KonMari 2018 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

PollyWollyDoodle

Silvasava, would it make a rucksack or shopping bag?

wort

Siebrie what a shame about the holiday, sometimes as kids grow they get bored when friends aren't around , and bicker with each other. But I can feel your rage with hubby, that's very unfair and certainly not your fault.
Silva I used an old oilcloth to cover the top of an old ikea coffee table that the melamine had chipped on. I cut it to size and stapled it underneath, then dgson had a play table, now it gets used in the garden or garage. The other piece was kept for when I do messy stuff like painting chairs !

In my lounge I removed the oak bookcase with cupboard beneath, I've been wanting rid for ages , but it was expensive and only about 5 years old, but I don't need the storage. I decided to restain it but when I moved it out decided it's not going back .I must try to sell it. The matching tv cupboard will get sanded and restained, so sanding again today!! I repainted when I took the bookcase out, and rearranged the furniture, there's now only the 3 seater couch, a love seat and chair with tv cupboard. It feels much more open.:T

greent

KM-ing is mainly children-related focussed here at the mo. However, yesterday I did manage to get rid of several pieces of random stuff from around the downstairs to recycling/ rubbish bin/ CS bag (such as an immaculate cash tin, complete with keys) Rest of things going are old school uniform (fabric recycling/ donated to school/ passed on to friend as appropriate), too small/ worn out clothes (recycling/ CS/ NNS pile), A level study stuff from DS1 (mainly recycling but one huge study book to CS bag) and a couple of items from the hand me down boxes which aren't liked by the potential recipient (mainly CS bag, other than a brand new pair of joggers which will go on fbook selling pages)

We've had a bit of stuff coming in (mainly new shoes and school shoes and uniform) - but all as direct replacements (ooh yes - some new bedding for us - old stuff has gone to fabric recycling/ our rag bag for dust sheets. All too worn for CS) Bearing in mind it's the school/ uni Summer break, I've still actually made visible progress, so I'm rather chuffed

CS bag is not quite full yet, so will see if I can add anything else to it in next couple of days before taking it to them on the weekend

Pooky

I saw a family member this week that's really struggling with the aftermath of a hoarders death. 7 months on and they've still not got rid of all the junk. Living 2 and a half hours away they've been having to drive their camper van to the house every weekend in order to sort, chuck and clean. (The house wasn't habitable)

The tales of what they've found have been making my toes curl. One of the household members was a dab hand with making furniture so along side all the hundreds and hundreds of tools they've found secret panels in floors, walls, furniture all containing anything from WW1 medals to cereal boxes cut into 2" strips. Important paperwork has been hidden in between pages of newspapers and there was even boxes of WW2 ammunition stashed under the bath (along with a tea service and a lovely set of pillowcases). They've still go one of the large storage sheds to go through but at present the contents are holding the shed up, it stacked front to back, floor to ceiling with boxes and bags.

There was a switch in the garage that puzzled them, it didn't do anything and no wires present so they opened it to check what it did, inside was a plastic bag containing a tissue wrapped front door key...handy if you'd locked yourself out but had the key to the garage and a screwdriver handy (all tools in the garage were kept in padlocked chests so there wouldn't have been a spare one to hand).

It's so sad, this is family members in-laws house and their son told me he'd always asked to see wedding photos when he was a little boy but he was told there weren't any, you didn't photograph weddings back then. He's since found a proper wedding album with over 250 photos in that he now knows nothing about. It was found in the back of a television in the loft.

So everything that leaves that house has to be dismantled as much as possible to make sure there's nothing that needs keeping. They found evidence of 7 bank accounts that they had no clue about, all of which have now been traced and sorted resulting in over £100k - that money would have been so useful in making those last days/weeks/months more comfortable.

I'm determined my house will be in order so that no matter when I drop off my perch, I will not subject my family to having to sort that.

Floss

Pooky how sad and distressing for the family...xx

greent

Oh, Pooky - that sounds terribly hard for those left behind to deal with - as well as grief and the usual necessary paperwork/ admin after a death that's just so much more My dad had mental health issues when he died and his flat was full of random oddities and one room you couldn't open the door as it was floor to ceiling with stuff (such as carrier bags containing hundreds of loo roll tubes, others containing dozens of wine bottle corks) Most of us are just guilty of hanging onto too much for too long but true hoarding runs way deeper. Agree that I want to make it easy for my children when the time comes, though x

PollyWollyDoodle

That is so sad. Genuine hoarding is a serious illness, but it's the thought that someone will have to sort through my junk one day that makes me determined to keep it to a minimum.

lessonlearned

What a sad story.

Well I have learned something about myself. I am waiting to move and for several weeks now i have been sorting and prepacking. I am surrounded by boxes, some stuff has been packed up for a while now and I can truthfully say I haven't really missed the contents.

I think once I have moved I will be able to take the kondoing to another level. :rotfl:

Igamogam

Gosh Pooky what sad and thought provoking story. I sounds as if there hoarding was rooted in something deep seated...........I worry sometimes about the amount of stuff we still have lurking in boxes and cupboards,sheds and lofts in our household. At least I feel I am doing something about it now.........your story may just have given me more food for thought.

Dip in energy levels and a thumping headache this morning....going to look at a couple of boxes of paper work which I can do on sofa with a packet of hob nobs

Karmacat

That's terribly sad, Pooky and shocking as well - the hidden-ness of things in particular

Obviously, I'm not at that level, but there's way too much paperwork in my house, and too many books. Everything is jammed in everywhere, though its kept to bookcases (only 2 now) and plastic storage crates (too many). When I get back home, I'm going to see about that....