De-cluttering, still at it, still no end

Slow and steady, the best way to keep on top of things

I know but I've lost momentum ☹

Things I sorted years ago, eg photos, really need re-sorting as it's not necessary to keep all of them apart from people and some memorable places.

Having a kitchen refit helped as a lot of stuff got disposed of one way or another then.

Slow- cook casserole in the oven, washing in the machine, 3 small loads. I am not killing time and `did` the two wall cupboards in the utility room, might as well as I am in the mood.

Got rid of the things I had been keeping for dgc for uni, not needed. Those items sat on top of and inside one of those units and about 1/2 a cubic foot has gone

Storage boxes have gone upstairs and I have now `Marie Kondo`ed` my tights of many colours. Could never tell the dark colours apart when not in daylight, I can now

A bit of tweaking of shelf height in one cupboard and now my various vacuum flasks are reachable and one vac mug is out. It all looks better now and I am more aware of the usable stash in the second cupboard, it was a good way to save up as so much has gone up in price and I will use it all, eventually. I could never resist a bargain and never thought of myself as living alone

Slow and steady, the best way to keep on top of things and in process to remove this and that

teabagwoman

While getting the Christmas decorations down from the attic my daughter came across a box of cigarette cards collected by my dh as a child. According to Google these can be saleable. Does anyone have experience of selling them?

My husband took some sets he had to an antique centre and someone bought them off him. I can’t remember what he got for them.

teabagwoman

While getting the Christmas decorations down from the attic my daughter came across a box of cigarette cards collected by my dh as a child. According to Google these can be saleable. Does anyone have experience of selling them?

Do you have an EBay account. If yes, look for the sell at the top of your screen. Follow on from there.
Or, you could open a Vinted account. That is a very easy site to navigate.

While getting the Christmas decorations down from the attic my daughter came across a box of cigarette cards collected by my dh as a child. According to Google these can be saleable. Does anyone have experience of selling them?

I should put paperwork on this thread too *Fancythat*, it is still in a pile on a shelf under a small stand in my bedroom, all those papers are safe and current, I too do not have the oomph to tackle them and there is room for more

I will do the paperwork but realistically, it will be a job for me during the gloomy days going into winter. I am not going to force myself now, I would rather do less important clearings or be outside while the air is stull warm enough to breathe in

Nanaplenty, photos were an absolute bugbear, especially the ones stored in large boxes, taking up a lot of wardrobe space

I did it the elephant munching way ie a bite at a time.
Starting by laying them out on the floor, in piles for different people, including my siblings. Plus being the oldest, all the old black and white family photos were thrust at me when my mum died

Everyone got a large envelope of photos and my husband copied over 300 photos onto discs with sheets of small images, all my AC had a disc and the proofs. If I had waited and became widowed, I would find someone to pay to copy those photos

Now I have just a few actual photos in my house plus the cds and the proofs. Everything resides in one small box and my conscience is clear. To make it easier, to ease my mind, I also made a family book plus another of my own family and dh made two books, one of his family and one of his works/achievements. Those were made via blurb. My siblings were very grateful to me for the family book involving time -lines, war history etc. None of this stuff weighs on my mind since then and believe me, it was a heavy weight.

Still doing paperwork mainly.
Now got to the filing stage.
Trouble is, I was at that point about two years ago, and the way I did it then, doesnt much suit now.
Not sure at this point how to proceed.

Partly writing on this thread for those of us who are still plodding on, [and any new people who want to join] and not yet reached the stage of karmalady's new thread.

I dismantled and scrubbed my solar water feature last week, a 6 year old pagoda, very faded and with a hazy solar screen. I got fed up of it encouraging jackdaws and pigeons. I had put it all away but now my lovely large cooking apples are dropping one by one, badly damaged by the jackdaws who flocked to the water feature

Gone to recycling today. I was having to fill with water every day, all through summer and the pigeon poop was horrible. Another job less, for my future, I will not be replacing it. No need now that my garden is mature and has height

I did a bedroom drawer the other day but really, there is nothing to de-clutter from my bedroom at the moment

I’m kind of looking forward to the promised rain as I think I may feel more motivated to continue the decluttering. It is still ongoing, but slow progress. I have a deadline of the end of September to get the next room cleared for the decorator.

I’m at my daughter’s house sitting for a week. But I’m going home each day to do more decluttering. Can get so much more done when I’m not actually living there; it seems to focus me more.

If you are thinking about it, do it for goodness sake. I came back from visiting a dear friend, she is very clever but that is not enough. She has shrunk into herself now that she is a widow and her world is smaller. Her house is clean, she has a cleaner but my goodness, there is so much clutter, she has hardly done any de-cluttering in the 6 years since being widowed

Every surface, every professional magazine as a retired medic and they still come and she saves them all. Every item of furniture, every picture, every suit, the boots, the shoes. She is younger than me but she has given up, her energy has gone and she cannot get going

It has made me very glad that I have been so pro-active and I have more impetus to keep on doing. I see her quite often and can sow a little seed into her head but that is all

Got to do it now, a bit at a time and in a few years, the difference to surroundings is obvious

This morning I have cleared the last vegtrug and it is dismantled in my car for recycling. My garden is an extension of my home wrt de-cluttering and is now easy to manage, to water. From next year I will only have begonias and figs in pots

Paperwork? Still not up to date but I am throwing in the towel for a rainy day

I’ve just bought some new flour. Must put it in the freezer for a while. Trouble is my new freezer isn’t as big as the old one. Just broke a large Kilner jar in the kitchen. It’s splintered horribly but thankfully didn’t break on the floor.

Blasted flour mites, I only ever had them once but they were horrible to remove. I use lock n lock for all my flour and never get them now but yes they are waiting to pounce, same as wool moths

I took my shopping trolley to the cs, loaded with top quality softback colourful books in new and pristine condition, all to do with carving, scroll saw patterns etc. They were very glad to have them as well as my bags and also the Greenhowe knitting books. Psychologically hard to do and physically shattering

I have ordered some pastel coloured cardboard lever arch folders from amazon, 7 cm wide. At least I can tidy up my knitting pattern stash when they arrive and they will be here by saturday

I do feel more in control of my environment now, I want my knitting things around me, neat and tidy and filed away. I confess to buying two thread and maple leather binders and pages several months ago, they are so nice and hold all my knitting tips and cables. Much better than rummaging in several big boxes

I will still be doing some circular needle culling, I am in process of knitting swatches for a gansey for my ds. Made a swatch just now on 2.5 needles and will need to go down to 2.25 for the next swatch, hopefully not to size 2. I am in process of treating myself to some lovely new circulars and will eventually remove the ancient circulars from my stash.

Today I can see more space and I like what I have done

Having worked on the garden I rather let my kitchen get into a mess and I now find I have flour mites again. They were in sone porridge oats that were in a tin rather than an airtight container. Thank goodness most of the stuff in my kitchen is now in airtight containers. But it just shows they never go away, they're just waiting to pounce.

Not much progress house wise but did a lot of work on my garden recently which means at least I feel good when I look out if the window. Painted fences that were looking shabby, painted a wooden bench that had gone rusty and threw quite a lot of stuff away. Surrounded by trees I can’t grow flowers etc so I’ve tried to turn it into more of a wildlife garden. I found a frog or toad living in the hollow inside of a Buddha and another one was partly dug into the soil so I’m now putting frog/toad friendly areas around. I had some black compost bins that I didn’t use and wanted to dispose of them but now think they’ll be good for my frogs…

As I found upthread, and someone replied to, I found books hard.
Only passed on 6.
I need to buy a new bookcase. Which is hardly the point of decluttering!
But it has been my only "failure". To date anyway.
And I have removed 3 pieces of furniture already, from the house. Another 2 or 3 to go.
So 5 out and 1 in doesnt seem to bad?! Does it?!

Eeek, I am overwhelmed. My living room is now a tip and there are mountains of folders and part-filled notebooks, patterns and craft books to filter through. The sun is blazing through my window and I am HOT

I have put roughly half my books back on the shelving and managed to place heavy tomes on a low-down shelf. Tidying as I go, sorting and even finding a thin booklet about ganseys, So glad I never gave that away

Next is coffee and fruit and then back to it. Someone on the good morning thread mentioned bookcase and that is when the seed was sown, I think it was Madeleine with the `can-do` attitude

I have seen so many books that I need to read again, slowly and carefully, all non-fiction and many with small writing. The fiction books are easy, I read and take to cs, apart from the few I read over and over again

Give me strength, I need to plod on, I have a pig to finish knitting afterwards

Fancythat thank you

I have upped momentum a bit, trying hard to keep just the boxes of things that would have to come with me, if I ever move again.

I did the cards this morning, letting go of all the cards I made and the ones others made and that I bought from them. I have kept some shop-bought cards wrapped in cellophane

Now for books, another difficult category and it is time for me to `let go` of all my wood carving and intarsia books. The scroll saw magazines are now in my garage to make food and hence compost, via my composting worms. Magazine paper is so heavy. My wood carving group `died` during lockdown.

I need to keep the weight of my tall bookcase low down, will need to move my heavy professional books from top shelf to the bottom shelf, for safety. The wood carving stuff did that job

I will have to filter the actual books to each charity shop here, only two. I don`t want to inundate anybody but, honestly, better done now than it has to be done, voluntary is better

fancythat

This thread only has 224 posts.
I think it can go to 1000 posts?

Maybe some of us ie me procrastinate when it comes to posting in the same way that we/I put off decluttering….

Worth knowing. Thanks.

I had a lot of jigsaw puzzles taking up space so I got rid of them, apart from a couple given to me by my late mother. I have since discovered the joys of online jigsaws, courtesy of a website called Jigsaw Planet. The maximum size is only 300 pieces, but I find that is enough to keep me amused for an hour or so. There is a HUGE variety of puzzles on there, including user-generated ones. Lots of fine art puzzles, which are my favourites. So no more bulky jigsaw boxes taking up space, and no more crawling around on my hands and knees looking for lost pieces.

This thread only has 224 posts.
I think it can go to 1000 posts?

Although I am a regular on this thread, I will leave it to someone else to start a new thread.
I am still, yes I know, in paperwork.

Perhaps someone would like to start a new de-cluttering thread soon. This one is almost at an end and I do believe that I am not the only one who needs the support of other de-clutterers

It is so boiling hot today, I am not going to waste my day so I am tackling a biggie, in slow mo fashion. I want to halve my case logic dvd/cd files from 4 to two. Makes sense esp re the dvds, it took me a while to work out how to use the dvd player again

I am just part way through the dvds and am getting rid nicely, no cases to go. Even all the cranford cds are on the way out

I think CDs will be more difficult

More de-cluttering in the garden today and yesterday. It was not intended when I woke up but my bad hip/leg felt quite a bit better. I knew it was not a sensible decision and you will be able to guess the consequences

Yesterday a massive self watering planter, 50cm high and holding 3 x 45cm square planters. in a row Very heavy, I had to be cautious but managed by sprinkling all that bone dry soil all over my garden. I could not face taking it to my allotment in heavy trugs. That is how I suffered the first hip injury

Planters all dismantled and in recycling

Today I needed to water my tomatoes and my two climbing roses were still looking poor ie prickly twigs. I dug them out and tipped again with rosemary trimmings then I took out the 2 cast iron obelisks, one was especially heavy. I don`t like leaving work for the following day so I took them to my allotment today, they can lay down until next year when I will use one for beans and the other for cucumbers

Crikey the pain came back with a vengence, it is abated now but honestly makes me think of the future. I cannot be doing this heavy work in a few years so bit by bit, it will be done asap. Two more metal vegtrugs to empty in a few months and about 14 heavy trugs of soil to move to the allotment, then I will have downsized the outside enough