure why I have kept so many I will probably never look at again.

Music - I have been going through my CDs for a while. I listen to them once a year and then sell the ones that aren't as good as I remember. I have found so many where I only really like one song so I may as well just listen to it online if I want to. I am wary of putting all my music on my computer as I had a computer stolen. Luckily I hadn't got rid of any of the CDs.

Journals - I keep these as I think they are a great reflection of a time in my life and they contain my write ups of plays/gigs etc I have seen so I like re-reading them.

Photos - I do keep actual copies as I am not 100% confident in digital storage. I am quite ruthless with photos. I only keep ones of family/friends or ones that are really special. And I do ask myself whether need 3 almost identical photos of the same view/person.

Bronnie

Hermia wrote: »

Photos - I do keep actual copies as I am not 100% confident in digital storage. I am quite ruthless with photos. I only keep ones of family/friends or ones that are really special. And I do ask myself whether need 3 almost identical photos of the same view/person.

I agree with keeping hard copies, especially of old photographs. I also agree however that when you sort through there are lots of duplicates, not very good shots etc, so you can pare down the collection without losing valuable memories. Those who had their babies in the 1980's like me, may also be questioning why they took quite so many photographs of "Cute Baby Lying on Changing Mat after Bath" especially when you had to pay quite a few quid to have the film (rubbish or otherwise) developed!!

I also have all my mum's old photographs. Some, that also feature other people, I have given away to them or their children if the parents are now deceased, some specific ones mum had of National Eisteddfods from the 1950's, I donated to their archive. I have made albums for my daughters with their life-story (to date!) in photos, so have managed to thin my collection considerably. The rest I have catalogued in labelled envelopes and store standing upright in attractive storage boxes..........you can fit loads in this way. I wouldn't put them in albums, personally, I have been removing mine from albums as they take up too much space.

Books...I don't keep fiction paperbacks once read as I rarely reread. I swap on readitswapit, exchange with friends, give away on freecycle/to the charity shop, or occasionally, depending on the book can sell on ebay.

ifonlyitwaseasier

i couldn't streamline books (i have too many but i read copious amounts and re-read most of them at least once a year), and i refuse to buy ones for kindle if i already have them.

there are a lot of family photo's about but i must back them up and a firesafe is a great idea!! thanks JulieGeorgiana

Aarons_mummy

I love 'proper' photo's. I have a plastic shoebox with all of them stored in there. They are in the top of my wardrobe, I would never get rid of them, despite having electronic copies.

Books is dependent on yourself. A shelf full isn't much at all. Are there any you no longer want and could sell/charity shop? Any you can't could stay on a shelf.

Music is the ones that I would have a digital copy and get rid of the actual CD's. This is because I have an ipod and don't actually play regular CD's but if it's something that you do it's worth hanging onto them.

Underbed storage or a large plastic box or sideboard to store items would be a good idea and would be out of view but still within your possession.

Citygirl1

Hi, I am about to start my spring clean any time this month and just would like some ideas on storing the following things:

Books - I have a shelf full of books, also have a Kindle, have some 'coffee table' type books under the coffee table that can be flicked through.

CDs - a couple of shelves of CDs, most of which are on the computer/phone.

DVDs - a few DVDs which aren't stored electronically.

Photos - new photos are now on the computer but I have old ones (pre-digital) stored in envelopes in a drawer, all in order.

Journals - I have a few journals going back about ten years which are currently stored in a tin that does lock but I lost the key to it when I lost my purse recently as the key was in there. Should I toss the old journals or hang onto them? I do still journal but don't write as often as I used to do. The old ones I don't often read but like them there just incase. I did once throw out a lot of journals and regretted it. I am also considering journalling on the computer but am not quite sure if it will be the same as writing in a book.

Old diaries - I like to hang onto old appointment diaries just for something to look back on and they don't take up much room as they are mainly slimline diaries or past Filofax inserts.

Any ideas would be welcome. I live in a one bedroomed flat by the way so don't have an awful lot of storage room.

learning_to_save

If you have access to a scanner you could scan the old diary inserts to your pc to save having to store those. same with the old journals. It might take a bit of time but will give you the space.

You could then each year write your journal as usual if that is how you prefer to do it and scan it afterwards.

If you don't have a scanner do you know any one who you could borrow one off?

HTH

Citygirl1

Hi, thanks for your reply. I do have a printer/scanner/copier in one and the thought of scanning my journals has crossed my mind as they are mainly hard backed books and could take up more room if they were to grow. However, the time it would take to the scan them does put me off as there are a lot of pages to go through. Plus I think that each page would scan into a different document as this seems to happen when I scan other documents. It is a good idea though, if I could be sure that the documents scanned wouldn't crash or anything.

Citygirl1

Just bumping this back up - any more ideas?

Sheahaven

The scanning journals idea also works well with photos too.
Usual photo developing shops do it, but much cheaper if your scanner can also scan really good copies of your pics too.

Oh and alongside putting stuff on the PC, try looking into investing in a good external Hard Drive - useful for back up (in case the unexpected happens) and frees up loads of space on your PC's hard drive - too much on the PC makes it lag BIG TIME!

esmf73

Hi City girl - I'm in the middle of a clear out / storage crisis!!! But I have a husband and two children and last summer when my MIL died we took in half her house! I got some clear plastic boxes from £ - Stretcher with lids and then I went through everything in each room - top to bottom and labelled the boxes. I did this in December / January.

Now I've found out that the school are having a car boot sale to raise money - so I've been going through everything again, asking if I really need / want it - and checking over the childrens clothes to make sure they're wearing ones that fit!! I'm surprised at how much I've found already - and what I've found that I didn't know I had put away!

Would second scanning in your journals - if you think you really want to keep them - perhaps scan in a month every friday night or something with a glass of wine. I went out yesterday and bought a photo album for the pics that aren't on my computer - and I'm going to put all my photos on the computer on one disc and find that electronic picture frame from a few christmasses ago. At least the pics will be seen then! As for books - only keep those you think you'll read again - and be honest. I say this because I do this and then realised that I wouldn't read the books again so passed them on - charity shops will always take them. I find the momentum difficult to maintain sometimes! Good luck