KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

maryb

I used a sun windscreen thingy in the winter to stop the windscreen getting heavily frosted so they might be all season?

thriftwizard

Those who want to sell radiator reflectors suggest that oxidation over time reduces the effectiveness of using kitchen foil.

Heavens! We had tinfoil-over-card behind the dresser in our kitchen for about 10 years, and I'll swear it was as shiny when we took it out as it was when it went in. And it was still doing the job, absolutely fine.

Bigjenny

I bought 2 blue shelving racks from BigDug for the garage, they are free standing, and I also got some clips that hold them together,nice and sturdy, and I assembled them myself.

GreyQueen

I really wish I had a garage 'cos I'd love to order racks from Dug and have everything organised. Alas and alack, will have to soldier on regardless.

Am slooowly dealing with a persistant bugbear - the desk this monster desktop PC and its accessories roosts on. Great big heavy argossy number which I got 2nd hand about 14 years ago. Faux mahogany and shows the dust summat turrible (memo to self; if ever buying plastic furniture again, do go for the light-coloured stuff).

I have hauled a shallow woven-palm basket out of one of the cubbyholes on the back and sorted out the stationery tools etc which roosted in there. Some, the less used items, have been put away. Others, like the stapler, sellotape dispenser, tippex and pencil sharpener have been put prominently on the shelf since I'm always using them.

The woven palm basket (20p from bootsale if memory serves) has broken on one corner and will be added to the allotment burn-bag. All natural materials. Also destined for the same fate is a wonderful mass of wood parings (like angel hair sphagetti) which came as packaging from a gift. Wonderful stuff, full of potential, and stirring my Bloo Peeter habit, but mustn't hoard (any more) packaging materials.

It starts innocently enough; a jiffy bag or two, some bubble-wrap, some tissue paper, then you gravitate onto the hard stuff - boxes of all sizes and bags of packing peanuts....... .slippery slopes and all that.

Have destroyed a small plastic keyring card from a store I no longer shop at, plus rooted out two AA batteries for the recycling. Several more bits of kipple plus the dust of ages to deal with, but I've started coughing, so probably have done enough dusting for now.

Have also had the one piece of storage furniture that there's room for in my bedroom (chest of drawers) away from the wall and vac'd behind and washed that bit of the tiled floor. Will re-instate all at bedtime, to allow it to be thoroughly dried and aired.

Place looks like it's been turned over by a particularly aggessive bunch of burglars, stuff everywhere, but it's a work in progress.

Onwards, upwards and outwards!

silvasava

Went to put away a couple of DH's T shirts - folded them a la Marie & discovered DH just shoves them in his wardrobe. So with his permission ( he was reading and didn't want to discuss) I've cleared out a small plastic drawer unit and 3 plastic boxes of clothes. One of the drawers had his paragliding suit that he hasn't used for at least 15 years, another held his gym stuff - the same and a whole drawer of white Terry socks that had died in storage! So now he has the drawers and boxes organised. A nice pile of tatty t-shirts to use for cloths in the garage. A large bag of unjoyful clothes to the CS and the socks and other tatty t-shirts for ragging. He has one drawer completely clear so tomorrow I'll have a look at the rest of his wardrobe. I feel the pricking of my thumbs mwah ha

Siebrie

All my important phone numbers have been transferred to my new phone, from two scraps of paper. I've lost numbers before, however carefully we make copies before we change phones, so I'd scribbled them all down. Task completed.
Pants I'm currently wearing have developed a hole mid behind; oh, the joy of rag anticipation!

MMF007

Been sunning myself on winter hols but reading along. Great joyous things happening for many of you, well done! I love reading about the improvments and the joyful solutions.

I mentioned my recent purchases a few weeks ago. Having donated several handbags and quite a lot of clothing over the last 18 months I finally bought 2 new bags and assorted swimwear that spark great joy These items are making their debuts on this hol. Today DH made 2 unpromped very favourable remarks relating to i) new swimsuit, and ii) new bag.

I enjoyed organising my clothing into the apartment COD, all in colour order, neatly kondo folded of course, with items placed logically in the 3 drawers for ease of retrieval.

Have some slighlty less joyful sunburn on my ankle where I seem to have missed the factor woolly jumper suncream! I am so careful, being fair skinned, but slipped up today. Aloe vera now applied

Only things kondo'd today were a long walk in the hot sun , a cocktail at sunset :beer: and a rather out-of-place but delicious Italian meal

karcher

Sorry to butt in folks, but could someone tell me what kondo folding (of clothes) is. I looked on the first page but there are so many links I didn't know where to start looking.

Many thanks in advance:D

GreyQueen

karcher wrote: »

Sorry to butt in folks, but could someone tell me what kondo folding (of clothes) is. I looked on the first page but there are so many links I didn't know where to start looking.

Many thanks in advance:D

You're not butting in, my lovelie, you're very welcome to join the gang.

Kondo folding is the way of folding clothes so that they stand upright in rows in drawers. The idea that your clothes are ranged vertically so you can see them all at a glance, not stacked in piles, with the underneath items getting crushed and often un-used. Because what we humans can't see and can't reach easily tends to be forgotten.

As to how you do it, not all garments are suitable for this treatment. Very thick things and very filmy, floaty things are better hung. The majority of things can be folded this way.

Knicks; lay flat, fold sides towards centre and roll into a sausage or fold into a little packet. Store upright. Socks, lay flat in pairs, fold once for ordinary, twice for knee-highs, store vertically. Tee-shirts and long sleeved tops, lay flat, fold sides towards middle (think about one-third of the body-width folded inwards and you've got the idea), fold sleeve so lies vertically down the side, and then fold body up into a small packet, which will be halving or thirding it.

Trousers, lie flat, one leg over the other, fold in the projection of the leg towards the crutch seam, then fold once and once again, to form a neat rectangular packet.

All this sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Just use a flat surface like your bed or a table/ ironing board, smooth with your hands as you go, and it's easy and pretty fast. Marie Kondo herself describes garments as having a sweet spot where they want to fold, to make neat little packets which stand upright. Sounds a bit odd but she's right.

There are various YT viddies out there of kondo-folding if you are more a visual person than using a written description. HTH.

ETA; Nearly forgot, some people use things as dividers inside drawers (things like mushroom punnets, shoe boxes etc) to help small things like undies and socks stay tidy.

Karmacat

Floss wrote: »

Does your tip allow vans in? Ours doesn't anymore as white van men were dumping their business waste for free.

Yes it does, Floss, they're quite helpful, actually - they give specific measurements about what vans are accepted and then list the recycling sites at which "over-size" vans are accepted. I ended up phoning the one we intend to use, just to be sure what "over-size" meant, and it's fine

MMF007 wrote: »

Have some slighlty less joyful sunburn on my ankle where I seem to have missed the factor woolly jumper suncream! I am so careful, being fair skinned, but slipped up today. Aloe vera now applied

Only things kondo'd today were a long walk in the hot sun , a cocktail at sunset :beer: and a rather out-of-place but delicious Italian meal

Sorry about the sunburn, but loving your description of your day, **and** your description of the factor of your suncream :j:j:j

Today, the green waste to go to the recycling site has been joined by the rubbish from the broken timber shed. Including the shed roof, which has collapsed into it's constituent parts since it lost its roof felt about 3 years ago

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