Hoarding - Springing Ahead

thriftwizard

I too have a Duvet Situation... don't know why I've been hanging onto the worn-out nasty cheap ones; they've been washed as much as they can take & they're still a horrible shade of grey, and badly pilled. The best end for them is our local animal sanctuary, where old bedding is always welcome! I still have a few spares, good feather ones; there's no point hoarding the polyester monstrosities any longer. It'll be next week before I can get over there, though.

Have cracked & invested in some more storage for my fabric stash, because the boxes it's been stored in are disintegrating. But the sewing station is now back in situ & up & running, so normal service can be resumed until DS3 comes home for Christmas - it's in his room - and the stash will be sensibly sorted, tidy & easily available for use, which is after all what it's there for. I was really pleased, though; I'd been planning to get some of those wardrobe drawer units from 1KEA to go behind the door; the old ones would have fitted perfectly, though it wouldn't have looked great. Needless to say, though, they've changed the spec & the new ones would have stuck out by about 2" - not good. I briefly considered buying a tower of plastic boxes, which would have looked pretty awful but worked, unless someone wanted something in a box at the bottom, which would have meant dismantling the entire stack. So I thought, hold your horses; see if you can find anything else that'd do.

And lo & behold, in the bargain section, there was a tall thin white Hemnes cupboard, ex-display, reduced to £60 from £160... as the combination I'd originally thought of would have cost me £58, I think the extra £2 was money very well spent, because the cupboard looks so much nicer!

I refuse to consider the stash as a hoard, though I'm sure some would look at it that way. It's very much in use, and would always have been, if we hadn't suddenly had to essentially fit two households into one house, in such a hurry that there was no time to think about how best to achieve this. But the duvets - yes, hoarded...

RadioHorse

Hey, ladies.

LOL at the spare duvet thing. It sounds like it's an epidemic! We only have enough duvets for the beds in the house and no more. I think that's the way to do it, and we gave away the rest or binned them. Teenage boys' duvets can't be kept - my brother's was gross. :eek:

Didn't do much decluttering the last few days, because I was poorly - threw up lots on Tuesday and spent yesterday in bed feeling sorry for myself. Today I felt better though, and mailed the parcel I'd been intending to send on Tuesday. Tomorrow is an ebay day - seven items is my goal! And then I'll pop over to the flylady thread and do some more on there because then we'll keep the house looking like a home, not a warehouse.

thriftwizard

Teenage boys' duvets can't be kept - my brother's was gross.

And that's why I still had some - not to mention manky sleeping bags - left over from the days when hordes of wandering teenagers would "crash" on the assorted DSs's bedroom floors! We're quite close to the centre of our little town & many of them lived out in the sticks & couldn't get home after about 7pm. Now, most of them have been driving for about 6-7 years, and many of them live in Wales or upcountry, and when they do come to stay they bring their wives, so I definitely don't need those any more!

catshark88

Feel quite relieved that I'm not the only duvet collector.....

I don't know quite how many I have as they are all packed away. Sadly they are packed away in such a way that I can't sort the airing cupboard properly, use the blanket boxes etc.

I will keep a spare one for each bed (in case of accident), but I don't need spares for sizes of bed that I no longer have. I also don't need any more spares for the dogs as I have way too much spare dog bedding anyway!!

Duvets are hard to let go though, they are so COSY. DH isn't trying to stop me, but you can see the regret on his face, lol!

pigpen

I have 3 spare duvets.. 2 single for wet or vomitty accidents or for when we have a spare staying and a double for the sofabed. My last 2 doubles went to DS1 and 2 singles went to his too.


duvet COVERS however!! I have 2 for our bed, 2 each for the children.. so 18 they use, and 1 for the sofabed one.. and maybe 30 I don't use!! Hello Kitty, horses, butterflies.. allsorts.. all Next and some still packaged.. a local charity shop got a stack of Next returns so I scooped them up.. to ebeast of course.. that didn't quite go to plan!

GreyQueen

Got the donation bag off to the chazzer. Will be interested in the next report from Hoxfam about the gift aid money raised, I seem to get them every few months with no set pattern that I can discern.

Smiling at the thought of spare duvets, as with such a small flat, those are one thing I cannot hoard at all. There's one duvet here, the one in use on my bed. If someone needs to crash on the sofa, I have a sleeping bag and a few spare blankets to keep them warm, too.

Had a thoughtful moment today with the programme (probably not the correct term) for a relative's funeral earlier this week. You've probably seen the same kind of thing, A4 booklet, his name and photo on the front, the order of events, prayers, words to the hymns.

I noticed that some people left theirs behind when they filed out of the church. We took ours with us, so Mum and Dad have one each, brother has one (they live in the same house) and I had mine in my handbag. And I have now put it out in the recycling.

I'm not sure if that makes me a heartless mare or eminently practicable. I do feel a touch of discomfort about it. I didn't particularly like this in-law when he was alive and don't feel drawn to archive this document now he has passed away. I did show respect for the widow and his children and the wider family by totally re-organising my workweek to attend, and travelling a total of 100 miles to and fro.

Whaddya reckon, am I heartless? I do know that the family home will now house three of these A4 booklets which won't be disposed of, and that they'll keep company with random stuff such as the wedding invitation to a 1960s wedding of a distant relation (which my parents never attended and haven't seen or heard from the happy couple since) but cannot be thrown away BECAUSE.

If I could get to the bottom of what Mum means by 'because' I'm sure we could move on in the dehoarding stakes.

Mind you, she did part with 2 Tupperwares this week. Never thought I'd live to see the day..........:rotfl:

catshark88

I think it is absolutely fine to discard the programme. You went to a lot of effort to show respect for the deceased/ support the living. Your retaining the paperwork affects neither of those. If you wanted it yourself, as a memento, then fine. If not, in the recycling with it.

It is hard, but necessary to separate our feelings for someone, with objects from/ related to them. I've recently gifted a couple of presents from my mother. Most I have kept and treasure, but these two, I could not use/ place. Mum is quite happy with my passing them on. Getting rid of a clock and some place mats does not affect or show how much I love my Mother!

(It was still hard to do though! Sometimes the theory and the personal are very different, lol!)

GreyQueen

Thanks for the reassurance, catshark. When you come from a hoarderish home, sometimes you can't trust your own judgement because the people who raised you, and whom you still love and respect, would come down so strongly in the opposite direction.

I have decided that one of the towels can be demoted from service to cleaning cloth. I do this with worn out towels; quarter them (or halve if hand towel size) and hem then and then they become a re-usable cleaning cloth. One of the towels which went through the wash today will get this treatment once it has dried.

I'm finding it hard to get rid of some things which are worn out because they're not 100% gone, if you know what I mean. Like a pair of shoes which have gone through the sole but not far enough to take in water. I have another pair of shoes, plus informal footwear, so not quite on my uppers (pun intended) but still find a resistance to parting from them.

I do wish shoes didn't wear out through the soles whilst the uppers still look immaculate.

thriftwizard

I'm with you on the Order Of Service - CofE speak, there! - not needed on voyage. Maybe if he'd been someone you were really fond of... but even then, it's only a piece of paper.

Very chuffed. Have just sorted out a major piece of muddle; my 4 summer hippy-dippy skirts, which I love to death, had all gone ragged at the hems. You know the ones; pure silk wrap-arounds, two layers in contrasting prints/colours, so easy to pack, wash, dry & wear that I can't imagine summer without them. But they were just sitting in the mending pile when DS2 & TDiL moved back in, and I kind of lost my sewing area in all the sudden muddle. And whilst the skirts take up virtually no room stored in a drawer or packed in a suitcase, they take up a lot of room & look very messy when they're all tangled up in a heap. Also, every time I saw them, I'd feel a pang of weltschmertz that it isn't summer any more; the festivals, the campfires & the beach are all over for another year... woe is me!

Anyway, sewing area sorted now, & skirts re-hemmed & packed away! Two more outstanding projects to sort out, both involving quite a lot of fabric/space, and a commission (recycled "raggy" baby quilt) to tackle - and we have the technology again, at last!

ETA: GQ, there's no chance you can get those shoes re-soled, is there? Once I've found a pair of shoes that fit & suit me, I'll quite happily pay as much again as they cost originally to get them mended; luckily we have a good cobbler in town.

GreyQueen

There, I knew they would have a proper name, not 'programme' - shows what happens when you are technically C of E but not a church-goer, you don't speaka da lingo.

Re the shoes, they are Think! brand, and the sole is moulded rubber. I once tried to get a smiliar shoe re-soled and was told it isn't possible, but I suppose it's worth a few minutes of my time to roll up to a couple of shoe places and make enquiries.

Well done on getting the summery skirts repaired and ready for service again next year. Last thing you want on a lovely morning in 2015 is to find that your duds are bedraggled. I have a couple of mends to do on my own wardrobe, which I don't mind at all, quite like mending things, find it rewarding in some strange way.

Today's cunning plan will involve gardening, should the weather stay dry. so the decluttering will take the form of couch grass, plus additons to my glass'n'nails collection. Shame there isn't such a thing as a Rusty Nails Recycling Bank, isn't there? Could fill one all on my ownsome.

Forward!