De-cluttering, the never-ending process

No, we don't have the piano stool any longer (nor the piano) but DD still has all her music and some from MIL and GMIL stored in "her" bedroom!

Has anyone decluttered their piano stool recently? It is one of those places that doesn’t get sorted. It must be ten years since I went through mine.
I found tutor books and exam pieces from the children’s piano grades back in the 1980ies, my husband’s clarinet tutorial books ( I have no idea what happened to the clarinet), ancient copies of various pieces and an Edward Heath book of carols!

I enjoy a good yarn and have a very broad taste in my TV watching .

Recently , I watched an incredible film on Mosses and it certainly captured my imagination . I'd love more Botany programmes .

Thanks. I discovered channel 84 a while back but keep forgetting to see what’s on. I’ve seen some interesting stuff on there. My granddaughters obsessed with Harry Potter at the moment. She’s reading all of her dad’s books.

Hi Maybee ,

It was on the American channel PBS channel 84 on freeserve .
I've enjoyed many educational programmes on this network .

Watching Harry Potter on ITV at the moment !

It’s ongoing, and little and often is how I’m dealing with it. Fortunately, I volunteer at a charity shop, so the saleable items and clean ‘rags’ contribute to their funds. We’re going to tackle the garage next, so will need a skip for that project.

Speaking of cards.

I wish I’d kept a card that my boyfriend at the time gave me for my 16th birthday.

It was quite big, had a picture of a Disney type girl on the front, very pretty with huge eyes.

Inside, he had written in beautiful italic writing,

“A very happy birthday to my favourite girl, Love C….”

I finished with him some time later, met and married DH. But I kept that card for ages, until DH commented on it, so I threw it away (and why not, the past?)

It’s 55 years since I received that card, never regret splitting up with him, but I would love to look at that card again and remember how it felt to be 16.

[sigh]

I know, daft isn’t it?

Esmay

At Christmas, I gave my church a lot of Christmas decorations .
Since the New Year - health allowing I've been having a declutter .

I really hate it !

I did two hours yesterday and gave a friend a dress , which she'd admired back on the summer .
And today , I've done another two hours finding a dress ,
which needs a button change .
I rewarded myself with a nice programme about the 100 Years War - sheer bliss .
Didn't see the whole programme , but it will be repeated .
I rewarded myself with the Liz Taylor film , Cleopatra after major sort out a few days ago .
I ended up feeling frustrated as it was so inaccurate !
But that's how I do my sorting with rewards !
.

What channel was the 100 years war programme on? I’d like to see that if it’s repeated.

I really struggle with certain cards. It all goes back to my cousin having family cards going back to the early 1900’s and being so thrilled to be able to see them. I also like the way that card designs have changed over the years. My children have given me such beautiful cards over the years, too. I’ve got boxes and boxes of them. I’ve been going through some of them just now. I’m having more new windows next month so the back bedroom has got to be cleared even though I still haven’t got round to moving stuff back into the rooms where I had new windows put in ages ago.

We’ve two albums of photos of ‘stuff’. One of things we have let go of, what I call my memory album. It is never finished.

The other is of the bits and pieces we love and don’t feel we want to part with. Some are things from my grandparents, others from both our parents. Some we’ve bought ourselves. Nothing physically large or indeed valuable. Each photo has an explanation. This album is labelled ‘why on Earth did they have these’. It’s not for us, it’s kept with our Will and is intended to help our family when the second of us dies or residential care is needed. It’s fair to say some items which were originally in this album are now in the other as we have found it’s ok to let them go

We’re about to embark on taking photos of cards going back to 1964. They fill three boxes. We’ll keep some but most will be kept digitally. It will clear space and make life easier for our family in the future.

Photos can be jolly useful.

What about taking photos of things you are likely to let go, so you still have the memories? If you make sure that both of you are in the photo, you’ll have the added bonus of that, too.

I enjoy the sorts.

Not many treasured possessions here, varian, so I'm afraid I can't help you with that one.

Last time I went to a car boot, I wondered who bought all the stuff? Because it was filled with stuff that looked exactly the same as the stuff I have in my loft!

At Christmas, I gave my church a lot of Christmas decorations .
Since the New Year - health allowing I've been having a declutter .

I really hate it !

I did two hours yesterday and gave a friend a dress , which she'd admired back on the summer .
And today , I've done another two hours finding a dress ,
which needs a button change .
I rewarded myself with a nice programme about the 100 Years War - sheer bliss .
Didn't see the whole programme , but it will be repeated .
I rewarded myself with the Liz Taylor film , Cleopatra after major sort out a few days ago .
I ended up feeling frustrated as it was so inaccurate !
But that's how I do my sorting with rewards !
.

You can’t take your treasured possessions with you. I am having to disperse DH’s treasured possessions. It is hard. Lots have been sold and raised good money but not everything he treasured is saleable. He had already got rid of a lot before we downsized ten years ago and I never heard the last of it.
It is not easy to be the one left behind without having to deal with all their treasured possessions too. You need to bite the bullet.

The idea of "the next house will be my last" is quite hard to take on board.

We are about to try to sell our family house which our children and grandchildren have grown up knowing.

There were fourteen of us here at Christmas. We have enough space to put them all up and for many years have loved having friends and family to stay.

However we have to acknowledge that it is now getting to be too much.

We have looked at places with fewer rooms but find it difficult to imagine how we could cope with getting rid of so many things which have sentimental value.

Some friends our age (eighty-ish) recently downsized from a five bedroom house to a smaller four bedroom house but she has told me that she can imagine eventually moving again to something smaller.

The reason we have decided to try to move from our lovely home is that neither of us would want to live here alone - in a big house with a big garden in a very rural area, albeit with wonderful neighbours, but with no public transport.

We do need to move to somewhere that one of us could live in alone but that means getting rid of so many of the treasured possessions acquired over almost sixty years together.

I am annoyed at myself because I have never thought of myself as materialistic, but somehow I seem to have become emotionally attached to a lot of material things.

How can I let go?

I'm in for 2024 too! Crafting and sewing stuff, I need to be realistic about what I am able to do, without feeling guilty about unfinished projects. I would rather someone else enjoyed the books and fabrics etc rather than me hanging on to so much of it 'just in case'.
Bought a new frying pan in the sales and got rid of two oldies strait away. One in two out, way to go!

Thanks Patsy.
Everything is perfect and clean, so I’ll drop it off at some point and let the shop decide what to do with it.

I still have guests.
Then I need to tidy up after, before I can restart the decluttering.

Also, this month and next, a grandchild is due, so will be going to stay there for a while.

Plus a relative is going to have an op, so may stay there for a while as well.

Hopefully they dont both happen at the same time.

Georgesgran I volunteer at a charity shop and clothes that are not considered saleable are recycled and collected regularly by a company for distribution abroad. We are usually inundated with donations after Christmas, and it’s sometimes difficult to find enough space. Maybe leave it a week or two before taking them. Alternatively, there are often large recycling bins for clothes, shoes, bags etc. We have a number in our local garden centre.

That’s what I was thinking fancy. I’ve a Salvation Army receptacle in a nearby carpark and wondered about bagging them up and dropping them in there. I’ve a load of similar sweatshirts to dispose of too.

I dont know what homeless charities accept nowadays.
Zipped fleeces are warm.

Ideas please?

DH had a large collection of zipped fleeces. Unfortunately they were all logo’ed - not heavily, but definitely branded. Most for a range of dogfood, others for his company.
I don’t feel they’re suitable for Charity Shops, but would welcome any suggestions. Should I just bin them?

Another one here who plans to get to grips with decluttering. My main aims are the garage, loft and garden shed - in no particular order. A friend will put some things, free for collection, on FB Marketplace for me. Lawnmower anyone?
I’m still going through DH’s wardrobes, nearly 3 years on - time it went.

Whilst acknowledging that I will need some practical help to shift DH’s stuff, I have to accept that I am the only one who can get my house sorted. I can make the excuse in my mind that I am waiting for someone to collect something, but the bottom line is that I have to get to grips with the stuff.
I have already decided to get an auction house to come and clear the garage, so I need to move everything from elsewhere in the house that needs to be got rid of into the garage.
I need to decide which of my own stuff can go- I don’t think I am ready to be too brutal yet. It will be enough just to get tidy with everything put away for now and each area properly cleaned.

Well, it is a new year, and the holidays are over. Who’s in for 2024?

I am starting the year with all the bedrooms neat and tidy, which is very different from how last year started. I do need to continue the rationalisation of the wardrobes though, as everything ended up so last-minute that there is not a system of any kind. The clothes are in there, but not in a meaningful fashion. I’d like to reduce the contents by another 30%, organise it better, and move everything onto slim hangers, as the large wooden ones take up so much space.

I also want to continue getting rid of cookbooks - I started at the end of the year, but the kitchen delays got in the way. I will organise a collection soon for the books, as having a deadline pushes me into action. When they are gone I will get rid of the bookcase, which will free up space in the boot room, another area in dire need of organisation. As I’ve said on another thread, in the summer I want to reorganise the bathroom to gain more storage there, and to modernise it a bit.

So, they are my goals for this year. If I can end the year with the boot room refloored, organised and painted, a new bathroom and organised wardrobes I will have done the whole house in three years, and will sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labours . That may be a bit ambitious, and if I carry some over to next year, so be it, but it’s good to have a specific aim in mind, I find.

Does anyone else want to post her goals for 2024? No pressure, no criticism, but lots of support to get through it as well as we can.