KonMari 2017 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

catshark88

Welcome to Mrs Salad Dodger!

daisy_1571

Welcome Mrs salad dodger

I have read the books but tbh I have done areas as I feel the urge and as they present themselves. It is easier when you decide what to keep rather than what to throw out, a small but significant psychological shift in thinking. I know I and many others on here have been able to release things that we have held onto for years without pain, issue or regrets.

In lieu of the books have a read through this year's thread or last years. I treated them like a book and I started reading through last years thread, about 6 months ago I think, and I enjoyed a few pages a day. After a few weeks of reading I found myself naturally feeling like joining in and things have gone from my house and attic that up till then i would never have envisioned me letting go of - not because i used them or even remembered i owned them, just because i had had them for so long and thought more about 'storing things efficiently' rather than ever considering letting them go.

Good luck with your journey

Daisy xx

Ps edited to add I am by nature a hoarder rather than a chucker

Knit_Witch

Mrs_Salad_Dodger wrote: »

Hi, I am a newbie to the Kondo thread. I hope I am welcome.

Always glad to see new Konverts :T:T:T

Hmm you could always get the Kindle version of the book - or just watch the various YouTube offerings!

GreyQueen

maryb wrote: »

Grey Queen are you back at the homestead yet? We are all waiting for the latest instalment of GQ's adventures in Kondo land

I am indeedy, just back online after 24+ hrs.

Got back late yesterday afternoon and spent a pleasant evening hanging out with the family. Finsihed the hand-mending on my brother's favourite old shirt, now given back to him.

This morning, I took the four-wheeled wally trolley up to a Liddly first thing, bought a lot of veggies and some fruit and two lovely desserts and we're now set for grub until 27th. Got in and out before the crowds got too manic and, not having one of the cars, made Parking Wars irrelevant.

As mentioned, I have agreement-in-principle for the understair cupboard, but Mum asked me if I would tackle 'the side' by which is meant the part of the wall unit which is alongside her armchair. This is the hotspot to end all hotspots, and stuff teeters and falls regularly.

Sooo, after luncheon, I gently shoved the armchair a couple of meters further down the room. The Queen of Sheba (snootier of the two parental mogs) was curled up on it, gave me a dirty look out of one half-opened eye but didn't feel strongly enough to actually unroll herself and move off.

I took everything off 'the side' which was a hideous jumble of things which should have been binned asap they were finished with, like sweetie wrappers and ball-bands from yarn, and other things. Many of the other things were craft-related. Plus 14 y.o. magazines, some nappy pins (us babies are in our early fifties btw ) and a lot of other stuff.

We now have two bags of books, specialist craft mags and some Misc ready for the chazzer, a lot of stuff in the recycling bin and some in the rubbish bin.

While I was pulling all this around, Dad came from upstairs with his 65th birthday cards, from more than 10 years ago, including the big one signed by the workmates when he'd retired. They've gone into the recycling bin.

Mum has also said she wants me to deal with the top of the sideboard (diagonally opposite the area I have been working on) as that's 2-3 ft tall in Misc. We've moved one of the wall clocks, a nice one Mum made out of wood onto the wall above the sideboard and moved the one which was there into the kitchen, where there was a vacant spot on the wall where the last cheapy plastic one lived before it finally died. This means I won't have to try rehoming a clock as part of the decluttering.

I also asked Mum to keep an eye out for some cloth napkins for me when she's out and about in chazzers (I wasn't scrounging at home, she doesn't have any of these herself) and she volunteered to let me have one of the smallish unused tablecloths to cut up and hem for that purpose. Well pleased and she gets some drawer space.

I have darned a sock and will be doing some alterations and some more mending, as need some bottle-green yarn which I think we have some of in the loft. Truth be told, the loft here has an inventory that the average yarn shop could only aspire to in its wildest dreams, so I would be astonished if there wasn't some bottle green acrylic up there, probably the remainder of what was used to make this particular sweater (it had a bonfire-related injury and needs a bit of a darn itself).

I shall be in the loft briefly tomorrow after the tree and the decs, but will do some more tidying before I bung tinsel all over everything.

Righty, that's your installment of Tales from the Homestead for now, further updates to follow as I'm here for several days.

Oh, and hello and welcome to Mrs Salad Dodger, fab username, good to have you aboard.

Love and peas to all, GQ xx

greenbee

Sounds as if your parents are fully on board with the clearing now GQ... they just need you to help them. I completely get this as it can be totally overwhelming on your own.

My builders left on Friday and I hadn't achieved a huge amount by the time my mum arrived on Tuesday (when the plumber also turned up to balance the radiators). She was out with my DB on Wednesday, when I cleared one room that needed cleaning (I'm lucky, I have a cleaner to help me who has been very flexible working round the builders, and was coming in specifically to deal with this room as it's been full of stuff for two months and was very dusty).

Since the cleaner left on Thursday we have a. bought a sofa (delivery in Jan) to replace the sofabed that I sold when I packed up the sitting room. It's a lovely little chesterfield upholstered in a blue-grey colour and was half price because it was the display model; b. bought another lamp (I still need to change the plug to a 5 amp one - I've done all the existing ones in the sitting room); c. bought an upholstered footstool to replace the rather unattractive coffee table. I'm hoping this will attract less clutter; d. unpacked all the books and filled the bookcases; e. moved what feels like every piece of furniture in the house to work out what the right pieces are in each room; f. put up all the cards and decorations; g. had a neighbour over for tea; h. made mince pies, red cabbage and cranberry sauce; i. quality tested the mince pies...

My office and bedroom are both a complete tip, but I've also started packing up the kitchen - as we've been looking for stuff we need I've been putting away the stuff I won't need. This way it will be quicker.

I know if my mum hadn't been here I'd never have got as much done!

wort

Welcome Mrs salad dodger , I think I listened to the 1st book on you tube. The second got on my kindle for 1.99.
I'm all set for Xmas, everything prepped, I did the roast pots and pigs and froze them last week. Just need to peel veg tomorrow, dd2 is going to give me a hand.
Dgson and I moved the furniture out of the conservatory, and put the 2 tables together in there.
I'm loving how my house looks , pared back decorations, but it looks much nicer.
I hope everyone has a wonderful peaceful Christmas Xx

GreyQueen

Tales from the Homestead part II.

OK, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. I needed to sort out the pile of above head-height boxes of books which were higgeldy-piggeldy up the corner of the parental sitting room, in front of the bookcase. As well as being a family of voracious readers, kid bruv - he lives here- runs an online business selling books. There are a lot of books in this house, to understate the issue mahoosiviely.

Anyway, the pile gets reduced by 50%, a tablecloth or three is draped across it and the Chrissie tree roosts on top.

Only, I decided to have all the boxes out of the corner and found the gateleg table (I tend to forget it exists, there are several pieces of furniture and an unused tumble-drier which are invisible behind and under boxes of books, there is a full-size filing cabinet and another two pieces of furniture which I've not seen for years. I wish I was making this up for giggles but it's gospel truth).

Now that the 7ft tall bookcase was accessible, I dragged out all the double-stacked books from in it and on top of it and evicted spiders and cobwebs and the dust of ages. Parked Mum on a stool to arbitrate and we divvied everything into three piles; keepers, donators, and stock. The keepers were by far the smallest pile.

Dad came back from his walk and was asked to arbitrate over his books and we now have just about all the books in the bookcase, the top two shelves of which are to-be-read-and-donated books for Mum. There are also about 8-10 supermarket totes stashed around the place which are full on donations.

I am beyond exhausted but am very pleased with what was done and proud of the 'rents for releasing so many books into the wild. We still have the complete Shakespeare, a herd of thesaurii, all the French text books and dictionaries, all the cookbooks and all the birding books.

On the way out are some classic novels and some popular novels, some crafting books and a book about psychic pets which none of us have ever seen before - prolly a manifestation of L-space - a broken-backed copy of a book about Chartres cathedral and other things to numerous and humerous to mention. A handful of exceptionally tatty books will go in the recycling.

Chrissy pressies are piled fetchingly under the tree and include many book-shaped items for the parents and some squashy bundles of clothes for the kid bruv.

The Queen of Sheba has given procedings a very suspicious Stare and retired to the reclinging armchair. Her sister Wild Thing is Out. This is normal if it's not below 0 celcius. And there are carols on the radio and it feels proper christmassy, so it does.

I reckon I will really sleep tonight due to being cream crackered. Hope everyone is having a good day.

GreyQueen

:jOh, and separately from any prompting by myself, Mum has switched out one plastic crate of gloves, hats etc from the hall for a slightly bigger one from her bedroom.

Some of the contents of the bigger crate were unworn clothes and these are now being donated. Plus a few of the things in the original seasonal crate, such as the glove from my teenage years without its mate but couldn't be discarded because there were originally two identical pairs of these gloves and one of the other pairs might still be here and might need the missing glove .... .this has been debated every other year for the past 30 years and now - ta dah! - without any debate at all, that glove has been binned.

Mum has also decided that no more handknitted hats are required by our household for the foreseeable future.:rotfl:

Because there are donation bags every which way, we've jointly decided that these will go up to the city to my flat on the 1st and I will feed them into the city chazzers. This will actually be easier than the 'rents dealing with them and gets them out from under their feet.

Admittedly, they will be under mine but it will give me mucho impetus to get them outta there asap before I fall over then and break my neck.

Ooof, onwards and upwards. I may break open the wine box a pal gave me, brought from a French winery. I think I deserve a glass or two.;)

daisy_1571

Wow GQ, what a marathon but how fabulous that you can see beautifully tidy spaces. This freeing if space does seem to make it easier to free another space as shown by the 'rents application recently in ways that seems to have been unheard of for many years. Well done all GQ family people :T


Merry Xmas to all :rudolf::xmastree::xmassmile:xmassign::santa2: and here's an early :easter: cos that'l be on the shelves before the week is out

Daisy.


Ps that psychic pets book wasn't about pets that know when owners are coming home was it? I been looking for that

GreyQueen

Dunno, it's buried somewhere in one of the totes which are presently distributed across all three bedrooms. If I can find it again in the next few days, I'll check it out for you.

All us cute downstairs, The Queen of Sheba is cuddling up to Mum, the tree lights are twinkling and shortly we'll be having a small libation (sherry) and watching the Maigret programme. I have just started the next rug and very nice it is, too.

Hope everyone has a fantabulous crimble and don't follow my example of eating most of a carton of those ambassadorial choccies in one sitting, I feel ever-so-slightly queasy atm.

:p:p:o I wuz kondo-ing them because I wanted the perspex box for storage, y'honour. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.;)