Welcome HoneyBee83, the more the merrier Kind of love it when new people join us as their enthusiasm to get started re-enthuses me
There is also a lovely thread ‘2018 - No Clutter to be Seen’. If you have time that is a good thread to read, great for keeping you motivated to get things out of your home - it is lovely seeing the numbers ticking over or even the weight of items leaving your home forever

Re the clothing, a little tip that I have found useful is to keep on top of minor repairs If you are happy to repair them, then you can be happy to keep them. Several of us have found that we occasionally fall out of love with items of clothing & are happy to either donate or pass on

I wish you every success on your journey to a Simpler Life & remember that we also offer lots of encouragement should things not be going as well as you would wish/want

MrsSD

Kitchen cupboards, drawers & fridge/freezer all sorted - now I have to find the next project . Plenty to choose from, but I won’t stress about it

A Simpler Life is only ten tonnes of clutter away

MrsSD

I belong to my local East Medway branch and could be out and about 7 days a week if I had the time, its great, and a good way to meet up with other people. So many different groups and interests available and for me the £15.00 per year is well worth the money in subs.

Yippee - I found my next project - The ‘Wall Unit of Doom’ - shredded a 6” stack of 10-15 year old personal paperwork and condensed five cubby holes into four with a few items including a Linguaphone (English/Italian from 20+ years ago & ashamed to say I never learned ) put in the cs bag for delivery next week.
I should say that this is the third time that the wall unit is a project but each time I manage to get rid of more ‘stuff’

To a Simpler & Clutter Free Life

MrsSD

The mountain of crates & boxes in my house has been reduced by about 40% The crates & boxes have been restacked so now have way more floor space . DSis has purchased all the storage that can fit in her room - all her clothes are now unpacked, as is her bedding & she has started opening her boxes of ornaments.
Quite a bit of stuff has been donated to the cs & there will probably be quite a bit more.

My DH has been decluttering his office & I have continued with keeping the kitchen & living room clutter free & tidy, keeping up with the laundry & finding donations for the cs.
I now have access to the whole Wall Unit of Doom, so will gradually sort through that again.

I am waiting for a collection date from the cs as I now have the following for collection which will create oodles of space

An extra long single bed, mattress & headboard, a free standing single pine wardrobe, pine bedside cabinet, orthopaedic chair, 4 garden chairs, 4 large terracotta plant pots & 2 Carlton Rigid Suitcases. Once they have been collected we will have space in the spare room, the loft, DH’s office & a less cluttered garden

My Simpler Life is gradually coming into view

MrsSD

Additionally: 5th terracotta pot & 2 bags of children’s books. Will arrange for collection when we get back from our motor biking holiday

Might get my first ever spa visit

See you in a fortnight

MrsSD

Have a fab break Mrs SD

Bexster

First proper day back at home, and I've had to spend the morning decluttering my email box, as the provider closes tomorrow. I had already started this, but always got bored or distracted, so the compulsion is all to the good. I'm forwarding stuff to keep to a different email account, but the one I'll be losing is of several years standing, and I realise that I've kept things from people who have since passed away, etc. which I shall now be deleting. I'm also using it as a chance to unsubscribe from many things. It will be great to have something under control.

Hiya
Now at my DB’s house in Germany. Our motorbiking holiday is almost over but it has been the Simple Life we crave - other people doing the cooking & washing up other people making the beds & of course seeing new places & drinking wayyyyy too much

See you all next month

MrsSD

Hope you enjoy the rest of your holibobs msd!

I've been out of the loop for a while- so much has been going on in rl that I've had no time to get on the boards!

Anyhoo, to cut a long story short, I'm going to be decluttering like I'm moving house over the next couple of weeks - I'm not moving but I am having a major refurb so it all has to go! I'll be reusing almost nothing as the furniture and flooring in all the rooms- other than the living room and bathroom - was all bought for the cheapest price possible somewhere between 10 and 20 years ago! it's done me well but has gone well beyond the use by date!! the kitchen needs redecoration but the wiring and cupboards are okay for now; the living room will need a redo decor wise as the rewiring includes that room.

I've started the clear out already - 15 bags of books and a coffee table donated; dd has cleared out a lot of her stuff: I've got a taker for the chair and probably the bookcases and I may be able to re-use a wardrobe and chest of drawers if they survive the move upstairs

However, there's still a long way to go and I'm going to make a list and spend an hour a day doing something towards it....

I'll let you know how I get on

how are you getting on, Squirrelgirl? It will be so great when it's all done! Thinking that you'll move seems a good way to really assess what you can't do without. (also, pretending that you are emigrating, and can only ship out stuff at huge expense)

Thought I would try to revive this thread

My decluttering has come to a standstill as my mojo has gone AWOL - just trying to make sure nothing much comes into the house or if it does come in I find a place for it

I still do not have the oodles of space I was anticipating as the CS van is still off the road & much as I would like ‘I Community’ to have the items, I may just have to get another cs to pick the stuff up I think I will contact the local CS & give them to the end of the month as now I really do want the stuff gone Then maybe my mojo will return

How is it going squirrelgirl? Have you been successful in your major decluttering? I really hope so and would love to read about your success

Anyway, I am off

To A Simpler Life

MrsSD

Hi all, I'm still here - the downside of that is that I'm still in France and had no viewings at all this year

However, I've taken on yet another estate agent, and told all of them I'm willing to negotiate price and now we wait and see

Downsizing continues although it has slowed dramatically, partially due to the current heatwave - ( it could be 38C or more this week ) and partially because I'm now getting down to the more difficult decisions.

Mrs SD, how did you manage about the things you didn't want to bring back but still needed while in France? I find myself just moving them from pillar to post!

My current work is to go through all the boxes holding 'jewellery'. I have cheap tat in there that dates back to the 80's and is very definitely designed for a much younger person - just looking at it make me think of mutton and lamb . I'm sure the only reason I have it is because I've always had it, IYSWIM. Still, I'm sure someone will appreciate it at the CS.

Trying to keep the garden up together for that important first impression is just about impossible. Too hot to be out and all the bedding plants are well toasted to a lovely golden brown Still, before long the temperature will fall, the rain will start and we'll all be complaining about how hard it is to work in that


Rather than fret about the weather and the house I took my 'holiday' of watching the TV coverage of the Tour de France. I love all the scenery and as usual, marked lots of places to visit into the old mapbook I keep especially for that purpose. I also used the time to do the craft work I do - in this case mainly spinning, plus a couple of chemo caps and a crocheted alpaca for my display/stand. It made me realise that it was these simple pleasures that I really enjoyed. (I have no idea how to post a picture/link onto the thread, otherwise I would )

I'm also slowly eating my way through my stored supplies - that is something I find really hard as I like to have the security of all those jars but it's simplifying shopping so I guess that's a win situation.

On the positive side, even I can see the difference my decluttering is making and it is getting easier to clean and to tidy up

Take care everyone - I know it's not quite as hot in the UK as here but it's the change from what you're used to as much as the actual numbers. Remeber those Mad Dogs And English Men and stay cool and safe. xxx

Good evening everyone


I'm still on board too. My sister and I had a fab holiday in Wales in June and July and we've seen and done loads. We also did some shopping and I'm proud to say that it didn't turned into mindless shopping. I bought a few things that I had on my list for a while like a water bottle and some books from my wishlist and stocked up on some cosmetics. And I bought a lovely hare figure and a vase in a National Trust shop.



So now I'm home for pretty much four weeks, the first two weeks were very hard and I've been tired no end and then I kind of cheered up a bit and now I'm back to normal.


I did quite some tidying lately. Not really decluttering, more sorting stuff and storing likes with likes. In the process I've freed a shelving unit in my office that will now go to the tip - too battered to sell. On the other hand I've bought a new chair for my office as ever since my old one fell appart a year or so ago I've been sitting on a stool that is rather high, so whenever I was working on my desk I was sitting there like a banana and my neck hurt in the end...



MrsSD I can fully understand that you want the things to be gone, as soon they are sorted out for the cs they're only in the way... Hope you can arrange for them to pick them up soon.



dND no wonder decluttering slows down in this heat... Here in Switzerland we're "only" on 30-34° this week, but I'm feeling so lazy, I could sleep all day, mornings at work are fine but the longer the day goes on the harder it gets... Last week I went for a swim in the local pool each evening, but the water has reached a temperature where it isn't refreshing at all, so I stopped. But plan for tonight is going for a walk after sunset in the hope that it will be cool by then.

Oh and by the way, I guess I'll hum "Mad dogs and Englishman" all evening now, it doens't need much to get me an earworm... Lately I got a phone call from a certain Mr Wu and ended up humming "Chinese laundry blues" by George Fromby all day, much to the amusement of our trainee who asked what it was this time....



So, I'm off to the balcony knitting. Last week I had nothing better to do in this hear than knitting hats and scarfs with thick yarn and size 4 needles...



Have a lovely evening everyone and stay cool!

Hello everyone, room on board for one more?! Only just discovered this thread and have spent days reading the whole thing!

Backstory: been married 32 years, 3 adult children all moved out, 2 littlies still here (11 & 8), one cat, in this house 22 years. Mum passed away 2 years ago, but her house only sold last June; we have a fair amount of her things here that we 4 siblings wanted/didn't know what to do with.

Result: effing tons of carp to shift!!

Also got stuff stored at DH's work from when we did major building work 2 years ago...guess we don't need it then!

Major start this week - littlies had to sort through a humongous pile of their clothes yesterday and be ruthless about what went CS way. 2 part filled bin bags in the boot now.

This morning I'm doing my dresser drawers - paperwork, pens to sort, ID random cables, drawers of doom, etc. Already got a half filled bin bag just from the dining table which I never get round to clearing unless there's company! (The table is about 8 feet X 5 feet...)

Also going to try to blitz more clothes/bedding/towels today - it would be nice to have a good few bags to CS. We also have an organisation that collects household stuff for desperate families, alongside a food bank, so will check their shortages list before I send straight to the CS.

I bet I could remove at least 60% of the contents of this house before we noticed any improvement - so that's the goal for the end of the summer holidays! Besides actually clearing stuff out of the house, we'd like to streamline our financial affairs to make life easier. Each little bag of stuff that leaves the house, every drawer tidied, and each surface emptied makes my head a little healthier, too. Will definitely keep up with this thread to keep me on track, and to both learn some new ideas, and pass along any of my own.

A xo

Welcome Cheapskate


I don't post much - not in the best headspace at the moment; house has now been on the market 3 years and I am no closer to moving back to the UK The first burst of decluttering joy is long departed as a lot on my 'junk' is needed to run the farm here and I will only be able to divest myself of it once I finally sell.


My main battle at the moment is to do without things that I packed 3 years ago and now want to use - I've had to be really ingenious sometimes and sometimes I've just had to give up on what I want to do/make with the promise that I can do it once settled back in the UK.

But lots of encouragement on this thread and a reminder to me of my ultimate goal - a simpler life back in the UK with time to do what I want

My decluttering is still ongoing and the last few pieces of furniture have been offered on freecycle over the last few days. We're almost packed for the move in two weeks time and have found it most pleasing to actually let things go. It's odd that it's so hard to start but giving things up gets easier the more you get into it and I know that I've another cull coming at the other end when we're in the new house.

My lounge echo's when we speak now, we're down to 2 armchairs and footstools, I x TV on a stand and the dining table and chairs (which is also not coming with us) and mountains of boxes and I will keep thins simple as I can from now on, less definitely IS more!

Mrs LW. Sounds like you will be moving roughly the same time as me.....aiming for week commencing 20th August. I am surrounded by boxes....

Luckily the house I'm moving to is roughly the same size as this one, bit it has a much better layout, more storage options and a nice big garden with a huge shed that will help whilst I get sorted. The shed will eventually be replaced with something smaller and prettier but for now it it wil be good for the overflow whilst reading renovation works are under way.

Then my "simple life" will begin in earnest. Although I have parted with a lot of "stuff" I think I can still take it further.

My new decor style will be "Scandi Chic" - pared down simple elegance will be my aim.... not too minimalist, will still keep some mice books and my favourite paintings, objects d'arts etc but it will definitely be a case of "less is more".

dND. Sorry to hear you are stuck in limbo, 3 years trying to sell is a long time. It must be so frustrating.

You're a week ahead LL, we go on the 29th YIPPEE!!!

Good luck with your move, catch up with you on the 'other side'.

dND, so sorry that it is taking so long It is very frustrating - I know as it took 8 years to sell DSis’s place However because of your decluttering you are putting yourself in a perfect position to have a less stressful move WHEN you sell up.

I am sending selling vibes pdq

Re your already packed boxes is there any scope for thinning out the contents? Otherwise, my only suggestion is that you post on here I will try to keep your spirits up as it will happen then you will have the excitement of a new home in the U.K. and all that entails

MrsSD