Decluttering

Grammaretto - hope today is better 💐

Thankyou HelterSkelter.
I shall draw that line.

I think I am just on the edge of tears at the minute. However many warnings I've had about how emotional it all is, watching collections of a lifetime disappearing out the door, is sad.

Today would have been house moving day if the sales had gone ahead as planned.
This is probably the reason for the tears.

Grammaretto 💐

Grammaretto

Some more books left today but I became sad. I think it's because the man who collects them is picky and cherry picks the best ones. He picked out some of the maps too. I shouldn't mind because I don't want to keep them.

The man from Shelter takes them in boxes and they get sorted elsewhere.

I much prefer them all to go. They are costing him nothing.

He took the best book shelves as well.

I should have been moving house tomorrow but now I am almost back to square one!

Depressed tonight. 😟

What happened re the house sale? I’ve only ever lived in the one house but they say buying and selling a house is one of the most stressful things that anyone can do. At least it means you’ve attacked the decluttering but I assume you’ve got to start all over again and are in limbo which must be awful. [flowers ]. I’ve been in my house for nearly fifty years. I never had a family home as mum and dad just moved from one council house to another and I always thought my children would like having a family home but it seems to mean nothing to them. I think I’d like to be somewhere different now but I don’t think it’s possible. The memories weigh me down. I did, at least, tidy the bathroom last night; the one room in the house that is usually clean and tidy, but even that had joined the clutter fest that is the rest of the house!

MayBee I'm sending you flowers and a hug too! 🫂

I have lived here for 46 ½ years, DH died nearly 6 years ago, DC scattered and settled around the world.

I put my house on the market in June and it was sold STC (subject to contract) by August.
I found a much smaller house nearby. My offer was accepted STC.

I have been trying to declutter for ages but only in earnest for these last few months and getting into the swing of it.
I have sold furniture and books. I have given away a lot and a huge skip has been outside for a fortnight filling up.

2 weeks ago my solicitor told me that my buyer's sale of their property had fallen through and would I wait while they re-advertise etc. of course I agreed as houses as big as mine are not easy to sell.

But the one I had thought I had bought has quickly been sold to someone else.

I am in limbo but it gives me even longer to declutter 😉 and at least I am not stuck with a bridging loan or some financial disaster.
There are plenty of worse things in the world.

Hope you find somewhere lovely Grammaretto, it can be so stressfull. I've moved about a dozen times and even when I've lost out on the 'right one' something else comes along.
Someone is probably plumping up cushions while waiting for the estate agent to market what could be your perfect nest!

Very true keep calm By the time I am truly ready to move it might be into a nursing home bungalow.

The stairs in the latest house I have looked at are steep.

I've lived in this house for 45 years and now with DH dying in August this year I will be starting to rethink next year. We only lived in one house before and I am not looking forward to even starting to think about a move. But maybe this time next year I will be.

I am crossing my fingers for you Grammaretto that the perfect house/bungalow will pop up and your house will attract a new buyer very soon. And you have done a lot of downsizing... well done..... already so you will be good to go.

Oh goodness, Grammaretto, that is tough. I hope that you can find somewhere to replace the house that you loved and lost.
Regarding the books, do you have some " bookswap boxes" near you?
You could take two or three at a time, and this will reduce your collection.
Several supermarkets do have bookshelves for donations - even the train station by me does this.

Sorry that your house sale fell through.

Unfortunately there's are/were just too many books to do a little at a time. Think 1000s.
I was told that they made over £9000 at the recent charity booksale. not just mine they sold 30k books.

Shelter collected a van load from me for the 4th time on Monday and I have booked them again. no pun intended

I am keeping some books 😊

Well done Shelter to take them away without sorting. Good to book them again.

Were they your DHs books or yours or both? Collected over many years? For work or for pleasure?

What do I do with a box full of old toiletries; samples, stuff from hotel rooms that I intended to use when I got home etc. All old but still probably usable. Hate the thought of it going into landfill.

Ah MayBee. Keep using them up or give them away? Can you make little gift packs for Christmas tree presents? I used to wrap matchboxes in pretty paper and dangle them on the tree - always popular with visiting children.

Our books were presents to eachother and to ourselves. Every birthday and Christmas for over 50 years plus our parents' and other relatives' collections.

I haven't given them all away but it's down to a few hundred now.

This downsizing is not for the faint hearted.

I have a treasured collection of books that I have read; mostly tatty old paperbacks. But I like to remember the time when I could read the classics. However I have even more books that I have continued to buy even though I don’t really read these days. Plus the books I’ve bought when I’ve been to a talk by someone and then buy the book they’re promoting but never read.

MayBee70

What do I do with a box full of old toiletries; samples, stuff from hotel rooms that I intended to use when I got home etc. All old but still probably usable. Hate the thought of it going into landfill.

The local hospital might take them. Not everyone goes in with toiletries and may not have relatives who could take some in for them. I know our local hospital welcomes them.

They do have a use by date, though, usually about 3 years if unopened.

Otherwise, you could use them to clean the bathroom. I scrub the shower with shampoo and an old net sponge because the only way to clean it is from inside and so I don't like using chemical sprays.

They are really ancient.

All the best Grammaretto I know it is very stressful, even in Scotland.

Steep stairs! I turned one house down because of the very steep stairs, no good for an oldie, could not get a stair lift on them in future and how on earth do removals get furniture up there.

Something nice will turn up for you and the ducks will line up

Back to my own de-cluttering and a big fail during the last few days. Seeing that I have space for more sewing stash and nature abhorring a vacuum, I am filling those spaces with lovely fabric. to feed my hobbies and have bought more beautiful tactile fabric.

I had unexpectedly to do a tax self-assessment and can now see the tax I need to pay as a lump sum, in january and then again in july. I don`t want cash under the bed so fabrics will serve that purpose instead. None of it goes down in price so it can go in my cupboards instead and feed my obsession with sewing for my lifetime

I did my sums the other day and it was really scary, this fixed income is fixed and inflation is upward

There is no use- by date on the fabrics, not like on the toiletries that I had to throw out, I am thankful to be down to only soap bars for washing and I am only keeping the oils, they are very much needed on my skin

MayBee70

They are really ancient.

Clean the bathroom with them! Waste not, want not.

karmalady

There is no use- by date on the fabrics, not like on the toiletries that I had to throw out, I am thankful to be down to only soap bars for washing and I am only keeping the oils, they are very much needed on my skin

What about cotton threads, ksrmalady? I have a collection some of which are really old (probably 40+years) acquired free but I'm never going to use them.
If I gave them to a craft group, I'd worry in case they were past their use by date and the items they made fell apart.

Jenniren mine are all fine and strong, My latest are only a year or so old, the Empress mills overlocking threads could be about 15 years old but are good quality polyester threads. The oldest pure cotton threads are nor as old as yours and I don`t use them tbh but am not de-cluttering them, just in case

About 10 years ago I was able to pass on my mother's brightly coloured threads from the 60s and 70s. A local catholic priest had connections with schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a catholic friend told me he was looking for hand sewing machines to take/send over there.
I had my mothers old Singer which had a threads box as part of the case. She had stored all her left over reels in there. So the machine went off with lots of threads concealed in an almost secret box.
I really hope that a young Congolese woman discovered them. I wish now I had put s note inside saying where the machine had come from and the first name of my mother and wished the new owner well. The threads were 50 years old so hope whatever she made didnt fall apart.

I gave away an ancient sewing box recently. I'd inherited it from a relative who died.
I had never got round to sorting out the contents but the woman who I gave them to was thrilled.
She showed me some of the treasure she found: suspenders, lots of elastic, hooks and eyes for repairing corsets and bras.
Several patterns for 1950 tennis dresses. Threads and ancient packaging from shops long gone.

I probably could have given it to a museum but my friend loved it anyway.

karmalady

Jenniren mine are all fine and strong, My latest are only a year or so old, the Empress mills overlocking threads could be about 15 years old but are good quality polyester threads. The oldest pure cotton threads are nor as old as yours and I don`t use them tbh but am not de-cluttering them, just in case

They're cotton, I think, karmalady.

I'll take them and ask at craft group if anyone wants them but tell them how old they are!