Not quite a horder - decluttering

glennie19

My friend came to town today with her truck, so we loaded up the stationary bike that I haven't used in ages,, and took it to Play It Again Sports, and I got some cash for it. And more floor space!!

glennie19

Reading Marie Kondo's 2nd book, Spark Joy, now.

Jazzygirl

Hi friends- well the decluttering has continued here in the new year. A couple weeks ago I put my latest accumulation of closet things for donations to the curb. Last weekend, I put some of the other things I want to take to resale this spring in a bin so those will be ready to pull out, press and take in the next few months.

I was pleasantly surprised to see my on line account at one store from my fall and winter drop offs is $179! I am going to stop in this weekend and get a check for that. It will come in handy for a little post holiday shopping spree I did for new business clothing this week!

Teka

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MinusTwo

Yay for pockets - and they are sooooo hard to find on women's clothes. I've been known to buy men's sweats just to get the pockets.

Teka

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Jazzygirl

Teka- smokin' deal!

I went to my consignment store today and collected $180 from items left during fall and winter to put in bank and will go towards some new things I bought recently.

Teka

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Jazzygirl

Teka- yes indeed. I did a couple rounds of shopping this past week for some new work clothing. Scored some awesome deals.

glennie19

Finished reading Spark Joy, Marie Kondo's second book. I think it is a good follow-up to the first book. She goes into more detail, and there are folding illustrations! If you liked the first book, I think you'll enjoy this one. Ready to dive back into it!

Wren44

I changed how I fold sox to her system and it made a ton of room. Who wooda thunk? I also fold my panties with her system. And for my own benefit they are sorted by color and type.

DivineMrsM

I am on a waiting list to get the book from my library and look forward to reading it.


Using Marie Kondo's methods led to me rearranging a few clothes drawers in my bedroom. My socks, too, are now neatly folded in a shallow drawer rather than each pair tied in a ball and tossed in a deeper drawer. I used to ask for a few pair of socks every Christmas, but the tidying method allows me to see I have plenty of socks, so I didn't ask for more this past Christmas.

I don't fold undies, but I use the Kondo method to keep my clothes closet organized, because even tho she thinks most clothes should be folded and not hung, I still hang all of my shirts. It makes easier to know what I have and eliminates impulse buying ("That red print shirt is so pretty, but I know I already have three different red shirts hanging in the closet so I don't need another.")

glennie19

Excellent!! I look forward to applying more of her methods. I hang a lot of clothes too,, my nicer shirts and pants and dresses. I think Marie is into folding perhaps because Japanese storage lends itself more to that way as opposed to hanging?? In the new book, she talks about hanging also,, and clothes "rising to the right".

I didn't buy it, I have a library copy so I want to go thru the clothing part again over the weekend and do more sorting and organizing. I still ball up socks so I need to change that drawer for one thing.

DivineMrsM

I really like the clothes rising to the right as well as the left to right darker to lighter closet organizing method. Last summer, I applied it to our coat closet inside the front door and what a difference! At the same time, I pulled out and donated old coats from the closet we no longer wore (after consulting with dh and ds.) Here's the even nicer part. We were planning a Christmas Eve party and wondered what to do with everyone's coats, where could we toss them without having to take them all upstairs and throw them on the bed. My husband said, we have plenty of room in the coat closet now, let's just hang them there! Well, he's not usually that good at problem solving (ha ha) but there really was lots of room, and it worked perfectly.

Teka

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MinusTwo

Oh Teka - that is just perfect. Thanks for posting.

Teka

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Mandy1313

Teka, that is great.

glennie19

Finally finished cleaning out my little storage room off the back porch. Now to get a shelf at Home Depot and a hangar-thingie to hang up the rakes and such,,,, there is floor space in there now!

DivineMrsM

We must all be somewhat in sync because yesterday, I started tackling a room in my house I refer to as the "storage room". I don't have an attic where I keep things, so I use this room for storage. Ugh. Lots of crap in there. I'm getting rid of a desk, an old cabinet and taking a plastic shelving unit to the basement. The room contains a lot of sentimental stuff. It really is harder to make decisions on that. I began by rearranging the metal shelving units and a table. I can't believe I have so many old picture frames, pens and pencils and notebooks and miscellaneous toys. Not sure what to keep,what to donate. I pledged to myself to at least sort through a little every day. On my way to start this morning.

glennie19

Per the Marie Kondo way, Sort into piles,,, all the picture frames here,, all the pencils, there. Then you will see how much you have of each item. Easier to decide what to keep. With my storage room,, I have TONS of gardening stuff. OMG,, I have so many plant pots, that I could start a store! I put them all out in one place and decided what to keep and what to get rid of. A lot of the old plastic ones can be recycled. Good luck, Mrs M! The sentimental stuff is the hardest for sure.

DivineMrsM

Glennie, your storage room sounds nice and tidy. What you describe, putting stuff in piles, that's exactly what I've been doing today, even before reading your post. Told you we were in sync! It's a method I've always used and it's effective. I always taught my son "put like items with like items" when we'd clean up the play area and toss things into baskets. My husband never learned the concept, so I'm often very exasperated finding odds and ends in weird places, and no wonder he's always looking for something instead of knowing where it is.

glennie19

Great minds think alike!!

Now I've found a radio/cassette player in one closet! A cassette player! Holy crap. Well, I thought that might be good for when the power goes out then I noticed that it has a plug outlet in the back for AC power. And I think of all the "unknown" power cords that I took over to the Repurpose Project,,, one of them probably belonged to this player! LOL!! So maybe I'll take the player over there one day and look for the cord. Or maybe I'll just donate the player. Moral to this story,, it does pay to keep things together.

ShetlandPony

Marie Kondo says to leave sentimental stuff for last because those decisions are the hardest and can bog you down.

labelle

I've haven't read all of the posts on this thread but lots are so funny. Still, decluttering is something I know we so need to do.

My father passed away in December and my mother in 2006. I am now in the process of cleaning out their home. I'm pretty sure nothing was thrown away or put away for many, many years. I'm finding boxes and bags of mail from 2006 and on, not to mention a shed full of things like broken lamps. It is a total mess because my father apparently became a hoarder in his later years. They had two back bedrooms and a shed I never went into or looked in when I visited. These are basically floor to ceiling with junk- and some good things, family pictures, etc. but OMG what a mess! I've already made I don't know how many trips to the landfill and our local Helping Hands charity with donations, but have barely made a dent.

I told my husband when I finish there we seriously have to work on our house. People should not leave this kind of mess for their children.Seriously! And since my husband's ex-wife is a hoarder extraordinaire (like there are walking paths only throughout her home-it's crazy) my stepkids are surely going to have to deal with one mega-mess someday. They don't deserve two! Not that we are planning to kick off anytime soon, but still. And if all goes as planned we will downsize to a smaller home in a few years. I look around this house and wonder how the heck everything will fit in a smaller place. It WON"T!

Personally, I think we should begin decluttering in the basement where my husband keeps his tools and crap. Less painful for me! LOL. Maybe come spring!

Wren44

Labelle, DS says he is grabbing the family photos and tossing a match on his way out after we're gone. His MIL is a hoarder and I don't know who will be doing that. I don't know where you live, but there are some professionals who can be hired. I suspect they charge a lot. One in New York has a website, disposaphobia.com.

DivineMrsM

Personal experience shapes perspective. In the 1990's, within 4 years, my 100 year old grandmother passed away, so did both of my parents and a spinster aunt. They each left a home full of stuff (parents were divorced). None were hoarders, it was simply accumulating boatloads of stuff after living in their homes for many, many years. It was a draining process sorting and dispersing so much that was tied to so many memories, my siblings helped. It was insightful because like you, labelle, I thought of my son, only a toddler at the time, but he would be left to go through mine and dh's stuff off in the distant future.

Then five years ago, I'm hit with the bc diagnosis and I look around and see an accumulation of stuff from living a full life. A word I use to describe the decluttering is "editing" what I have. I keep the good stuff. I remember going through the books I'd bought for my son over the years and donating half that meant nothing. What remained made me feel so much better.

My husband never had to go thru any relative's homes like I did. His mom is still living. (She recently downsized from a house to an apartment.) Because our experiences are different, and I'm the one dealing with bc, it is easier for me to simplify. We're in our mid 50s, he still thinks he's got all the time in the world to "take care of things." If I go first, I don't want to leave him saddled with all this stuff. He's never been good at managing it all.

labelle

"Editing" is such a very a good word. Because both my husband and I have our undergraduate degrees in English, perhaps asking him to "edit" the mess in the basement will resonate with him more than asking him to clean it up! LOL.

But yes, having to go through family members' homes after they pass does seem to shape personal perspective-it is certainly shaping mine. What I'm dealing with now is not pretty and even though DH is helping some, it's mostly on me. Both his parents have passed, but since their home was far away, it fell to his sister who lived close to them to deal with the cleaning up and sorting.

Some days I do think I'm making progress. I have moved boxes and boxes of family photos (and slides) spanning generations to my house where I am sorting out the best and making scrapbooks for my brothers (both live far away and removed from the mess) and myself and then I'm tossing the rest. Still, I have a long way to go before we have the house ready to put on the market. The realtor would like to have it ready by March, but I'm thinking that is totally not going to happen.

Teka

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DivineMrsM

The other day, my husband was wondering out loud where a specific heavy duty extension cord was that he wanted to use with an outdoor heating pad we put in the garage for the outside cat. And a light bulb went off in his head and he said, "I bet I know where it is, down in the basement." We do not keep very much stuff down there as we have a garage out back. So, he goes to the basement and voila! Just what he was looking for. Acting like he just snagged a big fish, he brought it triumphantly upstairs. "Here it is!" he said so happily. I smiled and said, "That's exactly how easy it should be to find everything in the house, which is a good reason to declutter."

I am hoping that in that moment, he saw the reasoning behind my simplifying our belongings. He sees me tossing stuff and worries that I'm throwing our life away. All I'm doing is lightening the load.