Hoarding - Springing Ahead

GreyQueen

Nice work, thriftwizard. The gain in space is worth a lot, isn't it?

Have been t'call centre earning my living and have slung out my rubbish for the past 2 weeks; one small carrier-bagful. I use those plastic plant buckets as my kitchen bin, with a carrier bag as a liner. I have two in a stack, the reason for the second being to use as a bucket if needed. This place is silly-small and there isn't a cupboard sufficiently big enough to take a bucket, it really is beyond the pail. :rotfl:

I look at the amount of fly-tipping and general rubbish around here and find myself wondering how the heck peeps manage to generate so much trash. We're tiny one bedroom flats, with the singletons outnumbering the couples about 4:1 and yet some people are producing so much Stuff, it's frightening. And annoying, when they have hiffed-out stuff that was perfectly usable until they dropped a box of the china in the bin and broke a lot of it, or left furniture out in the elements to spoil. We have literally a dozen charity shops within 5 mins walk for portable stuff, and several furniture re-use charities are only a phone call away.....sigh.

I'm working towards finishing the dishcloth-knitting project which will see them go back to family at Xmas - we found the cotton yarn in the loft over at Mum and Dad's when looking for something else. I have also completed a sewing project which lives over there, so that can go, plus the last of the xmas pressies.

I have an inordinate fondness for decluttering, I really love it.

ginnyknit

:rotfl:beyond the pail :rotfl:

GQ I get so annoyed at the amount of good furniture thrown out here and as for using the mass of recycling bins we have - well thats just too much like hard work, they could use those precious minutes to ignore their kids or roll some more funky Benson's. I swear theres one corner near the shop that I walk past and feel light headed from the amount of cannabis smoked.

Anyway am preparing the next bag for the Cs as Im going past one tomorrow whilst picking up a second hand toy for DGs.Have a bag of crafty stuff being picked up by a lovely lady from free-cycle on Wednesday. She has 5 girls and wants them all crafting as she has arthritis so needs to do sat down stuff with them.

Next Im going to tackle the pile of fabric left from making things for my Fb selling page - have a sale on there so hoping to move more stuff that way instead of packing it away. 4 parcels going out tomorrow including a magazine I sold on fleabay - better than throwing it away

GreyQueen

Well, earlier this evening, I had to loiter in the kitchen watching sausages [STRIKE]burn[/STRIKE] I mean, cook on the booby-level grill. I'd be a real freak of nature if I had eyes that far towards my feet, I tell thee.

Anyroad, I hate, loathe and detest standing over stoves and have mostly managed to limit my cooking to stuff that can mind its business in the oven until the timer goes off, or which can get by with a stir occasionally. But there are some things like the sausages which require my presence in the kitch but I am easily bored.

So, I started poking around in what I call my ingredients cupboard, the half of a wall unit that holds stuff like flour, sugar, salt, seasonings etc etc. The upshot is that I have re-organised and consolidated and got some of my herbs decanted into those darling square jamjars which Mum gets her Aldee jam in, and which are so very efficient at using space. I have a standing order that these are to be saved for me unless I specify otherwise........:rotfl:

Have got shot of two plastic cyclindrical tubs which were originally purchased many moons ago holding peanuts at Crimble and which were oversied for their contents and holding a lot of fresh air. Every centimeter counts in this tiny home. Have washed the containers and they will go out in the recycling. Have dragged all the clip-top jars, the Le Parfaits and a few misc ones, into play and am about to sterilise them in the oven and then bottle my beetroot preserves.

I'm cream-crackered and could really do with sprawling on the sofa with a Rebus novel but want to get this sorted out tonight.

Aside from the beets, I am delighted at the bit of off-the-cuff reorganisation and may have to repeatedly peek at my cupboard to admire the results. I can see white melamine in there, glinting at me.

Onwards!

Softstuff

GreyQueen wrote: »

:
Anyroad, I hate, loathe and detest standing over stoves and have mostly managed to limit my cooking to stuff that can mind its business in the oven until the timer goes off, or which can get by with a stir occasionally. But there are some things like the sausages which require my presence in the kitch but I am easily bored.

Though I realise that standing there got rather a lot done, for the future, sausages in the oven do come out very nicely. So does bacon. If we're to have sausages in a reasonable period of time, I pop them in when something else is cooking, then just reheat them a bit for the actual meal. I find sausages stay lovely and moist and bacon goes nice and crisp without incineration. Though I cook a heck of a lot, I can't stand there just watching something either

Happygreen

When DD1 was home from Uni last week we sorted out a lot of books. Another box will go this coming Friday, yippieh. It's hard to keep DD2 on the ball as she's a book collector and there some boxed sets coming for Christmas - and she is a very busy, stressed and messy teenager!

silvasava

:rotfl:GQ - booby level grill:rotfl::rotfl: I'm neary 6ft so you can imagine where it would be level with me! I have a built in oven that's been installed for ME so I can look in the grill. When my Mum stayed she had to use the step stool to do toast! Gonna pinch your idea for the square Aldee jars - I save them for preserves but I've plenty of others so they could be doing with a cull.
The weather forecast is dire for the coming week or so, so DH went up in the loft & got my heavy curtain down to hang between utility & kitchen. What a difference its made already! Get those thermals out ladies (and gents!)
Off to the gym in a wee while to toughen up my bones with neighbour. When we get home I'm sorting the curtain linings out either for DH for dust sheets or to the CS
BTW - did anyone see the beautiful sunrise this morning - stunning

thriftwizard

Curtains are on my mind too, Silvasava; yesterday I hauled back the most beautiful pair of 50s curtains from my stall because I can't actually bear to see them go to someone else! So one project for this week is to line them with an old sheet & hang them in DS3's room, which currently boasts the most awful pair of cheap thin navy-blue open weave canvas monstrosities that DS2 loved to pieces. And believe me, it's taken them all of two years to discolour & fall into shreds... when he moaned incessantly about how cold the room was, I spent £10 on some offcuts of very expensive striped fabric & made him a quilted Roman blind, which fits the window exactly & stops draughts in their tracks, so lining the 50s ones probably isn't necessary, but will improve heat-retention a little bit further.

Baking this morning, then on with DS1's room. I also hauled back a couple of suitcases to store some bits that apparently can't be disposed of in the loft. It WILL be civilised before Christmas...

silvasava

Hmm - Thriftwizard - you've given me some food for thought. In the new year I've arranged to have double doors fitted between said utility & kitchen. Mainly because there's no heating in the utility & nice big windows. My current curtain is some lovely bright yellow cotton rep which could be turned into Roman blinds when the doors have been fitted. Not done them before but they look fairly straighforward - do you have any particular tips please?

GreyQueen

silvasava wrote: »

:rotfl:GQ - booby level grill:rotfl::rotfl: I'm neary 6ft so you can imagine where it would be level with me!

Sounds like we're about the same height. And I still can't see to the back of the toppermost shelf in the kitchen cupboards without standing on a step-stool.

The ingredients cupboard re-organisation barfed-out a little wire-framed basket which is now redundant. It's just something I got for pence from a bootsale so don't have a real financial or emotional investment in keeping it, but the little demon on my shoulder is nagging away at me to find some way to repurpose it.

Having exhausted the options inside the home, said demon is now whispering But you could use it in your allotment shed!

Well, possibly, at a stretch, but that way lies madness, or at least, an unworkably-cluttered shed, so best not to even go there. It'll be part of the next chazzer donation bag. This is growing slowly as I finish with certain items (books, mainly) and quite a bit of stuff has left in the recycling banks, re-purposed food containers which frankly shouldn't have been kept in the first place.

Anyone else here have the mindset which has specifically-sourced containers such as jars, tins, tupperwares etc and still has the desire to hoard each and every piece of packaging material which can enjoy a second life as storage? And isn't this time of year perilous for those of our persuasion? You can get some lovely tins at this time of year, and once you've decluttered those pesky biscuits, you still have a lovely tin.

All together now; ARRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

thriftwizard

One consolation, GQ, is that most of today's tins are so thin they'd be lucky to see Easter & still be usable... pretty tins are one of my great weaknesses; it's astonishing how many little items need to be stored in them! Drawing pins, safety pins, paper clips, price tags, bobbins, metallic threads, embroidery threads, needles, pins, blu-tack... just off the top of my head! And all things that do need keeping & storing sensibly. I've seen the insides of too many sewing-boxes where small items have got themselves into hopeless tangles by not being kept separate.

But if I realise I really do have too many tins, I can just pop a few onto my stall & they'll sell very quickly; I sold at least 5 last Saturday, 2 of them ex-hoard, moved on to make way for prettier/more appropriate ones. So hopefully your charity shop will be able to move them on very swiftly too.

And yes, I can't ope my kitchen cupboard without being assaulted by an avalanche of ice-cream tubs and giant yogurt pots... I do need a few, and they do need replacing from time to time, but we really don't need to keep ALL of them! Jam jars, though, with lids, are altogether a different matter...