Any decluttering happening out there?

[StephanieZ]

Today, I got out the leaf blower and blew all the leaves and dirt right out of the garage. Love all those big doors, lol. I kinda' wish I could do that with my kids bedrooms some days, lol.

 

I then took about 30 minutes and totally decluttered the kitchen desk (mainly the storage cupboards above it). It was really pretty easy since I do that every 6 months or so. But, I went deeper this time, because I have a tendency to sometimes, right before folks are coming over . . . to grab all the random papers and just shove them in a pile up in the cupboard. Today, I pulled out all those piles (some were, uh, from 2015 . . .) and go through them. It was really easy since it's been long enough that nearly everything was garbage by now. Bonus: I found $150 cash in an envelope that I'd long forgotten about. Yay!!! That's a serious payday for 30 min decluttering. I was able to re-home some really pretty wood desk paper sorter/stacker things and a lovely basket, too. They'd been in my mom's stuff and I hadn't found a place for them yet. They look perfect up on the shelves above the desk and should help it stay *looking* tidier, even when it gets cluttered. And, my nifty charging station up there is now all cleaned out of the random crud that appeared somehow and now just has chargers/phones/ipad all like it's supposed to be. For a few days, anyway, the desk looks lovely and there's not even mounds of mystery papers behind the closed doors. :) 

 

Anyone else have any small victories today?

 

 

[prairiewindmomma]

I cleaned through one drawer in my filing cabinets today as I was filing away stuff. I found my stack of thrift store donation receipts in my office (10 trips so far this year) and I am tallying items for another donation drop-off tomorrow. I have been trying to go at least monthly to stay on top of things. My desk is cleaned through and sorted. my bookcases are done. I just have two more filing cabinets to go and our schoolroom will be finished!

[prairiewindmomma]

Congrats on the $150!

[StephanieZ]

I cleaned through one drawer in my filing cabinets today as I was filing away stuff. I found my stack of thrift store donation receipts in my office (10 trips so far this year) and I am tallying items for another donation drop-off tomorrow. I have been trying to go at least monthly to stay on top of things. My desk is cleaned through and sorted. my bookcases are done. I just have two more filing cabinets to go and our schoolroom will be finished!

 

woohoo! You're closing in on completion. That's a tough room, too. File cabinets are kinda' the worst because it takes so much time to look at each paper . . . and/or reorganize . . . So you (I) end up spending a LOT of time per bag of trash/shredding generated. Nicely done!

[EMS83]

We donated some stuff today.  Outgrown riding toys, flash cards, DD's dollhouse (her choice!), a spice rack, etc.  We also set aside some too broken to donate for Mr. Junk Man to come get sometime.

Put a small dent in the crazy table mess.  It's pretty much ever-present, though.  It's my desk as well as our dining table, and also serves a religious purpose--busy place.  :D

 

I intend to go through our shelves and bins looking for stuff to donate over the next couple of months. 

And once I get the living room shelves squared away, I'm starting in on the master, which needs more and better storage (insufficient shelf and clothing drawer space, but over-sized waste-of-space desk).  So again, not quite decluttering, but the net effect will feel decluttered.  ;) 

[cjzimmer1]

I told my boys I wanted to swap the bunk beds tonight after my cooking class.  And I came home to find my oldest had actually picked up his room and moved everything possible out of the way so we could make the move happen.  Granted it still took us two hours because the angles coming out of the bedrooms aren't big enough for the frame to go through fully assembled.  So unassemble part of the bed, move and then reassemble.

 

Bad news after removing the mattresses we discovered there is a broken board on 3 different beds.  Not enough to prevent them from sleeping on them tonight but so tomorrow I get the fun task of repairing the beds.  Then I have to move the dresser in the downstairs bedroom.  Eldest can load the top 4 drawers but the bottom 2 have bent rails and it will take about a week for a replacement piece to come in.

 

The only decluttering I did today was when I pulled all the bedding off the beds upstairs.  In the process I discovered that eldest had 11 ELEVEN sleep shirts, 4 pajamas pants and a long sleeve t shirt tucked in his bed with 3 different covers and 3 different pillows and at least 15 stuffed animals.  I mentioned to him about getting rid of the stuffed animals, and he's like "But I like my stuffed animals".  The kid is 19 years old and several of those animals are bigger than his 4 year old brother. It's a wonder he found any space to sleep for himself. He's not helping me win the decluttering process at all.

[LifeLovePassion]

I was able to finish 2quilt tops and start a 3rd from my overflowing bin of kits for project Linus.

[HS Mom in NC]

I was able to finish 2quilt tops and start a 3rd from my overflowing bin of kits for project Linus.

 

Yay!

 

I started a sewing circle a few years ago so we could take turns helping each other get projects done. When 5-7 people are working on the same one together it gets done quickly.  We're finishing our niece's baby's quilt top tomorrow.

 

Edited October 13, 2017 by Homeschool Mom in AZ

[Lecka]

We've just started wearing warmer clothes, and I am seeing some clothes to declutter.  I am going to keep a bag in the laundry room and put things that are getting small or worn straight into it. 

 

I used to always keep a give-away bag in the laundry room, but I switched to keeping it in my closet.  It is better in my closet most of the time, but I think one in my laundry room will help for the next little bit of time. 

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

The past couple two days I've spent some time working on the kitchen. There's not too much to declutter in there although I have found a few things to clear out. There's a ton to clean though so I've been doing a lot of scrubbing. The more I clean the more I see that needs to be cleaned. I've made good progress in there but there's still a lot to do.

 

DH and the kids got in on the cleaning today too. They washed windows and baseboards and light fixtures, and the girls bagged up some stuff from their room to be donated.

 

Now I'm working on our spare room. This is the room where things with no home go to die. I was tired of cleaning. Sorting will be a little easier and the computer is in here so I can catch up on shows I've missed.

 

I've had a bit of a breakthrough this week. Usually I don't get any of these cleaning/organizing/decluttering projects even started because I spend too much time trying to figure out the "perfect" most efficient way to do it. (Start from the basement and work up?, top down?, worst job first or easiest?) This week I've just jumped in and started. I've even jumped between rooms a little instead of insisting on finishing one room at a time when my interest and energy is fading. It seems more gets done by actually doing it rather than just planning to do it.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

Oh...and I found $75 + some change in a wallet I haven't used since last year. :-) That's always fun.

[historically accurate]

Mailed out another ebay package Friday, and I have one that was paid for last night. 4 more items have bids - yay! Have some more to list, including some of my brother's stuff. This batch is helping to pay for Spring semester's classes for DH. 

 

I dropped off another bag to Salvation Army on Friday. 

 

Going to go through the kids' books and see if I can release some of the picture books since my youngest is 10. Last year, she wasn't ready to let go of Dr. Seuss and Henry and Mudge. I might be able to sell our H&M books as a lot. Also, need to go through the science cabinet, I think there are some science kits that were never used or only one experiment was done out of them. 

 

 

[KrissiK]

I'll play. I want to move to a bigger house, but DH is overwhelmed by all the junk we have, so we are incrementally decluttering. I asked him to bring down 5 boxes from the attic yesterday. Two were my autumn decorations. I used some of them, and then prepared a box for the thrift shop and out that in the back of the car. There's one empty box left, so when I take down the autumn stuff, it will all go in there. So, I down-sized by half. The other three boxes are clothes for the girls. I will go through that this afternoon. My goal is to get rid of 1 box worth of stuff.

 

One thing that's been hard is figuring out what to do with stuff I do like, but I rarely or never use, but is just collecting dust. For example, I had this huge crystal vase. I got it as a gift, but I am not sentimental about it. It's pretty, but too big and heavy to really use on a regular basis. But it's a nice vase. I got rid of it. And I had one of those tiered plate holders. I love those things. But I never throw parties to use it. I've had it for 15 years and never used it. So, it went.

Edited October 15, 2017 by KrissiK

[prairiewindmomma]

We painted our hallway that had the photo collage in it this weekend. I am not putting the frames back up. I hate dusting 30 frame tops every week. I am trying to decide what to do. I suspect I will pull photos from frames and ditch the frames from half of the stuff. I don't know what to do with the inherited heirlooms--framed map from the 1880s, chalk sketch of my grandma from the 60s, etc. I am pondering that today.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

Today I continued working on the spare room. I spent most of my time on the bookshelves that hold most of school stuff. I cleaned out and reorganized and fit in books that were scattered in piles and boxes all over the room. Even with what I got rid of the books still don't all fit. I'll have to clean off the kids' bookshelves and see if I can find space. There aren't anymore shelves in the house or space to put anymore.

 

I also took everything that I've found to get rid of out of the house - 1 full bag of trash, 2 good sized boxes and 3 large bags to donate at Goodwill are in the back of the van to be dropped off at the next available opportunity. I also have another box of school books to take to our next family gathering for my sister and sister-in-laws to look through. It feels so good to get stuff out of the house! Lighter. I can only imagine how great it will feel when I finish the whole house.

[desertstrawberry5]

My little boys are loading a large bag of games and a large bag of stuffies into the car. There was a post on another group i'm in about moving board games into large envelopes and ditching the boxes. I'm going to see if i can find the envelopes this week. The games will fit into the box that I cleared the stuffies out of. That frees up a whole shelf for the craft bins that I can't reach now. I am overly excited about having this space  :w00t: 

In related news, I sorted the toy bins so that Tori's toys are lower and separate from the big boys' toys. Hopefully this will make it easier for her to access her toys and play with them independently. 

[Hannah]

I let the person who spoke for but isn't paying for the books she wanted that she has till Wednesday and then I'm offering them to the next person on the list...and we've sorted and boxed all of the Lego friends to go to my 5yo niece.

[lavender's green]

I did a major declutter a few years ago and have been careful about my buying habits ever since then. But life moves on, circumstances change, stuff gets old/half broken/loses relevancy. Time to declutter again.

 

I'm going to start small, with my makeup drawer. Maybe I'll slowly tackle the rest of the bathroom after that!

[mom31257]

I really need to do some decluttering. I have a few areas that really need it. Maybe this would help me get it done. 

 

cabinets underneath master bath sinks

art/science supply closet (linen closet turned school)

pantry

laundry room (shelves with a lot of stuff on them)

master bedroom closet (90 sq feet and has become the catch all for so much; including all of our pictures, which I used to have doubles printed)

garage (have done a little over the last year)

ds' bedroom and stuff he has in our bonus room upstairs (not a huge priority right now, but will be in a couple of years when we start getting the house ready to sell)