Decluttering

Poor you MayBee If I were you I would concentrate on getting better. Forget the declutter until you are well.

I’ve been away for four weeks and knew I was coming back to a mess but it’s even worse than I thought. I’ve just had my flu and covid jabs and my arms hurt to move, I’ve been bitten all over by a mozzie ( where did that come from?) and my knee and hands are hurting. So I’m just lying on the sofa with the dog just looking at it all. The antihistamine I’ve taken has made me drowsy, too, even though it’s supposed to be non drowsy. The warehouse in the next village that I had high hopes for just do house clearance and I would have to pay them although they split any profit if they sell anything over £50 which I don’t think any of it is worth. At least I’d know my stuff wasn’t going into landfill but I’d feel upset thinking of it sitting in a warehouse nearby. Still no idea what to do with everything in the garage though that needs clearing. Although maybe I could just get them to clear that?

I think I have been de-cluttering all day, I was only sorting my very many sewing patterns, refining those I am keeping and getting rid of any that are no longer suitable. I use mostly pdf patterns but printed, either copy shop or A4 sheets stuck together

I just let the excess paper go onto the floor, dining room and sewing room. I made new cataloging cards and have ended up with a very heavy ginormous paper potato sack full to the top with paper. That is a lot of space made in my sewing room

Amazing, it was energising and I have been at it all day, trouble is that I still feel hyper, when I need to wind down for bed

I’m getting in on the act now, after many years of keeping things which have never seen the light of day! I have family WhatsApp groups of, first, my children, then the nieces and nephews on the relevant side of the family, & I text them with photos of what’s going out & ask if anyone wants it before it goes on Vinted/eBay/Facebook marketplace/to the charity shop. Several pieces of furniture and a sewing machine have gone that way in the last couple of weeks. But I understand that tastes change with each generation and the space to accommodate things also changes, so if no-one wants these things I can’t blame them - TEN boxes of china went to the charity shop this week, being dinner services inherited from parents & even grandparents & for which we have had no use or desire, so it would be a bit hypocritical of me if my family in turn didn’t want our thing.

I am now attacking the thousands of photographs and videos we have taken over the years - shredding/ tearing or deleting them. Photographs that would mean nothing to my children.

Good idea Deudits
I can definitely write a few words about the paintings.
The frames and glass need a clean too.

3 have gone already to a friend. She's coming on Sunday with her adult son to help fill the skip.

I still have a cellar and 2 sheds to clear.

Grammaretto, you can't keep it all, but the story can go with the thing. For the paintings you're giving away, a few words pencilled on the back (the fair, the year, the artist if you know) and whoever takes one gets the story too. Far better than the attic!

MayBee70, I think a lot of children only start caring about those things much later, so the stories are worth writing down now, even if nobody is asking yet.

The clearance company came yesterday just to take anything they could sell.
They were very dismissive at first but then warmed to the job and filled their lorry.
I changed my mind a few times so they took the barometer and 8 curling stones.

I then bought down from the attic, wth my DSister and her DH help, paintings which I shall probably give away to anyone who wants them. They are mainly by local amateur artists bought at fairs, stuck in the attic since a room was redecorated and never been displayed since.

I should add that the attic here is an actual room with a staircase up so we weren't having to squeeze into a roof space Litterpicker.
Do be careful everyone.

I am not sure about taking it personally?

I am possibly many years younger than you.
On this site, I often feel I am the next generation down from most posters.

When my dad died, there was very little I took to keep.
I dont regret that.
But I can still visit my childhood home, so perhaps that is a bit different scenario.

I have so few items that remind me of my childhood ( my mum wasn’t one for keeping things) so I treasure the few things I have. So it saddens me that my children don’t seem interested in anything from their childhood. It makes me feel that it was a part of their life that means nothing to them. My DIL’s family seem to revere such things because they lost their mum at a relatively young age.

Thank you Litterpicker for the reminder to listen to You and Yours 6/10/26. I like the programme anyway but missed that one and have now listened to it on Sounds just now.
Very interesting and useful information. Hopefully it will spur me on. Our problem is very very common.

BBC Radio 4, ‘Call You and Yours’ yesterday was asking people to call in about their experiences of inheriting things they didn’t want. I’m not sure I learnt anything new from it but it did renew my determination to get rid of the things I know my children will neither want nor need 😬. We have very little of monetary value but too many books and papers - I am a hoarder of interesting articles, old calendar pages and other paper stuff with patterns and colours I like. I have vague ideas of creating scrapbooks or collages (just for my own amusement), but that never seems to happen. DH’s weakness, like so many men, is a garage full of wood, tools, ‘nuts &bolts’ and many other things that may come in useful. Then there are the photographic colour slides that we keep saying we will select the best from and digitise. Oh, and DH’s collections of coins, stamps, postcards. One good thing is we resolved not to put stuff in the roof space when we moved to our current house 12 years ago.

I don’t know what you can do with kitchen knives Grammaretto. If your family don’t want them they might have to go in the metal recycling 😕

There's a huge skip outside my house now. Still a lot of clearing and sorting before I leave.
Sadly a lot of decent things will end up in the skip. It takes such a long time to find the right place for things.

I did have a young woman come to take away my display stands and the men's shed have taken my trailer so things do move eventually.

How should I dispose of knives? I have quite a collection of kitchen knives which I don't need.

Thank you deudits for your wise words.
The trouble is I have a story about every single thing and I can't keep it all.

Good idea Deudits. I will do that this winter.

Yesterday I took a bag of neatly folded recently late DHs winter shirts to the charity shop. I still have 3 drawersful of clothes I will keep and sort again. But these being just right for this season I am sure they will sell. I have a "summer" drawer to sort next year.
I am finding it is helping me to sort and tidy at the moment. Lots of tears of course. But good to keep active with plenty of tea breaks.

Grammaretto, the wee stool made me smile. Whatever stays and whatever goes, the story is the part that disappears first. Before the move it might be worth going round the keepers with DD and saying out loud who sat on what and where it came from, and jotting it down or typing it into the phone as you go, one line per piece. Calendargirl, the same for "the desk": bought when your parents married after the war is exactly the sentence that should live in its top drawer. HelterSkelter1 too, a date and a line tucked inside your dad's desk before it goes to DD. Worth nothing to anyone else, but not to her.

Just realised there’s a new series of Clean It Fix It. This will inspire me again! Even though I’m away from home and have the thought of somehow clearing out the garage so I can have the asbestos removed. No idea where it’s all going to go.

I continued with my decluttering over the weekend.
There's another massive bag of clothes for the charity shop -including brand new evening dresses.
That's bag no 11 of tiny clothes of mysterious origin - mostly left by daughters friends when they used to stay with us for months .
Apart from that I can't believe just how much stuff I've accumulated over the years.
It happens so easily ....

My house move is less than a month away.
I have just let 3 young people loose on my tool shed and on a room that's been used for storing everything from bikes, tools, lawnmowers to unused rolls of wallpaper 50yrs old.

They are living off grid so I doubt they'll want the electricals

At least one has quite wealthy parents so I am conflicted about giving it to her!
On the other hand, it will probably get chucked out so the fact she is saving it is good isn't it?

Calendargirl yes I completely agree and freshening a room can make all the difference. Mum used to do a spring clean and an autumn clean, both to prep for the forthcoming seasons

I too am finding that small tweak here and there does change energy for the better. In my case `hiding` bottles of body oils etc made all the different to my bedroom ambience. Changing a lamp position also helped as did getting rid of a cushion in my living room

A fresh ambience is all important

DH kindly repotted two leopard lilies yesterday. One had got very ‘leggy’, lots of stem, so he cut it down and it went in a smaller pot. The other one had grown well, so it went in the larger pot.

They now flank the electric wall fire in the sitting room, and are the only plants in that room.

So the plants in the dining room, where one of the LL’s came from, have now been juggled around.

I love finding fresh pot holders in the shed to place my rejigged plants in.

Not really decluttering, but freshening areas up.

Just saying that I have lived with the new indoor plant set-up for two days and am liking it very much. I did rescue the nice white Lechuza pots, they are washed and tidied away in outdoor Keter storage. I am getting rid of the red Lechuza pots, they can go to cs. My indoor plant- pot colours are now only shiny white and matt dark grey, more joined-up unity

It is a dark and drizzly day and am starting to feel some need to do another small wardrobe sort, nothing onerous but I think I can take out a few summer poplin tops, I will make some styles again but in linen and only a couple for next year, a winter project

Candles need de-cluttering next but best by being used, they are all safe stearin wax and fine to use. I have a lot

I finally threw out two more plastic units that I bought to house the vast amount if stuff that I needed for my Father .
And I cried.

I have a utility desk my father used. Well I think it's utility as most of their furniture was after they married. Mum bought Ercol furniture in the 60s of which she was very proud and it is beautifully made, but this desk is my favourite piece I inherited/cleared from their house which I use every day and will pass on to one DD I hope.
Its drawers could do with another tidy on a wer autumn day.

Also moved furniture around in the room where I watch tv and read at night.

TV now standing on a different table, original table now next to where I sit, room for the remote, specs, library book etc.

Not thrown anything out, but just ‘refreshed’.

I tidied some drawers yesterday from a piece of furniture we always refer to as ‘the desk’.

Inherited from my mum, it was a utility piece bought when they married after the war.

Glass front display cabinet on top, with shelves, drop down middle section, drawers at the bottom.

Worth nothing, but I’m very fond of it.

I culled the drawers, outed some postcode directories that I had, but don’t need nowadays, and chucked out some old envelopes etc.

Tidier.