De-cluttering, the never-ending process

Is your kitchen still not finished Doodle? Is the sink sorted yet? You must be so fed up with it all!
I am very stressed! The sink and tap are finally sorted but there have been many other issues, and it’s not remotely finished. I can’t see it being decorated before Christmas now. I’ll be lucky to get all the contents put back when they finally fit the cabinets, as everything is covered in dust, as is the rest of the house.

Unfortunately I love children’s book, especially Ladybird books, wooden toys and Fisher Price toys and display them everywhere
most Fisher Price toys have gone, Maybee, except for the FP Olympic figures as I can't bear to get rid of Tom Daley, Rebecca Adlington, Chris Hoy et al 😁

Doodledog

I can’t imagine needing forty, unless you have massive coffee mornings .

I have a lot of plates but they are used for serving as well as eating off, so I don’t want to get rid of them. I’m unlikely to need all the ones I have though. I should really get rid of some when I can start putting my kitchen back to normal.

Is your kitchen still not finished Doodle? Is the sink sorted yet? You must be so fed up with it all!

Doodledog ask away you really shouldn’t have. what do you think. NO Why do you think he got new ones. Some he recons can only use various old programs. That I can’t envisage him ever needing And yes I know he is probably finding retirement not so easy but won’t talk about it. I have found a man who hopefully can transfer stuff he recons he needs onto one computer so fingers crossed it might free up some space. I’ll save my rant about compulsive shopping for another occasion

11 computers! Dare I ask if he uses them all?

Small steps today. I defrosted the freezers ready for Christmas, and got rid of a few things. Mostly I organised it though, so I can find things more easily, and there is a free drawer when the Christmas orders arrive - so long as Mr Dog doesn't take the opportunity to fill it up first, that is.

My kitchen renovations are going badly. The job is three weeks over time, and there is no sign of it getting finished, as they keep hitting snags. I am finding it very stressful, as all the kitchen contents are all over the downstairs rooms, so everywhere is a mess, and Christmas is coming thick and fast.

Gwyllt

So many posts make decluttering sound so therapeutic and indeed it should be cathartic. BUT not in this household I have a husband who won’t get rid of stuff and just leaves things where he uses them and I’ve tried to suggest he might find things if he put them away but all to no avail never achieved it
Son and I have been tidying and decluttering recently. Might I say 11 computers and 9 printers
When can’t find things it must be our fault You have guessed it it must have been thrown away which is not case for the usual suspects of chargers etc
Rant over

You rant away.
That sounds stressful.
Well done for what you are managing to achieve.

My DH is quite good. Maybe better than me.
But he will keep his pile of stuff in his corner[until he compares it to my corner when I have done mine, and then decides perhaps he should have a tidy].

He is bad with electrical wires. They were everywhere.
In the end, if they were not attached to anything at all, I scooped up those, put them all in a large box, and put the box at the bottom of a cupboard he uses occasionally.

It was two weeks before he needed one of those particular wires. I told him what I had done. And said that the box was his "electrical department". He didnt complain.

Hope that helps. I dont know if anyone else has any more ideas for you. Or better ones?

HelterSkelter1

MayBee70 could you take a good photo of the rocking horse to enlarge and frame and then sell the horse on Ebay. Do the same with the other toys.
Fischer Price toys are worth selling. It is a wrench, but if they arent used let them go.

I might put the rocking horse on market place for a small price but, if I find that the buyer wants it for a child’s Christmas present will let them just have it. Unfortunately I love children’s book, especially Ladybird books, wooden toys and Fisher Price toys and display them everywhere. What I can do is get rid of other stuff that has no history or sentimentality to it. I keep saying I’ll sell it at the village yard sale but each year there seems to be a reason not to. I can’t really afford to give everything to charity shops much as I’d like to.

So many posts make decluttering sound so therapeutic and indeed it should be cathartic. BUT not in this household I have a husband who won’t get rid of stuff and just leaves things where he uses them and I’ve tried to suggest he might find things if he put them away but all to no avail never achieved it
Son and I have been tidying and decluttering recently. Might I say 11 computers and 9 printers
When can’t find things it must be our fault You have guessed it it must have been thrown away which is not case for the usual suspects of chargers etc
Rant over

MayBee70 could you take a good photo of the rocking horse to enlarge and frame and then sell the horse on Ebay. Do the same with the other toys.
Fischer Price toys are worth selling. It is a wrench, but if they arent used let them go.

Doodledog. No I never have coffee mornings and hardly ever any visitors. I have sent loads to the charity shops and now have about 10 which is ample.

Don't start me off on white china or bedding and towels!! Have enough for a B&B!!

I have quite a lot of everyday mugs. But I am a bit butterfingers. So is one of my DDs.
50/50 whether they bounce or break on the floor.

Cabbie21

Today my grandson went up into the loft to fetch some decorations down for me, but when he told me about all the other stuff up there, I felt quite overwhelmed. Just when I thought I was doing well with dispersing my late husband’s stuff!
Because of the layout of the house, it needs a team of three or four people to fetch the stuff down and transfer it safely to where it can be sorted ready for disposal or auction. Not much will be kept. I don’t know when my family are going to be available to help. I certainly cant do it myself.

You seem to be doing very well.
Dont get disheartened. It is all a process.

I can’t imagine needing forty, unless you have massive coffee mornings .

I have a lot of plates but they are used for serving as well as eating off, so I don’t want to get rid of them. I’m unlikely to need all the ones I have though. I should really get rid of some when I can start putting my kitchen back to normal.

Talking about mugs. Before I thinned them down we had about 40 and there was only DH and me! Why?

Today my grandson went up into the loft to fetch some decorations down for me, but when he told me about all the other stuff up there, I felt quite overwhelmed. Just when I thought I was doing well with dispersing my late husband’s stuff!
Because of the layout of the house, it needs a team of three or four people to fetch the stuff down and transfer it safely to where it can be sorted ready for disposal or auction. Not much will be kept. I don’t know when my family are going to be available to help. I certainly cant do it myself.

Snap MayBee70 😄 We used to buy a Jack Vettriano calendar every year. It hung on the front door and most of the time we never even remembered to turn the page at the end of the month. I think we have about six of them somewhere and I always said I would frame some of the pictures but never did.

I’ve got a drawer full of photos etc of my son and daughter’s first born. Of course, it didn’t happen with the second child. I never look at them.

I suppose the favourite ones get broken as they are used more, but it is very annoying.

I had a load of calendars from my brother in Australia, which featured photos of his children growing up. I kept them all, but they were clogging up a cupboard, so I reluctantly put them out with the last bag that went to recycling. We looked at them at the time, as they were all used as the main calendar when they were current, but it felt disloyal to get rid of them somehow.

I’m quite proud of myself because I nearly bought a calendar yesterday. It has pictures drawn by someone that features an old man walking his greyhound. I can’t afford to buy one of his prints so thought I’d buy the calendar and frame some of the pictures. I then reminded myself that I have a shelf full of old calendars featuring pictures that I’m ‘going to frame one day’ and I’ve got a box full of pictures that I don’t have room on my walls for. I wish I’d spent my life asking myself do you need this and do you have somewhere to put it. On the subject of mugs, why is it always the favourite ones that get broken? I do put broken ones in my jar full of sherds collected from the beach or garden.

Mugs aree the bane of everyone's lives . Specially the ones with Bloggs Engineering or something emblazoned all over them - who wants those in their cupboards? Mr Dog used to be given those all the time, too. I nabbed the pens (I loved the little highlighters!) but the mugs are just a nuisance, as are calendars. They went straight to the charity shop.

We only use white china mugs, but have a gazillion that were presents, and I can't bear to part with the 'World's Best Mum' ones, or the 'My Favourite Teacher' ones. Mugs take up a lot of space, too, as they need a bit of shelf of their own, and can't be piled high. I might get rid of the spare ones when I am finally able to put things back in the kitchen.

Mr C agrees we’ve far too much crockery and glassware. I’ll begin shrinking it when the physical energy returns.

The bane of my life (or at least one of them 😄) is the number of mugs we have. Not the nice, pretty ones. We have about eight that were given away by companies we worked for, for working on specific projects. Two of them are 30 years old, another two 25 years old. I use them for visiting workmen in the hope they will break them, but no, the only one ever to break was my lovely porcelain poppy mug. MrA will not chuck them in the bin or donate them. I have now come to the conclusion the only way I will ever get rid of them is if I accidentally drop them, but as we never use them that's difficult. I should have given the tree people a few quid to drop one when they were here a few weeks ago.

Doodledog

Me Dog and I are at an impasse. There were two bookcases in our bedroom and I assumed they would be going back in there and have books ready to go on them. They are currently in what has become the study, but that is a boxroom with no space for them - our room is large and can accommodate them, although I concede that it looks better without them. Mr D doesn’t want them to go back in there, which would mean me getting rid of more books. Neither of us wants to give in.

I hate impasses.

Compromise?
1 bookcase goes back in? Other stays in study?

Heavens! It's amazing my bowels have survived untouched

My friend's late MIL used to runaround like a headless chicken ensuring that there was nothing left undone on the stroke of NYD. I'm surprised that she didn't insist on everyone sleeping naked so their pyjamas didn't count as undone washing. On the back of Christmas and all the associated mess she was really making a rod for her back, but she did it every year.

‘Frau Perchta, the Terrifying Christmas Witch. Frau Perchta isn’t as well known as Krampus these days, which is a shame, because this Christmas-time goddess/witch/all-around-terrifying-gal deserves a lot more press. She’s a staple in the Alpine regions of southern Germany and Austria, but relatively under-the-radar in North America.
Frau Perchta was also known as Berchta, or Bertha, and has also been called “Spinnstubenfrau” or “Spinning Room Lady.” She is often depicted with a beaked nose made of iron, dressed in rags, perhaps carrying a cane, and generally resembles a decrepit old crone. But this old crone packs a mighty wallop…. and carries a long knife hidden under her skirt.
She also bears a resemblance to the Scandinavian goddess Frigga, and both of them share one obsession in common: spinning, specifically, and domestic neatness generally. Frankly, she’s pretty judge-y about the state of your home for a woman who dresses all in rags. Legend has it that you’d better get all your flax spun by Twelfth Night (January 6th), “for when the Christmas season was over, it would be time to set up the big upright loom, at which time you must have enough thread to warp it and start your weaving.” And what’s Frau Perchta’s punishment for those lazy ladies who haven’t finished all their weaving? “In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, there were numerous tales of Frau Perchta trampling and even settling fire to the half-spun fibers.” And if should you really irritate her? Like, say, not only is your flax not spun, but your house is a total mess (this domestic goddess/witch hates a messy house) and you’ve even failed to leave out a traditional bowl of porridge for her? Well, then her rampaging will extend far beyond your slovenly spinning room. She’ll do nothing less than steal into your bedroom, disembowel you and replace your guts with rocks and straw’
I’ve only just heard of Krampus but now I have this is one hell of an incentive to get my house tidy and uncluttered by Jan 6th!

Me Dog and I are at an impasse. There were two bookcases in our bedroom and I assumed they would be going back in there and have books ready to go on them. They are currently in what has become the study, but that is a boxroom with no space for them - our room is large and can accommodate them, although I concede that it looks better without them. Mr D doesn’t want them to go back in there, which would mean me getting rid of more books. Neither of us wants to give in.