Decluttering

Some of the shelves and cupboards back in the newly decorated room, so I have to start putting some of the 'stuff' back tomorrow. Decision time.

He loved that t shirt; I think I've still got it somewhere as he'd hate it to be thrown away [whilst lecturing me on my cluttered house].

I remember those shirts!

Apparently they do work, but only if you use them. Must look at the reviews and see if anyone has done tests. They do recommend method (oops) as an alternative to just water.

I just can't feel that they actually do anything if they haven't got some sort of cleaner on them and feel as if I'm just spreading the germs/bacteria around. Now, if they changed colour while I was using them it would be ok [like those t shirts my son used to have].

DD1 bought me some very posh ecologically friendly cleaning cloths which clean using only water. However I still have a collection of old rags for dirty jobs as I don't want to spoil the nice ones.

I have a large box under my kitchen sink full of old rags! How many can one person need?
I really should do more cleaning!

If my undies go in the bin they always go in clean?! Probably because I sort through the drawer of clean ones to have a throwout. Or pull something out of the drawer to put on and it doesn't fit any more.

Never hold your knickers up with a safety pin for the same reason durhamjen.Always mend the elastic.

Old t shirts and underwear go for rags in the garage or shoecleaning box here.

It was in case you got knocked down and ended up in hospital - my mother was a nurse.

I was going to say that jen [in fact I wrote it down and then scrapped it]; I'm sure that's where it comes from; undieindoctrinaton of some kind.

In case you need to get them out of the bin again before the binmen collect them, Tegan? Just to polish the car.
Or maybe because your mother told you always to have clean underwear?

Good idea, jane, getting it out when they come. I still have some of their school books and projects in the attic, keep offering them back but they never have room in their suitcases for them.
I am never going to need some of the stuff I hang on to - if I don't like the curtains any more I'm not going to like them in the future am I? It's the books. Although I do have a kindle, it is nice to have lots of lovely books. We have a collection of guide books from places we visited but may never go to again as well

Bit by bit, soldier on.

Old undies end up in the rag box here, for dusting, polishing the car etc so they have to be washed. If I did put them in the bin I'd have to wash them first [trying to work out the reasoning for that but I can't ].

Charley, I cannot get out of my head the idea that you wash underwear before you bin it. Why?

I just got very fed up with all the slowly-accumulating clutter, much of it ornaments bought by my daughter that she expects to see when she comes to visit. I am trying to group her gifts in one area, so that once she has left I can sweep them away into a box and bring them back the next time she visits.

I have started to sort them, one group for charity shops, one to keep for sentimental reasons, and one to stick on Ebay. It is hard though. Chinese mud men, anyone? My grandfather used to collect them when he went to China. Lucky me.

When I moved from my last house in 1996, I paid heaven knows what to have the rubbish from the previous attic transferred to this one so I decided never again. Anyway I can no longer get to my attic because of pinned and plated ankle and failed knee replacement. At least my rubbish is on 2 floors.

I am blaming GN as I am not doing much about the clothes and paper decluttering. I need to set aside a week and just do it.

I tend to find I chuck the stuff I should have kept and hang on to stuff which is of no use. OH hoards terribly, shirts and trousers which will never fit him again even if they could ever be considered stylish again (yes, that old!). I am gradually and secretly getting rid of said items. Books are a wrench but a Kindle (and kindle apps) is wonderful as is a bluetooth speaker as they take up so little space. I cobbled together a huge amount of books and rang the local Mind warehouse and a lovely chap collected them within the hour! I have since done the same with a lot of baby equipment DGC don't need anymore.
I still have an awful lot of toys though and I just don't like the Kindle for childrens story books and so of course there are loads of those on the terribly untidy and frequently dusty bookcases.
I get upset when DC laugh at me for having so much stuff but I am either working or caring for DGC and find I am too tired in the evening to do much and.....an awful lot of stuff is theirs or to provide entertainment/learning opportunities for their children!
Oops! I have ranted....sorry.

Our attic was emptied when they came to do the insulation, but it filled up again. Well done, charleygirl! I know when we cleared my MIL's very cluttered house we were relieved to find the attic was empty.

Oh yes, there's all my art stuff but I may take it up again. Then the stash of yarns and patterns (which I was working through before finding GN). Boxes of children's books - will the GC want them?

But it's the things of sentimental value which I would never have chosen myself that I can't seem to part with.

I am typing slowly so apologies for crossed posts. DH and I sent each other the same cards every Christmas for few years so no waste there.

It's all the photographs as well! At least now they are mostly digital, however they give me lovely photos of DGC in frames which are all over the house! And there are thousands of photos in albums, boxes, etc which I have tried to sort but it seems never-ending.
I think the only solution is to move every 2-3 years!

I had to declutter my kitchen ( the council modernised it,) so now the stupid baby cupboards won't take my cooking/catering stuff, so it was traded out round the family, now my friend has retired and has commandeered my craft room so I now have to find homes for 50 years of craft equipment. And you can bet the first thing that goes I will need

My attic is empty and I am very proud of that.

I have some cards, papers etc in a box in a wardrobe. DB and I found some of my mother's cards letters etc, after she died. It was lovely to find some bills, a menu etc from when she went on a trip to the South of France in the 1930s. I hope DB still has them.

It 's the 'ornaments' and books that bother me - to keep or not to keep? I'm quite happy to throw out clothes. But i always think I will use household goods, soft furnishings again, but I know I won't, so they sit in the attic.
My DM was a great de-clutterer ( we had a very small house so she had to)

Mine are all in boxes; a couple for each child and several for me. My cousin has all the old family photos and postcards and I used to love looking through them. I haven't ever looked through the card collection but I'd be interested to see how the fashion in cards has changed over thirty odd years. I think it'll make me sad looking at them [as it did when I recently went through the photo collection]. Mind you, with this wedding coming up I'm struggling to find shoes that are comfortable and I tried on a pair that I was going to throw out a few weeks ago and, blow me, they're absolutely perfect [Van Daal black low heeled court shoes]. Also a black jacket that had slightly padded shoulders so went in the charity bag; when I went to the second hand designer shop yesterday I noticed that a lot of jackets have slightly padded shoulders [not at Dynasty level] and the jacket was fine [and incredibly smart]. It's now going to the cleaners instead of Oxfam. My daughter throws all of her birthday and Christmas cards away; I find it really sad when I go round there and a card I'd chosen specially for her is just lying in the recycling box. So she will obviously throw all of my collection away . When my daughter was born my husband was horrid to me and I threw away all of the cards I'd received that week, and it still upsets me that I did so .

Welcome rosequartz.

I would get rid of ornaments to a charity- you could always tell your DD that it was broken by accident.

I also am trying to declutter and charities will take holey clean garments because they sell these items and make some money. For undrwear, I wash the items and then bin them.

My mother died in 1979 and left a load of towels. I took some to the local charity not so long ago and they were delighted as they wanted them for their own use ie kitchen and loo.

I have every Christmas card and every birthday card from husband, children and grandchildren dating back to when we were married in 1968! The ridiculous thing is that they go up into the loft and never get looked at. No doubt they will be binned when we are gone