I'm On The Other Side of Stage 1 Swedish Death Cleaning

[Beth S]

Agreeing w/ PP.  I have a Google Photo Album (shared w/ all our kids) where I post photos of things I'm getting ready to get rid of.
It's called "Claim This Stuff".  The kids laugh, & know that they have a couple of days to claim the items in the photos before they're donated.

I continue to be astounded at the volume of stuff we've stored, and/or no longer use/need.
One example I'm particularly proud of is decluttering our Children's Books (which I didn't think was possible) last month.
We had 750 books (including 6 boxes in the attic).
I sorted them slowly over the week, until the 500 I kept fit in our 3 bookcases.
The kids claimed about 50 of the surplus (which were definitely "2nd tier" quality), then a friend and our Library Book Sale got the rest.

I just highly recommend the process, the result, the memories that are fun to re-live.
The boxes in the attic weren't the solution!

[klmama]

40 minutes ago, wilrunner said:

Those of you who are cleaning out and disposing items, please ask your children if they would like anything.  

This.  Elderly relatives are trying to sell off some antique items so they can share the proceeds equally with all their dc (upon their death).  One dc would love to have the items.  That dc is also the one with the most limited financial means, so owning the items now would be enjoyable, and being able to sell them later, if cash were needed, could be helpful.  The other dc all want the items to go to their sibling, but it looks like that won't happen.  The elderly parents just totally focused on cleaning out and don't seem able to get past their idea of fairness, which none of their dc care about in this circumstance.  

[Halftime Hope]

On 11/29/2021 at 9:49 AM, SusanC said:

How do you handle things that are not exclusively yours? Things that dh or the dc might have a claim to often get bogged down when I try to get buy-in without offending anyone. In a couple years the dc will start spreading their wings, I assume it starts to get easier at that point.

I'm not to the Death Cleaning level yet, just dipping a toe in here.

My husband's mother sold a number of his and his brother's favorite items one summer, without asking, while they were at camp. The boys regretted a couple of those items that were keepsakes in their thinking. We decided to take a less drastic approach, if at all possible. 

One of the things I did this last week while visiting my adult daughter was to make an appointment with her -- she now has her own home -- to work on clearing her room in January.

I have some things stored in her room now, but after Christmas I'll have cleared it out. We will Facetime, and she will tell me what of her stuff she wants to keep and what to dispose of.  I will box it, and she can pay to have it shipped or come get it next summer.  If she doesn't take care of it by then (she has ample means to have it shipped, so it's just a matter of making it a priority), then I will donate the items.  

DS2 and his wife are another story:  they are "van-lifing" as young marrieds and are low income, so I will store whatever they want for free until we need to sell the house in the next couple of years.  At that point, they'll need to decide what to do: it is likely that they will be off the road by then, and starting a family.

Five years ago, I'd have been in the same quandry you describe. 

 

 

 

 

 

[HS Mom in NC]

Speaking of repurposing a sentimental item in a useful way, the box my fake 7 ft. skinny Christmas tree was stored in was falling apart, so the one camping equipment item I kept was the rucksack I bought for my equipment that the mule train hauled to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on our last Big Adventure in 2014. The tree pieces are in it now, all zipped up and safe from spiders and mice. It still has Havasupai powdered dust on it, which adds to the allure. (Whatever went down there will always have traces of that stuff on it, as will the lungs of anyone  following the mule trains.  Luckily for me, I had Valley Fever as a child, so no worries there.)

My brother once said some day he is going to get the names of all the places he's hiked professionally embroidered on pieces of fabric to sew onto his rucksack he got for that 2014 trip, so I may look into have the ones I was part of made for him as a final memento of our adventures and send them to him.  He still uses his camping.