Downsizing

rickeeee

Well I seriously have underestimated the amount of time and effort this would take.

Paperwork alone has taken me 8 hours thus far to sort and shred
and it's still not finished.:mad:
The shredded paper is going to a local business to be used for packing material:T

The loft is now in the house waiting to be sorted.:eek:

Wardrobes and cupboards in the house have been done and there are 20 large black bags(awaiting collection) going to the local childrens hospice shop.

We live on a busy road, so anything not good enough to donate gets put outside and goes within half an hour.

I am never going to hoard ever again.

Contessa

I know how hard it can be as I've been trying to do this for ages. I think the key to decluttering and stopping hoarding is break the emotional connections to things and to accept that they may never "come in useful". I've donated/thrown out loads and loads of things that I don't need anymore and wondered why I've kept them for so long. In theory I really am downsizing but I'm still not ready to go minimalist and when I've viewed houses I think a lot are too small for me.

yorkshire_terrier_owner

My parents downsized last year.

They gave away all their furniture (a local couple just starting out with nothing furnished their whole house for free!) and bought everything new. Loads went to charity shops. Then they got a skip and filled it.

I did have to laugh when they moved in to their new property and realised they had been a little too ruthless about the pictures they had got rid of. My mum sent my dad down to the charity shop to buy a couple of them back! :rotfl:

AlexMac

I feel their pain. When we moved from a 5-bedder (my wife's former family home) we checked so much stuff out from the loft (all of which pre-dated my relationship with her) that I vowed never again to put anything overhead. Given that 90% of what's put in a loft eventually ends up in a skip, I now try to cut out the middleman (or middleplace).

We subsequently ended up in a lovely newer place- with a loft that superficially appeared empty- until we came to insulate it... and found that dozens of components of a scrap flatpack kitchen and several redundant dismantled IKEA wardrobes had been painstakingly carried up there and stored on the joists! Took hours as you couldn't even stand up there.

So never again - thank gawd for Freecycle