Hoarding - Springing Ahead

Gingernutty

I've done loads of decluttering, but there comes a point when the stuff lying around are the projects that......actually need *gulp* work done on them!!

Cross stitch poppy anyone?

The stuff lying around needs hemming, trimming, stitching, framing, sanding, painting, varnishing, scraping and all manner of other things doing to them.

Having disinterred them from under the clutter, I s'pose I have to stop procrastinating and get on and do stuff.

Wow. Actual work. I wonder what that's like?

calicocat

GENTLEORANGE........i'm flagging too with it all at times, we just have to keep soldiering on and eventually we will get there.....there is light at the end of the tunnel somewhere.

When I flag with it even if I sit down or get distracted doing or reading something else I randomly get up and put either 1 thing away or in the bin. It might be only one thing but it's one thing less lying around.....it kinda keeps the momentum going even if only in a small way. if I was to stop altogether at times I know I would just give up.


On that note I may go and hunt out another book box when i've had a sit down and a coffee.


Keep going people, even if in tiny ways.

GreyQueen

Gingernutty wrote: »

I've done loads of decluttering, but there comes a point when the stuff lying around are the projects that......actually need *gulp* work done on them!!

Cross stitch poppy anyone?

The stuff lying around needs hemming, trimming, stitching, framing, sanding, painting, varnishing, scraping and all manner of other things doing to them.

Having disinterred them from under the clutter, I s'pose I have to stop procrastinating and get on and do stuff.

Wow. Actual work. I wonder what that's like?

Are you my evil twin?!

Right now my sitting room harbours the following;

A corner shelf unit still in its packaging to be sanded slightly and stained before going up on the wall.

A candlemaking project, elements of spread around. Do I want to melt candlewax in 29c heat? The hell I do......

Random bits of kipple (TM Philip K !!!!!! - kipple is random small clutter which ususally multiplies on all surfaces when your back is turned and will one day consume the planet).

A tensioning block and cord from Mum mending my chair which I could have given back to her on Sunday if I had my wits about me and will now have to wait until mid-month.

A shirt which needs mending before it can be worn again hanging on a hanger from the door handle and

various other bits of random carp inc a tiara (don't even go there ).

How about a little comp for the oddest thing in your sitting room? I advance you one silver plastic tiara, what's your bid?

On the plus side I excavated my computer desk and raked off the dust and shedded some of the paper kipple. I can also see more of the table proper. Have had at the shelves on the wall unit and realised that I have several part-used A4 notebooks, which will be perfect for a purpose I almost bought a new one for. Money saved, go me.

gentleorange, I speak as a booklover, offspring of booklovers and sibling of an online bookseller. I speak kindly, not as a philistine, but could you think of letting some of your books go?

The reason I ask is that stressing about organising a large quantity of books, when a booklover will always be acquiring more, makes me wonder if there might not be a simpler way?

I read a lot online and about 160-200 dead-tree books per annum, plus papers and magazines if people give them to me. There's no way my teeny-tiny home could accomodate them all and I don't even try. I have one shelf of keepers and a couple of cubbies in the wall unit of books which are passing through. This is a mix of library books and secondhand books I've bought and will be re-donating when I've finished with them.

Could you try the heresy of thinking about letting some books go out into the world to be enjoyed by others, for either personal profit or charitable donation?

I don't know what kind(s) of books you favour, but is every single book so special that you would want to revist it again and again? Are all those novels so worthy that you'd want to snuggle down with them again?

Do you have cookbooks kept for just one recipe? Hobbybooks for crafts you may just do one day? Literary novels which you will get around to? Books which contain obsolete, incorrect or just plain irrelvant information?

The library can be your friend. The secondhand booktrade is over 2,000 years old; if you parted from something and really regretted it, chances are you could lay hands on it again for a couple of quid and a small amount of effort.

lobbyludd

I've had periods of going great guns and times of realllly baby steps since joining this thread.the house is over-all better though than when I started, so it all counts.

had a potential backwards step today, went to sort out handing back the storage unit that I had hired for ex to take his stuff. Opened it and it's half full still including a dismantled dining room table and 6 chairs and most of a single bed. Crammed it into 2 car loads, the YMA have 5 bin bags full of clothes and shoes that should be really useful and the table and chairs have gone to heart charity (missed their opening times by 2 mins but thankfully they stayed late to take it from me) the second car load is in the car ready to go to the recycling centre tomorrow (was closed by the time I got there after the second trip) none of it is coming back into my house apart from the fan to keep dd's room cool in this heat.

so that's a result

flowers as a treat sounds a lovely idea

Florenceem

We had an electrician working here this week. Today Mr F asked me if I wanted to keep a length of wire he had left here.

Knit_Witch

grrrrr to your ex lobbyludd, but well done on just getting rid of the stuff!

Knit_Witch

Florenceem wrote: »

We had an electrician working here this week. Today Mr F asked me if I wanted to keep a length of wire he had left here.

Erm - why?!

MrsAtobe

Florenceem wrote: »

We had an electrician working here this week. Today Mr F asked me if I wanted to keep a length of wire he had left here.

Is it a length of earth wire? If not, bin it. . I had to buy some to keep the boiler in my last house up to current standards, rather than pay a leccy, I did it myself. The boiler passed its next inspection

Florenceem

Knit_Witch wrote: »

Erm - why?!

It was about 18 inches long - I said - bin it.

GreyQueen

Florenceem wrote: »

We had an electrician working here this week. Today Mr F asked me if I wanted to keep a length of wire he had left here.

Reminds me of last year when I had a council plumber do a repair job and he left a small off-cut of copper pipe.

Didn't find it until after he'd gone and didn't like to bin it so kept it in the bathroom until the next plumber came by and offered it to him. He took it; said they turn the scraps in at the yard when they go back. So it'll have a chance to be re-smelted (was only about 2 " long) and not fester in landfill.

Last night, after I went offline, I was thinking about The Fruit Platter (TFP). It's a plain glass pedestal bowl. I really like the versatilty of plain glass and this thing can be used to hold fruit, could be a cake platter, hold small cakes on a tea-table etc etc.

Trouble is, that isn't quite how it's working out for me. I get my fruit in quantities far above what TFP will hold, so even if some of it is arrayed fetchingly on it, there is the need to have the rest somewhere else. I don't often have cake and tea parties are limited. TFP can't sit in a cupboard when not is use, because the cupboards wide enough to take it are used for other things - very small home, as mentioned before.

Sooo, TFP is sitting on top of a small piece of furniture in my sitting-room, fruitless, attracting dust and stray kipple, while the actual fruit is sitting in an oblong wicker basket on the floor and getting in my way.

Madness. I like TFP but have decided that liking it isn't a valid excuse. I will donate it and put the fruit basket where it currently stands. The basket is bigger, will fill the top of the cabinet, and thus stop other kipple roosting on there. I've been moving this blasted thing around the flat for years trying to find a way of using it and keeping it but have finally come to the conclusion that it's an object for my fantasy lifestyle, not my real one.

Have just about filled a donation bag so will aime to get that down the road this weekend.