Hoarding - A New Start

blossomhill_2

I went to a jumble today

First thing this am I went online and looked stuff up for a birthday list, eBy and Amzon; felt for felting (£1ish a small sheet), Fiskars rotary cutter (13ish) (decided against the mat as expensive), FQ of Japanese cat fabric (£4-£6), vintage fabric - didn't send it on to family as phone needed charging

Anyway, back to the jumble; 30p admission; bought 2m of new grey felt £1, Fiskars cutter AND mat £1, Japanese cat fabric 10p - no vintage fabric

How weird was that? - guess I am aspiring to take on someone else's aspirational hobbies - didn't buy their new crochet magazines with wool on cover, cross stitch sets, or shabby chic shelf sets as not on my list!
Also bought small clear storage crate 20p - oh and a small cigar box 10p

On another subject, I left the mantelpiece bare after Christmas, just to get used to having some clear surfaces - friend came out of the blue today with a bunch of roses, it was lovely to put them in a vase and onto the mantelpiece without having to look round wondering where I could squeeze them in

I am feeling a bit shaky about the idea of binning the baby bracelets but I have DD in person as proof so will think about it

nightsong

Have definitely come up against some resistance reading these last few posts! I couldn't get rid of my babies' bracelets - well not yet, anyway.

Another thing that makes me hyperventilate slightly is mention people have made about throwing away perfume boxes. One of my hobbies/collections/obsessions has been fragrances.

I expect a lot of people already know this, but it's light that makes perfume go off. So if you keep your frags in their boxes they last much, much longer. Also, the boxes really don't take up any extra room as they are generally about the same size as the bottles.

Of course the perfume bottles look pretty displayed on a dressing table or such, and if they are cheapish and will get used up fast, there's not a problem. But high-end stuff can keep for decades if it's kept cool and dark.

One of my real regrets is chucking out some of my perfumes from the '80s - Opium, Rive Gauche, Arpege, Safari, stuff like that. I thought (completely wrongly) that as they were 10+ years old they must have gone off. Now I have some vintage bottles from the 60s and 70s which still smell absolutely great. Even if the "top notes" have gone (they are the most volatile part of the liquid) the rest of it can easily be fine and it will smell wonderful after about ten minutes' wear.

Sorry, don't mean to derail anyone's drive to get rid of stuff!

Patchwork_Quilt

cyclingyorkie wrote: »

Oh true! But I am trying to make space in our home where we are so cluttered we can barely breathe!

He finished 3 years of post grad work but hated it - he never wrote up his PhD and we moved to York when he finished - a job with no link to his degree. We movd here in 1988 - he hasn't looked at them since. His degree and 6th form notes were skipped 10 years ago - they'd gone damp in the loft.

It's not as though he hasn't bought a book since! Vast tomes on Physics and space now fill our shelves....

I belong to a book group - I operate on a 1 in and 1 out policy!

There are 5 of us in a 3 bedroomed semi which DH refuses to extend! He has thousands of CDs too. He moans about the clutter but feels he isn't responsible because his stuff is shelved or boxed. But the amount of his stuff is the reason why the rest of us have stuff that isn't homed.....

Not meaning to intrude but I have found that blokes like electronic gizmos. DH has put all his cds on his iph0ne over time and thus they could be stored somewhere like the loft (they're not, but he's only got one cupboard). Lots of people on this thread have also scanned important documents and got rid of the originals. Scanning took so much time, in some cases, that they realised it wasn't worth it.

I just wish someone would give me an idea for getting rid of the Quickstep laminate pile behind the sofa. The garage is too damp, the loft is super-insulated so there's only room for a few boxes etc etc. But it's been there, collecting dust, for four years. Then the travelling guitar went on top, then the box for the new piece of hi-fi or whatever it is he just bought.

Sigh. Good luck yorkie.

Slinky

I've got some perfume I use occasionally which lives in its box in a cupboard, I know I bought it when I lived somewhere else, and that was 19 years ago!

lostinrates

nightsong wrote: »

Have definitely come up against some resistance reading these last few posts! I couldn't get rid of my babies' bracelets - well not yet, anyway.

Another thing that makes me hyperventilate slightly is mention people have made about throwing away perfume boxes. One of my hobbies/collections/obsessions has been fragrances.

I expect a lot of people already know this, but it's light that makes perfume go off. So if you keep your frags in their boxes they last much, much longer. Also, the boxes really don't take up any extra room as they are generally about the same size as the bottles.

Of course the perfume bottles look pretty displayed on a dressing table or such, and if they are cheapish and will get used up fast, there's not a problem. But high-end stuff can keep for decades if it's kept cool and dark.

One of my real regrets is chucking out some of my perfumes from the '80s - Opium, Rive Gauche, Arpege, Safari, stuff like that. I thought (completely wrongly) that as they were 10+ years old they must have gone off. Now I have some vintage bottles from the 60s and 70s which still smell absolutely great. Even if the "top notes" have gone (they are the most volatile part of the liquid) the rest of it can easily be fine and it will smell wonderful after about ten minutes' wear.

Sorry, don't mean to derail anyone's drive to get rid of stuff!

Comparitively little of the uk perfume market is high end perfume. My sil has boxes and boxes of hoarded unopened perfume, I won't buy her any more because she wears none of it. When my perfume was discontinued I bought the last two bottles I could find and kept them boxed whiole I used them up. Now I have two new bottles of perfume (neither is the new 'one for me' sadly) and I spritz with one or t'other each day. No faff ing arou d with boxes becuase I don't expect the. To last long enough.

whitewing

I am definitely not binning baby bracelets. They are scrapbooked in with the photos.

I texted DH before he came home from work today with a warning, I mean request, that we would do some decluttering when he was back. Having tidied the house earlier, I was pondering on a coffee about what to do when, and I had another revelation. We want to get new chairs for the table as the foam on the old (preloved) ones was shedding. And I got DH to take them to the recycling centre as soon as he got home. They were sort of functional but not that great, and now they are gone. I don't feel in any rush to get new ones.

And, I found a 9th Square in the house. So I have a small amount of interim stuff in the 9th Square, waiting for me to sort through the cupboard that will be its new home. The filing cabinet is empty and awaiting pick up. The empty corner is cleaned.

DH is working a lot next week. I am keeping quiet but planning a bit of a change around while he is out. I like surprising him (and don't have a hidden stash of new underwear to delight him with, lol) so that will motivate me to crack on with it, and then he will be pleased and do the tasks I need him for. I am thinking that the little battered table can go too, when I am more organised.

I haven't got any spare cash at the moment to do some of the stuff I want to change, but I am thrilled that the new way of thinking is still allowing big, positive changes.

DH always say if we win the lottery we will relocate and have new-to-us furniture, and a lot of the contents. I never understood why he thought that way but now I do.

I may even throw away my course notes from last year. I have the certificate. I could keep one textbook. I didn't actually need to do the course but I still feel a bit like a mysterious somebody may turn up at my front door out of the blue and demand I prove that I did it. In the past I would have kept it until I'd passed the next level up. And even then, I may have kept it anyway.

whitewing

Quick step laminate. When your's birthday/anniversary/ special occasion/mother's day?? That would be my deadline, and if it took a few tears and sad looks so be it. This approach only works once in 5 years!

The other thing you could do is get it to send your DH a letter in the post, lol. Hi, remember me? Bit of hoarded perfume on the envelope so it's exciting until he realises! He would need a sense of humour. You would need patience because it can make 'em sulk.

blossomhill_2

Anyone remember tallboys? one of my earliest memories is opening my parents' tallboy door (can still feel it click) and reaching into the cavity (bit like a doorframe) and finding Mum's empty mini perfume bottles and smelling them one by one, replacing their gold lids and putting back. It was a real treat, she kept them there for the residual perfume to make the hankies smell nice

I decided today ... that I have to sleep with the wardrobe(s) doors open tonight ... it is just too easy to avoid decluttering the neatly hung clothes behind the sleek doors so I intend to wake up tomorrow and see them with fresh eyes ... I expect to see some feline eyes in there too!

I did something similar with the box room - too easy to shut the door on it and too crammed to really open the door ... so I took the door off so I had to confront it every time I passed by - have to shake it up a bit sometimes to get different results! I can now leave the door open and really like the curtains in there and being able to walk to the window to look out

Edit - have contacted school Old Girls' Assoc and they would be happy to have my old school photo - one less to keep!

mcculloch29

I also think there's a link between hoarding and weight gain. I'm sure a lot of it is down to not wishing to see waste - as a Mum I would often finish off food that my (now adult) children left. As they got older they didn't leave much, thankfully.

I threw out a lot of cooked food when childminding, as not all the children would leave a clean plate. Boy, it was galling...

I still hate throwing food out, but I have got a lot better at not buying food that I'm not sure how I'll use. Which is a big anti-hoarding step. I do still have some jars and tins from a year or two ago, will have to get inventive in how these are used...

decogecko

BH I did a similar thing today. I removed a vase and 3 ornaments from the window sills in my kitchen to see what difference it would make. Well despite them not being big ornaments or a large vase, the little bit of extra light it let into the kitchen was amazing. I also prefer the empty window sills! All the items are off to the cs.

Did another cs drop prior to that. I am beginning to get to the stage where the items I'm coming across are getting harder to make a decision on. Although I have yet to regret getting rid of something and I'm definitely not missing my 'stuff', I worry that it will happen.

I keep reminding myself that I feel so much freer and hoping that it brings in the new things that I would like (in particular a new job).

Thanks again for all your inspiring & motivating posts. I need a kick up the a$$ as I need to do the ironing but am seriously procrastinating

Deco x