Hoarding...not just on TV

KAT44_2

valk_scot wrote: »

Tell you something though, now that I've got going I'm already feeling better about the mess. It's loosened up a bit, became more fluid as were. Just getting rid of 6-8 boxes of stuff out the attic has given me elbow room to start reorganising the next bit, it's not like one of these nine square puzzles that you have to move seven squares to get to the eigth one, the one you actually need. Except I didn't have that nineth empty square to move around in. Now I do.

Omg I love this analogy, next time I'm feeling overwhelmed I'm just going to concentrate on clearing my nineth square. In fact I'm so inspired I'm off to de-richard a square right now, I shall report back later

valk_scot

I have bitten the bullet re the Playmobil collection. As I've mentioned I have a great deal of this stuff as the kids used to have lots as well as me collecting it. Now it's just sitting up in the attic unwanted but I've been reluctant to sort it out because it has some difficult memories attached to it, because of my late son.

However there's definately different categories of this stuff. There's the kids' Playmobil, my Playmobil and then there's the boxes of things to trade which most collectors have. These are items that are doubles or were bought at a good price in order to resell to finance future collecting or which arrived as part of a job lot etc. Like all keen collectors I kept these seperate from my main collection and yesterday when I was in the attic doing something else I came across a box of these. So I've tentatively listed four small items from it on Ebay, just to get my hand back in with selling again. I'm reasoning that I don't have any particular emotional attachment to these pieces, they were never going to be kept anyway so why not move them on?

And also that collection is worth money. I'd like to be able to buy a second hand camper van next summer. Now I'm not saying I've got enough Playmobil to finance a camper van but there's enough there to make a good start on it and I'm thinking that if I've got something to aim for and once I get the ball rolling I might just be able to keep up the momentum. And the run up to Christmas is a good time to sell toys.

Wish me luck....

whitewing

I do wish you luck val.

Have been enjoying the posts from you and everybody.

Am pleased with the declutteredness so far. It's so much quicker to get things tidy. Note, I said get rather than keep because it still goes awry at times, but then a joint effort to do some housework makes it a lot better within the space of an hour.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Well done on all the stuff leaving your homes!



The first coat of paint looks good - it was too physically demanding to do a second coat in the same afternoon. I'm less impressed about the washing machine and tumble drier sitting in the middle of the kitchen. But it's only one coat to go and then they can go straight back where they belong by tomorrow evening.


I had to go out and get a second tin of paint, as the weather and the chalk finish meant that it dried almost the instant it hit the wall - and whilst pootling round B&Q, I spotted a retro style lamp I really liked that was reduced to a fiver. The lamp that has sat by the front door has never done anything for me, so, for the sake of £5, I shall be putting the original lamp out, along with another one in a similar style tomorrow (thus keeping the More Out Than In Rule going).



As I'm going through this decorating lark, the image I'm forming in my head of how I want my home to look is clearing. The difficulty I am encountering is that, where I see something that doesn't work with the image in my head, I remember the effort, money or energy I put into acquiring that item. And I do feel wasteful/guilty that I don't want it or chose the wrong thing in the first place, whether it was an emergency purchase or just because money was tight and it was a bargain :cool:


But, after considering whether something will go well somewhere else, if there isn't a suitable place, I am taking a slow breath and letting things go. Like the lamps - there's nothing wrong with them per se, I just don't like them. So it doesn't matter if I spent twenty, thirty or a hundred pounds on them, they can't make me smile on their own merits when I look at them. Whereas the one I bought, I was considering buying at full price - to find it for a fiver was quite a result.



Freedom is a great feeling - freedom of air movement, freedom to move about, freedom for light to come flooding in, freedom to move things, to throw them away or to pass them on. Freedom to breathe. That's the best feeling of all.

thriftwizard

Freedom is a great feeling - freedom of air movement, freedom to move about, freedom for light to come flooding in, freedom to move things, to throw them away or to pass them on. Freedom to breathe. That's the best feeling of all.

Thank you for that thought! I had the freedom today to investigate a bag of potential stock for my stall that came in whilst I was working on DS3's room. I'd stuffed it into the porch, which if you remember was decluttered first, so there was a little room to store them in there. I knew it was curtains; a big heavy bag of pleasant-looking cabbage-rose fabric in cream & terracotta. I sell vintage curtains on the stall, not for much money, but it all adds up, and these hadn't cost me anything, so worth storing on the offchance that they were still decent enough to sell on.

Imagine my surprise when I found they were one enormous and one fairly-big pair of (I think) never-used Laura Ashley linen/cotton lined curtains, complete with tie-backs & pelmets. They're not a current pattern, but the most similar ones I can find on their website cost £665 for a big pair! They're pristine clean & still feel "crisp" so I suspect they've never even been hung. Best of all, they're in the exact colours that suit my living room best, and the right sizes too, and it's a good pattern for the style of the room... I'd already bought some fabric to make new curtains, but literally last night dreamt I'd made kitchen curtains & blinds with it instead, and jolly nice they looked too.

Imagine if I'd had to pass them by because I didn't have any more room to store them... literally two weeks earlier, I wouldn't have! So I'd just like to thank you all for giving me the impetus to start getting rid of the stuff that was just bunging up my life & my home, which has made space not just for better things to come into my life, but also - just space!

Jettycat

Good luck with the playmobil/ebay valk_scot!

KAT44_2

I'm back, I've been into the attic of doom and decluttered enough cardboard boxes to build a 3 bed semi (ok slight exaggeration, but it was a lot ) and 32 plastic hangers. Attic is a complete tip now though as the boxes where blocked in by [STRIKE]other highly valuable items[/STRIKE] carp I couldn't deal with tonight so I had to just pull it out of the way to get to the boxes. Now I'm twitching because it's a mess, I might hoard lots of useless items but I like them to be organised in their uselessness :rotfl:. It's your fault valk_scot for inspiring me hahaha, well done on starting to deal with the Playmobil by the way and good luck.

Freedom is a great feeling - freedom of air movement, freedom to move about, freedom for light to come flooding in, freedom to move things, to throw them away or to pass them on. Freedom to breathe. That's the best feeling of all.

There is so much inspiration on this thread today. Jojo this is my dream and I think I'm heading in the right direction now thanks to this thread, thank you so much for your origional post that started it all, and for sharing your journey since. It's given me the courage to step away from my Mum's problems, (again novel for another time) realise that some people can't be helped, and made me look at my own instead.

Contessa

. I, too, have a stash of old craft stuff including a candle making kit! It was bought by my now deceased mum and I can't seem to chuck it - I have had it years and years. Someone give me permission, please!

I haven't read this thread for a while so others may have posted similar comments.
You don't need anyone to give you permission to chuck things, even very precious ones, that's just one of a hoarder's excuses. But, I can understand how things which are associated with a deceased loved one are much harder to part with (I was going to say "get rid of" but "part with" sounds nicer and easier to do!) I've got a couple of Christmas tree baubles that are very old and well past their best but I love them as they're a sentimental link to my childhood and aren't messing up my house. But every year when I put them on the tree I can imagine my beloved parents saying (if they were still here) "Why on earth have you still got that old stuff-buy something new!"
I've found this has helped me put things into perspective ( but I'm still keeping the baubles!)

GreyQueen

:T Wow, some great de-richarding happening, I'm cheering from the sidelines and trying to imagine how many square feet of space have been liberated by the Great Duvet Cull of 2012.

Lots, I expect. Well done that woman!

Valk congratulations on the Playmobil and may it go well and may your camper van come ever nearer.

I haven't been doing very much. Tell a lie, have been doing a lot but not stuff classifiable as decluttering. Just work and stuff. Have been away from home two weekends and part of one week in August so that hasn't helped.

Today I shall declutter a tatty storage rack from the corner of my kitchen. No takers on Freecycle so it will reluctantly have to go to the tip. Not having any outside space, I can't stick a Free to a Good Home note on it and bung it in the (non-existant) front garden.

I am doing my annual Autumn Cleaning, bit by bit, and have decluttered some fluff, grime and kipple from under appliances. Amazing how it gets under things.

I've been thinking about the emotional weight we give to things which our loved ones, particularly if they've passed away, themselves owned. About how we can feel as guilty as if we're negating their love by passing on their possessions. I can almost hear Grandma saying That old thing? with amusement and incredulity and something the family have kept but It was Grandma's almost becomes an irrefutable statement of worth.

Hey, she was just an ordinary woman, not the curator of a museum of the national treasures. She had some tat which she liked well enough at the time but I can't imagine for a moment that she thought that her sons and foster-daughter (my Mum) would be hanging onto it 41 years after she passed away.......

That said, I have her pickle pot holding the utensils alongside my cooker and her very well-worn breadboard in my kitchen. They have no monetary worth but I like the look of them and use them constantly so they're not clutter. Can imagine her ruefully shaking her head and calling me a daft beggar, though!

Jettycat

I'm feeling very enthused this morning - I went to look upstairs in my 'office' for some post it notes last night and looked in a draw that I don't normally use. It was full of 'useful things' but I probably haven't used anything out of it for years, so holding on to all your inspiration I chucked out about 3/4s of what was in there - Hooray :j:j:j:j

I also decluttered my inbox - a mammoth task on its own and am down to about 5 emails (I did file a lot of it, but at least I can see what I need to deal with now).

xx