KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

kazwookie

Wanders in, nice to see some names I recognise, not read all the pages, but several posts have made me smile.

Karmacat

I really needed to do *something* positive - so I started digging up an area of garden I cleared late last autumn. A few too many weeds/grass/alpine strawberries have parked themselves there, grrr. But its clear again now, or most of it is, and I shall kondo a sage plant into the space - it must be pot bound, but I'll try to spread the roots before I plant it, give it a chance. Win/win - less ground to weed, an occupied plant pot can be cleaned, and I get my own sage Feel the Woo!

GreyQueen

Sage is a lovely plant and bees adore it. A pal had a humungous sage on her allotment and I'd take my break beside it and there would literally be hundreds of bees, honey and the various kinds of bumblers, on it at the same time. Such a gorgeous blue, too.

If I might suggest, how about soaking the root ball of your pot-bound sage in tepid water for an hour or two to loosen things up, then gently tease some of the roots out with your hands, before planting it out? Rainwater would be better than tap, if you have a waterbutt.

Karmacat

Absolutely, GQ - thats what I meant when I said about spreading the roots, tho I'm not clear on the time frame for that. My water butts havent yet been called into service a mix of the thread for the tap needing work, and cast iron downpipes seemingly costing literally hundreds of pounds to have the fixings put onto them. There's also the little matter of *where* they should go - the layout of the house and garden make that really tricky

However, for now there's a couple of buckets which also need to be emptied and cleaned, and they've got plenty of rainwater in them - I'll also be kondo-ing some mosquito larvae if I use them, so its another win-win

GreyQueen

Do you have a shed, karmakat?

The reason I ask if that you get an incredible amount of water off a shed and it's much easier to tool a shed up with plastic guttering and a stubby downpipe over the top end of a water butt.

My allotment shed is a bog-standard 6 x 8 apex roof number and I have two big food-grade drums, one to a side, and they never run dry as they fill in the least amount of rain. They have a simple spigot tap about 6 inches up from the side (are raised up on wood posts balanced on slabs) but I often fill the watering can by just dunking it in the top of the butt.

greenbee

Rug cleaning is still ongoing.... it's 15m2 in total (ish) so washing it in a way that gives it a chance of drying is the challenge. I think it is cleaner (despite the collection tank still filling with something the colour of bisto), and am convinced I can see colour and pattern that I couldn't before. Then again, I've been 6" from the thing for about 8 hours today!

I rinsed, washed, rinsed twice more then spent some time 'drying' it. I'm now going to have a break for some food (or possibly just wine) and then clean the bedroom floor ready to put down the underlay tomorrow. That way, when the rest of it has been cleaned, and it has dried enough to be rolled up and moved, there will be somewhere for it to go.

I also need to start moving stuff around so I can empty the 4th bedroom - at least of the small stuff (builders will need to help with mattresses/divans/deconstructing beds) so that we can get that underway next week.

mrs-moneypenny

Welcome kazwookie, nice to see you joining the thread.

PollyWollyDoodle

karmacat, I rue the day I accepted the gift of some Alpine strawberry runners. I spent about an hour yesterday ripping them out of a veg bed where they'd gone rampant.

Last year my Kondo mindset had quite an effect on my gardening - I've got a tendency to keep moribund plants in the hope that they'll improve, but last year I got ruthless and removed lots of stuff that was past its best or had outgrown the space. This year it's paid dividends - of course weeds have filled in some of the gaps but it's much easier to clear them, and I'm finally winning the battle with bramble. Still much to do but now I can see the results, I'm inspired to continue.

Karmacat

GreyQueen wrote: »

Do you have a shed, karmakat?

The reason I ask if that you get an incredible amount of water off a shed and it's much easier to tool a shed up with plastic guttering and a stubby downpipe over the top end of a water butt.

My allotment shed is a bog-standard 6 x 8 apex roof number and I have two big food-grade drums, one to a side, and they never run dry as they fill in the least amount of rain. They have a simple spigot tap about 6 inches up from the side (are raised up on wood posts balanced on slabs) but I often fill the watering can by just dunking it in the top of the butt.

That's very interesting! I have a shed thats dying - I was going to use a couple of plastic dustbins (already bought) for tools etc, and let everything else go ... but if I replaced like with like, I'd have easy rainwater access too .... mmmmm, I like that, GQ! Its a project for after I retire (though I might need to get rid of the dying shed really soon, a local cat likes sleeping on it, and the mdf is sagging under his weight, if he falls through, heaven only knows what he'll fall onto

The other possibility is that I have 3 units from old double glazing - not the plastic frames, just the actual glass panels - I've always imagined using them for solar cooking or something similar, but actually, carrying on with the idea of using the bins for storage, and then setting up the panels to collect rainwater ... that might work. My local cemetery, weirdly, has a similar solution - a water butt covered by a little roof, much less than the glass panel area that I have, with a piece of guttering leading into the butt - the water is available for anyone who wants to work on a family grave.

I can't wait to retire so I can play like this! Now that I've decided to stay here for as long as I can, and not move town to an apartment nearer my sister, I can plan for this sort of stuff :j:j:j

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

karmacat, I rue the day I accepted the gift of some Alpine strawberry runners. I spent about an hour yesterday ripping them out of a veg bed where they'd gone rampant.

At last someone else who understands about alpine strawbs :j:j:j utter nightmare in a tiny garden thanks Polly

I'm getting more ruthless too - I've finally realised that to have a garden that I want to be in, some plants need to get cut back, and some plants need to die!!!

mothernerd

I've had quite a good day.

I decided to cull some of the baking trays and buttons I have recently acquired. As a result of mum's move to a bungalow and much needed downsizing I have been gifted my mum's button box (+ zips/ elastic box etc) including a lot that were originally my grandmother's.

The trays weren't great (mum let her partners children and grandchildren loose on all the Lakeland stuff she has bought in the past fifteen years, I got left with the ancient stuff that no one else wanted). I already had enough before so I have decided I do not need these (for Justin). May have been useful when I did loads of baking and would have trays of scones and biscuits lined up to cook in succession but not needed now, I will let them go.

Looked through the buttons and kept the ones I liked and that are likely to be useful for clothes I want to make. Kept some of the older more interesting ones and a lot of red ones (thinking of making button pictures with small people).

I have culled a lot of the shirt buttons (mine alone filled a tobacco tin). I have spent many hours mending shirts (including replacing the whole front placket) and remember going through the pile of school shirts at the start of each school year, repairing and working out how many would fit each boy.

However now there is only myself and DS3. I have kept a few black trouser buttons but I rarely have to sew a button on for him. I have sewn up side seams (and whole crotch areas when he had a 'martial arts type kicks' phase) and replaced the lacings on a 'Jacobean' type shirt (DS3 is fond of dressing up). So I have a stash that is more than adequate for my needs but not excessive.

The rest have already gone to the charity bin in the library. They should be in a usable state as many of them were already grouped in sets - I remember spending hours doing this for my mum, using up florists wire from my grandmother's and threading the sets together.

I have been trying to get DS3 to sort his room. We are having a bulky waste collection on Tuesday and the items including his bed need to go out on Monday at the latest. I suggested he emptied one bed drawer a day rather than leave it till the last minute.

This evening I suggested going upstairs to have a look and after five minutes he agreed. He was in such a good move and has been able to let things go. We did one drawer and about six boxes and I have little piles of recycling and a large bag of rubbish, plus a fair amount of stuff for the charity shop. I think we are on target to re-home the contents of a king size bed space into the spaces in his wardrobes (a 1960's set of 3, one has drawers, with top boxes).

Now I have to start work on persuading him to move the single bed (solid wood and heavy as lead) upstairs when the other one goes. Currently in the front room and he's thinking about sleeping down here again:eek:.