Hoarding - Springing Ahead

Florenceem

I have now upcycled the jeans Mr F wombled home. The scraps from jeans that I couldn't use have gone in rag bag for charity shop.
I do have a large craft stash - not prepared to get rid of it as I do craft a lot.

Money_maker

Wow, Florenceem, thats brilliant. Do you follow a pattern or make it up as you go along? I have an old pair of spotty jeans I've put in my rag bag to get creative with - someday.

Put some old magazines on freegle earlier and feel so relieved - it really is like a weight being raised off my back. House is as bad as its ever been at this point but I need to have it presentable so my little one can have some friends round. There has also been a lot of rustling in the kitchen recently despite me owning a cat. I think my plan to leave the shed door open so the local moggies can evict the little tenants has backfired badly...

MessyMare

Three bags for the chazzer into the car, two manky pillows for the tip, a letter written and in the post, and something pulled out of the freezer for tonight's game of freezer roulette!

I'm watching Hoarders to give myself another nudge, my lovely tidy study is cluttering up again, it just creeps in so fast

Florenceem

Money_maker wrote: »

Wow, Florenceem, thats brilliant. Do you follow a pattern or make it up as you go along? I have an old pair of spotty jeans I've put in my rag bag to get creative with - someday.

Put some old magazines on freegle earlier and feel so relieved - it really is like a weight being raised off my back. House is as bad as its ever been at this point but I need to have it presentable so my little one can have some friends round. There has also been a lot of rustling in the kitchen recently despite me owning a cat. I think my plan to leave the shed door open so the local moggies can evict the little tenants has backfired badly...

I found a blog that showed making a bag so used that and worked out sizes myself where necessary. It is all squares and rectangles.

whitewing

I went to get my high heeled shoes to give to charity...and I can't find them. Which may well mean that I have donated them previously (I know I have talked about them on the thread before). I'm not upset they are gone, just bemused that I could still think that I have them.

It is nearly two years since the original thread was started. It is amazing to me that it still takes so much focus to keep stuff out of the house.

GreyQueen

Wow, that's an odd one with the shoes. Makes me wonder if I've done anything similar. Although I honestly struggle to recall most of the things which I have donated over the months and years.

Before work today, I emptied out the 'proper' bookshelf, the one behind the glazed doors on the wall unit, damp-dusted the shelf and started sorting through. I finished it after work.

Although I was thinking of the contents of this one shelf as being my keepers, rather than the read-and-go books, I found several things in there which I decided I didn't need and which I have added to the donation bag. I've also now got gaps on it.

Gaps. On my bookshelf (I have 58 inches of bookshelf and a 200-book a year reading habit). It feels strange and a little uncomfortable to me.

I also finished another of the to-reads and enjoyed it and straight into the donation bag she went. Will choose another from the shelf tomorrow, will have to decide to go for a thin novel or a fat blockbuster, or a hard-to-digest non-fiction which will be a slower read. Fatness of book versus numbers of books out, an interesting conundrum.

ginny, I know the strange thrill of a bin emptied and the lightness of seeing a freecycler cart of a bag of misc which you no longer want. I've spread happiness by giving away stuff I didn't want and getting what I did want (space) in it's place. Definition of a win-win.:)

Does anyone else feel the pure joy of 'unshopping' - y'know, when you go out with heavy donation bags and come back home empty-handed? I love it. The ease in your shoulders as you stand that little bit taller and feel brighter and stronger because you're not trudging around the streets with bags of stuff which you haven't anywhere to keep.

I'm continuing to eat the freezer contents. There's good stuff in there, like homegrown veggies and some YS meats and a bit of a naughty tub of icecream atm, which I'm eating with my h.g. blackcurrants from last summer on the lottie. All good stuff and already bought and paid-for, which is an advantage.

Keep chiselling away at it. Even the kitchen is looking better as I keep to the habits of doing the washing up before bedtime so there's nothing festering and soaking in the bowl.

softpad

Still plugging on. I found a new kind of poison and I have not heard rustling or chewing these last three days or nights so starting to feel relieved. Tried lots of different ones before finding an effective one, but cheaper than pest control and I have some spare now. I will keep bait stations down under the floors just in case and check them regularly, also snap traps. Huge, huge, relief.

I am really starting to see a bit of space. Got a lot of stuff heaped around and am doing a car boot in a week or so, can't wait to do it as it will make a big difference when that stuff's gone. Then, I can sort through and get some more car boot stuff together. I would just CS it all but I really need the money as I have a whopping utility bill that I am a bit worried about. (read very worried)

Well done all you really have been making progress. This really is de hoarders anonymous. I cleaned and bleached my sink and all around the kitchen yesterday, got half of the kitchen cleaned. I really felt much better when it was done, relieved. I collect kitchen stuff and have been very brutal with myself. I had two stick blenders and got rid of one of them as I really don't need two do I? I have so many pans and everything else, I have given some bits away as for goodness' sake, there are only two of us and I'm not running a delicatessen! I have so many cooking books and cooking stuff I don't know what happened? I spend so much time in the kitchen cooking and faffing. I don't even really like it and would rather be doing other things so I am making a concerted effort to cut way down.

Good luck everybody and keep on trucking x

GreyQueen

Morning all.

On a late today so I took the opportunity to watch last night's episode of The Hoarder Next Door on 4OD. OMG, the situations which develop in some people's homes are heart-breaking. And I followed the usual habit of using the watching time to do something (unpick a damaged zip which broke last weekend when I was wearing the trousers) and will take it to the haberdashery after work to buy a replacement, then aim to fix them. I need those trousers back in action, ideally for the weekend.

I also used the ad breaks to return some stray stuff to places where is belongs and picked out a couple of things from those places which will be leaving in the donations bag. I've kept them for the past 15 years as 'they'll come in handy' and they haven't come in yet, so might as well release them to be handy in someone else's life.

I've also come to a decision about an item in the airing cupboard. A large and good quality white damask tablecloth which I bought, probably close to twenty years ago because it was a) large b) excellent quality c) only £2 at the bootsale.

It's virtues are undiminished although it's now lurking in the 3rd home since I purchased it and it's still unused. I've been swithering about it for a while as if I was to have a proper-sized home, I could have a table and chairs and then I might want to enterain formally and then a white double-damask cloth would be just the thing...........unless I had a round table, in which case this rectangular cloth wouldn't work, lol.

To many ifs and buts and maybes in there to justify keeping it any longer than I have already, I've decided. Release it from captivity and let it be reunited with a table somewhere. And I'll have a few more inches' worth of space in the airing cupboard.

Wibble wibble, why is the thought so much worse than the deed?

whitewing

I got all dry washing put away, bedsheets on the line and another load in before I left. DS has to put it on the line and unpack the dishwasher before he goes out today. This puts us ahead for the weekend.

I had an old box from a book box set on the bookcase. The books that belonged to it are either passed on or are elsewhere. I was just about to put it into recycling when I decided it would be a perfect container for my next batch of gifted cakes at Easter. So that is in the presents cupboard and will be gone by the end of the month. I would not have kept it later than that.

All surfaces bar the dining room table are clear.

1 top and mug is in the charity shop bag in the car.

Catriona_P

I've sorted out DD's baby clothes for tomorrow's NCT sale - husband was astounded to see I'd successfully tagged 120 items (more than that really as some tags have 3-4 items to them) with very little effort. We have far more than that in the house that could go to the sale. It's only when you tally it up that you see exactly how much you have!

It won't all sell but if half of it does I'll be pleased - more space and money so a win win. I will be buying more for her in bigger sizes but I've set a tight budget for it as she doesn't need much.

The 40 bags in 40 days challenge is heading into the final days and I'm a bit behind this year - intend to catch up this weekend as the weather is supposed to be rubbish.