Hoarding - Springing Ahead

whitewing

Saver-upper, you have done brilliantly! Enjoy your meal!

ginnyknit

My freecycled yarn was pickewd up Friday promptly by a lovely lady and that has made a big dint in the bedroom of doom. Have 2 more things on fleabay and if they dont go this time they are being donated to a charity. 1 things already sold, only small but few quid and a little more moved. It seems to keep me going when something sells - bit obvious really

Kitchen window ledge de-cluttered and showing off my pretty things nicely now. Have got a new ironing board so am going to do the few bits and get them put away which will make a difference too. Things hanging around waiting to be actioned really bug me so my new promise to myself is to move it or lose it

Well done everyone on the work so far, we do keep each other ticking over dont we?

Florenceem

Mr F aka Womble walked the dog today and came home with - 2 large pieces of hessian. They were probably sacks that were taken apart/opened up.
Mr F said - did I want them? If not he would see if the local charity shops wanted to put them in their rag bags to raise money.
I have ideas - watch this space.

Ames

Reading this thread makes me so pleased that I've not had any mammalian infestations - although I suppose it's possible that I have but not noticed. I do occasionally see very strange insects though.

I've had a couple of breakthroughs today.

Firstly, the clothes rail was starting to break despite the layers of duck tape. When I bought it I got two (they were on offer) with the intention of putting the other one up, erm, somewhere, once I'd made space. So I decided to replace the broken one with the still in it's packet one.

I realised halfway through putting the new one together that I was assuming I'd keep the old one to put up, erm, somewhere once I'd made space and found a way of fixing it.

It's now in pieces in the bin.

Related to that, I've been pondering my clothes storage. I realised last night that I haven't opened the drawers in my bedroom for years (other than pulling them out an inch and stuffing something else into them, but I don't think that counts). The lower ones can't even be opened properly because the bed's in the way.

So I decided to get some kind of cupboard/shelf/storage type thing instead. My plan was to drag the drawers and the old CRT TV that are along one wall outside and arrange collection, then buy drawers. I started looking on ebay for the type of thing I wanted, figuring that if I found something ending next weekend I'd have a deadline to get the old stuff moved.

Then I realised I have a shelf unit that'll do the job just fine. It currently has a load of carp that needs getting rid of or putting away properly on it. It's not ideal, but buying furniture when I'll be moving some time soon just doesn't make sense. And where it is now means squeezing past it to get into the wetroom. Double bonus for moving it! So, that's my plan for this week.

Speaking of the wet room, after two years I finally have the means of being clean. The council finally sent workmen, who found the problem, and fixed it. As I said, it's taken two years, about half a dozen visits, new parts, three types of workmen... and it was the fault that the first two plumbers had discounted straight away.

I've currently got four purple bags of stuff to take to the CS, and a full wheely bin. I've got a couple of easy shelves/drawers to sort through which'll give a few more purple bags.

While I was clearing the sofa of doom I came across a notebook that was a bit manky. I had a flick through and found a short story I wrote a few years ago and thought was lost forever. I'd typed it up and put it in a box with a load of other creative writing stuff in the outside cubbyhole that's built into the side of the flat, and it got nicked. Yes, really, a box of rubbish short stories I'd written. Anything I put in there gets nicked, which is annoying because I could do with the storage for things like my tent, which currently lives in my car...

Hopefully I'll find more treasures I thought were gone for good.

Today's the third anniversary of mum's death so I don't know if/what I'll get done. I have my book club in the evening, but during the day I think I'll either be curled up pretending it's not happening and sleeping through, or I'll go out and have a coffee and try and do something productive. If it's the latter I'll drop stuff off at the CS, if the former then there's always Tuesday.

I have come across a few hoarding dilemmas related to it though - mainly clothes that I bought while she was ill (she had cancer, six months between diagnosis and the end) which she said she liked, etc. They're starting to get a bit tatty now, but I'm not sure about letting them go. I think I'll just wait a few months until it's not near an anniversary and so I can be more rational.

Ooh, I nearly forgot - I finally got batteries and put one in the clock that's been stopped for several years. And replaced a lightbulb that's been dead for months. The ticking of the clock's annoying me a bit though now...

Ames

GQ, I think your story about the table cloth is one for us all to bear in mind - how much of the stuff we're dehoarding would we actually miss? If someone took it away without us knowing, how long would it be before we noticed? I think it just sums up the dehoarding journey.

I'm really impressed at the people doing hours of dehoarding in one go! I set myself ten minute targets and even that's a struggle sometimes. Once I get going I'm ok, but it's getting that first little step done.

lorsy

Feel inspired by you all....can we have before and after photos?? love visual, makes me more determined to do better..x

softpad

Hi all

Thank you all for the inspiring posts. Well, I spent most of the weekend cleaning and dehoarding, and was able to come down this morning to a kitchen with clean sinks and clean pots, and actually space on the worktops! My problem is that I have so many kitchen gadgets and stuff that it clutters up the kitchen and just looks awful even if things are clean. I have put loads of it in the car boot pile so I am really pleased with myself. I don't really need lots of each item, there are only two of us for goodness' sake!

It was brilliant to make a cup of tea and breakfast and its all clean and somewhere to work. I was able to bake last night as I had room and cleaned the pots straight away so nothing to come down to today. I have made a huge heap of salad in the fridge and fruit salads, ready to pick at so hopefully will be decluttering some weight too!

Good luck everyone

softpad

Oooh, and I am so excited, its not dehoarding but I had to tell you all! I have dehoarded over 40 bags full of stuff now that I can see the floor!! I rewarded myself this weekend with choosing and buying the bits for, a huge cross stitch project which is very complicated and I am very excited indeed about doing. When I got the pattern I found it was 52 pages long!! Wow! Has anyone done such a big stitching project? There are 50 colours and the final image is 33 x 25 inches!! Gosh a bit huger than I thought!!

caitybabes

Wow, softpad that sounds like an epic task but isn't it great that the more dehoarding we do, the more we can start reclaiming time in our lives to do our own hobbies I am in the process of upholstering a previously ugly ottoman and it is going to look beautiful! But when the house was full I would have felt guilty doing something like this because I would have felt I should have been tidying/decluttering.

I know what you mean about the gadgets in the kitchen. I had a food processor, Kenwood mixer and bread maker on one worktop because I used them all fairly often. However, I find it hard to keep the worktop clean because wiping it down is more faffy when it's covered in stuff. So, I have cleared some space in the cupboard below (got rid of some old Pyrex which I didn't need anymore and rehomed some less used items to less accessible places) so the food processor and bread maker now live in the cupboard below the worktop. I don't mind moving them regularly because they're both light but the Kenwood can stay out because it's really heavy. The surface is now a delight to use and keep clean hoorah!

terrierlady

Sunday after reading this decided to clean out unused bedroom.......checked old linen etc found in the wardrobe a mouse had been active ,last checked at xmas when we had visitors,old newspaper chewed up. cleared it all ,what was i keeping size 10 clothes for???? Took to dump lots of old items that dont work from the garage,big pile to take to charity shop.Thanks for all you people who have inspired me to carry on de cluttering.Sonic mouse machine plugged in.;)