Weekend decluttering

[rmc28]

I am continuing the project of moving my younger son into his own room, formerly our spare room.  He and his clothes are installed, but there is no room yet for any of his other belongings like books or toys.  Today I excavated around and under the bed and found many things! Some have gone in the bin, some have gone in the laundry, some have gone onto a shelf to sort out later.

More about my Surprise Tip Run and plans for reshelving in the comments. How is your weekend decluttering going?

Comments

Surprise Tip Run

[rmc28]

One of the lurking things I found was an old child's car seat; we had another one lurking elsewhere in the house and I have been stuck trying to decide what to do about them. I dithered a bit again this morning and finally decided they should go to the tip rather than me trying to rehome them. So I checked the local zipcar, saw it was available for the next 2 hours only, and did a Sudden Tip Run, additionally getting rid of a bunch of other things that have been waiting for a Tip Run for some time (2+ years in a couple of cases!):

* broken microwave
* broken chair
* 2 elderly duvets
* 5 elderly pillows
* a bag of dead lightbulbs (inc compact fluorescents)
* a bag of dead small electronics
* a bag of dead batteries

My garage is now emptier, hurrah. I am a lot tireder, less hurrah.

Re: Surprise Tip Run

[tanaqui]

Go you! I loathe going to the tip, so I'm very impressed at you having the oomph to do a Sudden Tip Run. Plus now you have all that lovely empty space....

I hope you find something nice to reward yourself with. :-)

Re: Surprise Tip Run

[rmc28]

It was very much "do it now or the car seats will be making me dither and second-guess myself all week". It's such a relief to have them gone. I don't mind the tip nearly as much as I mind driving. through Cambridge. on a weekend.

I got to hang out with my friend most of the afternoon while our 5yos played together, that was pretty good.

Reshelving plans

[rmc28]

The plan for the rest of the weekend is to work on the bookshelves in that room. We use IVAR 30cm shelves throughout the house: they are deep enough to double-stack, although that makes it harder to keep them dusted, so I prefer to leave them single-stacked. This has the disadvantage of providing lots of tempting empty flat surfaces, on which Things accumulate.

The books in the spare room are all mine+spouse's, overflow from our room. Eventually they should probably all come back into our room, double-stacked if necessary, but there's Things all over the shelves in our room too. So I think in the interest of actually getting my son's things in sometime soon, I am going to clear Things from the shelves in his room, and then double-stack the upper shelves in order to clear space to bring books in from his old room (previously the shared room for both children) to the shelves he can actually reach.

The space I have cleared around and under his bed needs vacuuming (oh boy does it need vacuuming!) but then there is room for some clear storage boxes for his toys. And I have some of those boxes sitting empty from previous decluttering efforts.

Whenever I'm moving things around the house, it's an opportunity to decide if I should move them out the door. Spouse and I have been pretty good in the last decade at clearing out obvious candidates for book decluttering so I don't expect to find many candidates among our books (although, glancing along the top two shelves, I've spotted two definitely-can-go and a run of six I'm unsure about - I'll try reading the first chapter of each as I take breaks today).

I went through the children's books a bit less than a year ago but a year is a long time at their age, so I expect to find a few more candidates there, as well as among the toys. I won't get rid of their things without their knowledge & permission (that promise it makes them less worried when I do sort through things) so it's only candidates for them to review.

Re: Reshelving plans

[peaceful_sands]

It sounds like you're doing a great job this weekend and making loads of progress. I think you're doing the right thing with the children's possessions too - it's good to help them by previewing for their review and giving them the choice but you're also teaching them to make priorities and consider for themselves that things reach a point where they're no longer needed (hopefully making them better at keeping clutter under control in the long run). Even if they hang on to things that you think should go, you've planted the seed and the next time you ask they might be ready to let things go.

Re: Reshelving plans

[rmc28]

So, the run of six is basically "things I would like to read *once* more" so I have moved them into my room to the to-read pile there. I found a few other books that I don't really want, but in a way it's really nice to look at the shelves of books and go "these are all really great books and I am glad we have them".

I have not yet done much moving around of books or toys, but I have emptied some more space in the room: I binned a box of things I put away a few years ago because I wasn't sure what to do with them - in the intervening time it seems my brain has settled on "recycling is good enough" - and I took a set of cot-related things to the charity shop, which had been sitting around waiting for me to decide where/how to sell them.

And I have now found http://www.usednappies.co.uk/ for selling my used cloth nappies, so I "just" need to make the time to photograph / list the dratted things, but that will be LOTS of space reclaimed if I can get them gone.

I think the theme of the weekend has been "just make a decision".

Re: Reshelving plans

[adair]

You seem to have things well in process. Congrats on keeping up with book removal. That is the hardest thing for me; it is So Easy to come up with reasons to keep them. You seen to have some clear notions of what to keep.

[peaceful_sands]

Exercise bike, printer and broken washing machine have all gone (admittedly this last was in order to make room for a new non-broken one!). I also cleared all the clutter from around the old one, prising lids of a couple of old washing liquid containers and rinsing them out so that they can go in the recycling. They were all stored in preparation for me doing this but now I have.

I've started on a kitchen clean and declutter - emptying out drawers and cupboards in turn to clean them, check what's in there and store neatly or dispose of. So far I've done 3 drawers and 3 cupboards - all are now clean and organised. A number of out of date items have been thrown, some that are 'just' out of date or about to go out of date are placed in priority use position. There are still 13 cupboards and the fridge to do (my kitchen has a number of small cupboards as well as some big ones - hence what sounds like a pretty large numbers), but at least some progress has been made. The final step will be to clear the counter tops completely if possible. As well as out of date food, I've got a large box in the kitchen into which I am putting items that can be sent to the charity store. Items for recycling are going straight there. So far, I've put about twelve items into the box to go.

I've also spent a couple of five minute stints trying to work through things in the bedroom to reduce the clutter. I also finished a book and put that to go (even though it was a good one - good but not a keeper).

On the downside, I came back with another 5 DVDs this week from an outing and had a number of parcels arrive containing shampoo and the like.

[tanaqui]

It must be such a relief to get those big items out (especially the exercise bike), and yay for having a new WORKING washing machine.

Sounds like you're making good progress with the kitchen, too -- good luck with tackling the rest of the cupboards and getting things off the worktop.