14 Day Clutter Purge

[dibbles]

Today would have been my mom's 84th birthday. She was NOT a keeper of unused things*. So, today I will get rid of 12 things instead of 6. Happy Birthday Mom!

*However, knowing I am overly sentimental and could not dispose of 'memories', she would manage to give me those things that she didn't want to store, but didn't want to get rid of either, saying "I thought you would really like to have-fill-in-the-blank". Very sneaky.

 

[Rowan]

Today would have been my mom's 84th birthday. She was NOT a keeper of unused things*. So, today I will get rid of 12 things instead of 6. Happy Birthday Mom!

*However, knowing I am overly sentimental and could not dispose of 'memories', she would manage to give me those things that she didn't want to store, but didn't want to get rid of either, saying "I thought you would really like to have-fill-in-the-blank". Very sneaky.

Dibbles, happy birthday to your Mum too. My Mum did exactly the same to me when she downsized! My house has become cluttered with my parents memories. That inludes furniture, pictures and whatever they could think of! They were incredibly clever. If I said no, they asked my DH. I love my Mum dearly, but when she sat in my living room and said it feels like I've come home, with all my things in your house, it was too much. I have wicked plans though, ha ha :twisted: when I next decorate, I'm going to sand down all their furniture and paint it! That way I can keep the memories but make them my own too. You might hear the screams in America when they find out, he he

 

[earlene]

Barbsbreakingbath, great job on your hobby room.

TeresaT, great job on the "sewing" room.


According to the plan suggested by the OP, I think the total should be up to 45 items gone by end of today. Not there yet and probably won't quite make the goal.

Today I decided to clean up the canned goods shelf in my pantry & tossed out 10 canned good items.

5/1: 1 item
5/2: 6 items
5/3: 10 items (probably more, but wasn't really counting)
5/4: 4 pounds (of soap)
5/5: ? (I don't recall)
5/6: ? (I don't recall)
5/7: 1 clothing item to donation
5/8: 2 soaps given to MIL
5/9: 10 canned goods

 

[dibbles]

I'm still on track...today I fished 9 more things out of the closet. I went through my soap molds (I have a lot of single cavity molds from my M&P days), and a friend that still does M&P is coming tomorrow morning to pick up a bunch of them. I'm keeping some, but most are just hogging up valuable real estate in my soap/craft storage space. That feels like an accomplishment!

 

[Barbsbreakingbath]

Thanks, been doing 1/2 hour a day. Right now it actually looks worse, because I'm trying to organize. All my tools going into covered bins. All my butters, waxes additives going into sealed, labelled containers. Then time to sort through the fragrance oils and toss out the expired.

 

[Susie]

I have accomplished nothing for the last couple or three days. But tomorrow I am off, and I have in sight the living room in general, and the table I used to study/do homework for my class, specifically. I must get all my nesting spots cleaned off and cleaned up before I will allow myself to make more soap. I also have started a small crochet project and I saw the crochet supplies...EEEK! That will be probably Thursday's task. I work on Wednesday all day, so I guess I am doing the clutter purge in fits and starts, but I will prevail!

 

[Susie]

OK, progress:

Cleaned out two binders that then got moved to the "notebook and binder" bin. I could claim 1000's of items, but no, I will just claim two.

Cleaned out spiral notebook, and put it in the aforementioned bin. That makes three.

Filed soap recipes in the appropriate binder. I should get a gold star for that one, as the table was full of them. I am going to count that as another one.

Filed crochet patterns to try in their appropriate binder. That makes five.

Filed food recipes to try in that binder. That makes six.

Created binder for upcoming vacation stuff. That removed eight items from the table, but alas, I will only count it as one additional thing.

Removed various and sundry non-paper items from table and living room in general and put them back where they belong. That makes eight.

Re-organized soaps that are curing (you do not want to see the bed in my spare bedroom!) to allow additional soaps to go on top of chest of drawers. That should be nine.

Went through closet to remove clothing that is too large (yay for weight loss!) put 12 items in bag for donation. That makes 21.

Then I made dinner and promised myself I would deal with crochet stuff Thursday.

 

[earlene]

Okay, I think I interpreted the goal differently than intended. I thought 'toss out/get rid of' but in re-reading it looks like the goal was really more along the lines of 'deal with/clean-up/organize' where tossing out might be involved, but not the ultimate goal. Well that changes everything. I was only counting things I got rid of (gave away, threw away, donated, or re-cycled).

Now I can re-evaluate what I have accomplished

5/1: 1 item
5/2: 6 items
5/3: 10 items (probably more, but wasn't really counting)
5/4: 4 pounds (of soap)
5/5: ? (I don't recall)
5/6: 34 bars of soap wrapped & labeled
5/7: 1 clothing item to donation + about 4 dozen bars of soap wrapped & labeled
5/8: 2 soaps given to MIL; approximately 2 dozen bars of soap wrapped & labeled
5/9: 10 canned goods tossed out
5/10: 1 item (5 pounds cocoa butter broken into smaller bits & repacked); 16 bars of soap gathered to be my bring-along project for our upcoming roadtrip*

I am on track after all!

* Bring-along project for roadtrip: Because this roadtrip includes my husband, which means limited space in the car for extras, I am bringing soap & some felting supplies so I can felt soap in the evenings. It takes up less space than all the soapmaking supplies I would tend to bring along when I travel alone, and it is less messy.

 

[TeresaT]

I have finally gotten organized. I've shown you the sewing room. Now my soaping supplies, laundry room and dining room table. I am very excited about the laundry room and the dining room table. I haven't seen the surface of the table in ages. The laundry room floor has had laundry piled on it forever and a day. I usually end up sorting (well, my style of sorting) and leaving the stuff on the floor while I wash/dry/fold the loads. The problem is I never actually get to the fold and put away part. I usually end up digging through the basket or dryer. So, I moved my dresser from the closet to the laundry room. Now I can remove the stuff from the dryer, fold it and stick it in the drawer. Since I live alone, it works for me! The shelves I had in the kitchen holding the soaping supplies are in the curing room waiting to be filled. I still have stuff to do, but the clutter has been cleared. Yay me!! (These photos are probably overkill, but hey! I can see my floors and my shelves don't have stuff falling on my head anymore!)

 

[Guspuppy]

So, I moved my dresser from the closet to the laundry room. Now I can remove the stuff from the dryer, fold it and stick it in the drawer.

This is a great idea and I would totally do it if my washer and dryer were not in the basement. I'd never get myself to traipse down to the freezing basement in winter to get dressed though, so I'll just keep having baskets of clothes on the couch, big chair, hearth....until I either wear most of them or finally fold/put away! But I do love the idea.

 

[snappyllama]

Today I did my make-up. I rarely wear it, but I couldn't believe how much there was and how old some of it was. I'm down to one small travel pouch! I did find out I actually have to buy some eyeliner though. Hopefully the department stores won't be having any of those "free gift with purchase" sets. I always get suckered by them.

I also did nail polish. Waaay more than 10 things were chunked.

I also went through a bunch of documents on my PC. That counts, right?

 

[TeresaT]

Thanks, Guspuppy. It does help that I have a single story house and the laundry room is closer to the working shower than my bedroom is. I would grab clothes and bring them in the bathroom with me. This made it a bit easier.

 

[dibbles]

Everyone is doing great!! I feel like such an underachiever. But this #of things corresponding to the numerical day of the month is working for me. Doesn't take a bunch of time, and so far very doable for me. I'll be gone a good part of June, but I think I might do it again in July and August, and assess from there.

 

[Steve85569]

I have a 30 YARD dumpster at my sister's house. She is downsizing into an apartment. She is a four star general at general crappage.
We have "found" things that have been misplaced( buried) for years. Been doing a room a day for the last several days. Almost have the dumpster full.
I have completely lost count of the once useable items that we have had to discard.

This is an EXCELLENT idea!!!

 

[lenarenee]

I didn't join the de clutter because I already did quite a bit several weeks ago (spring starts early in California).

However we have the toy room of doom. One kid, (only grandchild), one thousand toys. Legos, Roominate, Lincoln Logs, Keva planks, Littlest Pet Shop critters, Hot Wheels, and a kazillion stuffed animals. I'm extremely grateful she's not a princessy type girl, but all her stuff comes in multitudes of teeny tiny parts.

She had a day off from school this week so we finally started putting things in order and can use the room to play in again. So in one fell swoop we've reduce the inventory by 100 plastic spiders (scratching my head on that one!), 20 stuffed animals, 15 dried cartons of playdoh, shoebox full of unfavorite Hot Wheels, unwanted art projects, 13 Barbies with various accouterments, (she hates dolls but can't get grandma to believe it), 2 shoeboxes of rocks she dug up convinced were dinosaur bones, and a few other toys she's outgrown. She plans on holding a yard sale to earn money to give to the sunbear sanctuary.

Now, somebody needs to work on condensing my soap supplies into one and only one area. Any volunteers?

 

[lenarenee]

I have a 30 YARD dumpster at my sister's house. She is downsizing into an apartment. She is a four star general at general crappage.
We have "found" things that have been misplaced( buried) for years. Been doing a room a day for the last several days. Almost have the dumpster full.
I have completely lost count of the once useable items that we have had to discard.

This is an EXCELLENT idea!!!

It really is, isn't it? And your sis may have collected all this stuff, but kudos to her for being able to sort and discard so much of it!

 

[Susie]

I interpreted the "rules" differently than what was stated because I moved just a year ago, and did a MAJOR purge then. I am not a "keeper of unused items". I tend to keep things pared down fairly routinely (hence only needing to get rid of a dozen items of too large clothing). What I did need to do was clean/clear areas and re-organize.

I also have a habit of cleaning out one thing a week. One cabinet, one drawer, or one 3 foot section of closet. This keeps areas from becoming really bad, and it keeps me from having to "spring clean", which I abhor. I just keep a bag in the closet, and donate it when it is full. I turn the hangers facing outward each spring, and whatever is not turned the other way by the next spring, I evaluate with a very critical eye. Except for winter coats. I rarely need them, so they last forever unless they become the wrong size.

 

[Steve85569]

It really is, isn't it? And your sis may have collected all this stuff, but kudos to her for being able to sort and discard so much of it!

I am the one that gets to sort through 15 years of mail. Ugly.
Her daughter ( my niece) has noticed several boxes that she packed up to move - three moves ago - still packed. They just go to the dumpster.

 

[lenarenee]

I am the one that gets to sort through 15 years of mail. Ugly.
Her daughter ( my niece) has noticed several boxes that she packed up to move - three moves ago - still packed. They just go to the dumpster.

Fifteen years of mail??? My morbid curiosity has to ask - what does that look like?

 

[TeresaT]

I've taken tomorrow and Friday off. Time to tackle the shed in the yard. I've lived in my house for 14 years. Some of the stuff in there has been boxed for 16 years, from when my mother moved in with me and I had to make room for her. She returned to live with my sister in 2009, so any of her stuff is going directly into the dumpster. I have to go through my stuff to pull out a the few mementos of my career that I want to keep and then dump the majority of the rest. I used to collect porcelain dolls. I have no idea what kind of condition they're in after being boxed up for 16 years, but there's no where in my house to put them even if they are in good condition. Kind of sad that I lost such a big part of myself. I guess that's why I've put the "big purge" off for so long. Getting rid of my mother's old stuff is going to be really cathartic. However, getting rid of MY old stuff is going to be like losing my identity all over again. Then again, that "girl" died a long time ago and was replaced by a strong independent woman. So, it's definitely time.

OK. Really TMI this time...