KonMari 2017 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Siebrie

My storage system is simple: the one item in use (for instance washing up liquid) is in the kitchen, a back-up item is in the garage in the shelving unit. As soon as the item in use is finished (and not before), the one from the stock gets taken and the item is added to the shopping list, which is a whiteboard in the kitchen.

However, this seems incredibly difficult for my parents, dh and his family and friends to grasp. This is how we end up with overflowing kitchen cupboards and 7 bottles of washing up liquid (because it was finished - it wasn't completely empty yet - and there was no new one - yes there was, with the other stock, which is now competing for space in the shelving unit).

DH kind of accepts that he has to ask me for a new one before he starts shopping, and he does; the others, not so much, and they let me know that they don't think much of me as a housewife, because I don't have the new items (which I have, just not where they think they should be). Sometimes, I'm just p1ssed off and let them continue to think of me that way, because they will start scrubbing my kitchen , others I explain to time and again that my house is for living in, not for storage space, that's what we use the garage for.

MMF007

One of my favourite MK wins is the undersink cupboard!
I have a high-sided basket (small) on the top shelf where space is most limited. There is just space to the side of the sink bowl for some taller items It holds cooking oil and sauce bottles. It is so easy to slide out most of the way and select the required item. It is also so easy to clean this while the shelf stays pristine! The area with limited height holds a flan dish with all my ramekins and small jars in, so i simply slide the dish out to select one.
Round the corner, where the light never shines, I have 2 large items that I can just reach round and grab without needing to see - a large flask and a large bottle of wu liquid.
At the back I have a mixing bowl and 2 cake tin in such a way that I can just slide over and out without having to unload front-most contents. I have a STRICT rule that nothing is plonked in there that will impede this ease of removal of all items. Woe betide anyone who contravenes that rule :rotfl:
On the lower shelf, that used to drive me mad, I have 2 Lakeland 'drawers' with a drop-down foot. This means you pull it out and the foot drops to the floor, steadying the whole thing while i select the required item that is easy to find/see because stuff is just in one layer. In those are sandwichbags, sponge scourers, faux tupperware, foil and cling film. These ' drawers' were expensive (they are just plastic) but they have, dare I say it, transformed my life.

daisy_1571

Siebre, slinky, mmf your cupboards sound an absolute joy to behold.

I'm back in the house and looking at the stuff. Hmm, liking the idea of one and storage elsewhere. Think I need a shelf as the open side has no shelf and leaves itself open to a re-run of stacking up a plastic box jenga game. *goes off to ponder - or more likely stand looking gormless while having a cuppa and hoping inspiration will strike*

GreyQueen

Undersink cupboards tend to devolve into hell-holes at the slightest opportunity, don't they? Mine isn't perfect but it's pretty usable. On the shelf under the U-bend where there is not much clearance, I have a cheap, shallow cat-litter tray (never used for such purpose) which is positioned to catch any leaks, and a couple of shortish cleaning products like the tub of Ast0nish.

Below, on the cupboard floor, stand re-purposed 4 pinter mlk bottles holding decanted washing powders and soda crystals and bicarb. On the other side are plastic baskets holding cleaning clothes, rags, and other random cleaning kipple. It's full but orderly and I can find anything I need.

Am still at the parental home and having a bit of a slower day as yesterday was full-on and pretty knackering. I have dragged their Henry vacuum upstairs (I vacuumed the stairs, what a novelty for a flat[-dweller like myself, lol) and have been using the dusting brush to chase cobwebs off ceilings.

I have also had various boxes off the top of the mid-section of the bedroom unit, the bit above the locker above the dressing-table bit. Took everything down and dusted it and a shoebox containing an unworn pair of sandals has been cleared for takeoff to the chazzer tomorrow. Great that it's still just about summer so hopefully some other lady will get the benefit. There are several other things up there which are questionable but Mum isn't having a brilliant day and is a bit stressed, so she has been ordered into the back garden with her book to rest and enjoy herself.

I'm chilling after lunch and then will be up that loft like a rat up a drainpipe........ :rotfl:Plus will use the vacuum to chase down some more cobwebs, Dad has either a real or a fabricated inability to look upwards when running the vac around, do these things do accumulate.

daisy_1571

flubberyzing wrote: »

Evening all.
I'm pleased to report that I have basically successfully kondo'd my entire flat! I did it in about a week of pretty solid effort, and have now been living with it for about 4 weeks. And I'm pleased so far that I've managed to maintain it fairly easily. It's made easier by doing what I'm calling "the evening sweep". Basically I just put everything back that I've got out/moved/fiddled with during the day, so that the next day I'm back to the original.
There are a couple of very small areas to go. There's the cupboard under the sink, the pots and pans cupboard, and 2 drawers under the bed. No doubt that I'll come to them in time!
Out of interest, I kept a count of how many binbags I threw out/donated. 24 of them! And I've honestly not missed the contents yet of any of them. In fact, I couldn't even tell you anything that was in them! Which just shows, it was total rubbish.

Wow, that sounds fantastic flubberyzing. Either you have a tiny flat and were already pretty ruthless, or you are really, really good at this mk lark. Either way that's a great achievement, well done. Wish I had a 'reset to factory settings' type button for my house each night. Ah well, I shall get there too

Daisy xx

luxor4t

[QUOTE=GreyQueen;73047167.......
* C-space is an old thread gag, akin to L-space in the Discworld's magical library. All Cupboards are mystically linked through quantum mechanics with all other cupboards in the multiverse. This is why each and every one of us will, at some point, find things in our own cupboards which meet some of the following criteria.

1. Completely unidentifiable.
2. Not now, and never before, seen by any household member, past or present.
3. Contraband on all five continents and most of the solar system.

My best advice would be not to panic if C-space chucks something random into your life. It may be good, it may be bad, it may be floggable on the Bay, but don't expend too much energy worrying about where it came from - it's quantum, innit? :rotfl:[/QUOTE]

Dare I admit to wanting to go though every cupboard in the hope that whatever C-space sends will brighten up my day? :o
(RA playing up).

GreyQueen

Phew, wot a scorcher!

I have prepped 4 bags of stuff to go to the chazzer with the folks tomorrow when they go over to Big Market Town. It has a larger population than their own town and stuff should sell well there.

I will be catching a lift back to the city with a commuting pal tomorrow and then getting on with my life. Or the version of my life when on annual leave, yippee, lots of time for kondo-ing and gardening. I fancy that it is time to have everything out of my small storage shed at the flats, to check a couple of things out. I really ought to finish some gloss painting indoors, the back side of some doors has been awaiting a second coat for an embarrassing amount of years. Plus, if I can finish up a paint can, that's one less thing on the premises.

The loft has had a bit of a tidy-around (OK, I lie like an old rug, I put the suitcases and catbaskets where they belong, as opposed to just inside the hatch waiting to cascade down on some unwitting person's head, which is where they got left a fortnight ago).:o:o:o

luxor4t - GO FOR IT!!!!!!!!

short_bird

GreyQueen wrote: »

There's a bottle of nail polish up there. In the approx 45 + years that I can clearly remember, Mum has NEVER EVER WORN NAIL POLISH.

Used for stopping ladders in tights?
Bought for her as a present?
I'm curious now...

:rotfl:

daisy_1571

C-space: If anyone has lost a hefty bit of grey painted metal, about 6"long and with 6 countersunk holes it ended up under my sink. I will put it back for a wee while but if you haven't claimed it soon check either the hut or the metal skip at the tip (and if you could leave a note in its place telling me what on earth it is for that wud be great too ta)

daisy_1571

GQ- the top of your folks' dressing table sounds like so many surfaces and drawers in my houses over the years,
stuff saved for dealing with later (and Justin and andy) ,
stuff that we want but has no proper home so gets laid down,
keyrings and other give-away type kibble that that we don't really want but are sorta useful but no one else is likely to want so we can't throw it away, we can't give it away, it's not valuable to try to sell but we don't want to 'waste' it so we keep it 'for now',
etc etc so it just piles up then seems even more wasteful when it's a whole bag of such stuff to get rid of.

Well done on helping them, it's really sooooo much easier when it's someone else's stuff, we seem to have a filter on when looking at our own homes

Daisy xx