Declutter - an encouraging thread

[Housemum]

OK, so have been lurking/posting on various declutter threads - there are a lot of us out there trying to shift stuff. Anyone care to join me by sharing their small achievements in the hope of helping others to get motivated? Similar to the Flylady threads, I think, where they share their lists of achievements. I'll start off with my small achievement today - we have an IKEA tall CD rack which was full of assorted CD roms - I have been through them and ditched a pile 18" high of CD roms that I don't want or that are incompatible with our current PC. Straight in the bin as they are not worth anything, not even for giving away. I know it's not huge amounts of stuff, but they have been preying on my mind for ages.

Next up, the kitchen cupboards :)

leeloo1 - I will try. Am crap at uploading photos these days!

Will attempt to put on my profile.

I got it all from Aplacefromeverything.co.uk. They are also called Store. I basically just copied the list that the girl who did the original one had put up. Struggled with the media rack. Almost ended up getting a friend in the US to get one for me! Then called Aplaceforeverything and they do have them. Just not on website yet!

Wel I think I did it. Tried to make profile public but got an error message so not sure it worked.

Wow, thanks for that - well done you, it looks lovely.

How long do you think it'll be before your wrapping paper ribbons etc are all carefully themed (all one colour or selected rainbow colours?) so as to make it look even more organised?

ps do you mind me asking how much it all came to?

Thanks leelou1. I am quite pleased with it!

Cost wise it was not cheap. About £80 all told. There are cheaper options. I never take the cheaper options though .

I started by looking for an over door plastic hanging thing on the same website which is £5! It's linked to further up the thread in the Guardian feature.

Lol, I think I saw the cheaper one - I didn't think it'd last - whereas yours looks durable? :)

I just spent £149 in ikea on broder shelving (and that was with some bits being in the sale) to revolutionise my under stairs pit of despair area (should be a cupboard but predecessors took the stud wall/door off and just left a manky looking hole). So £80 sounds pretty cheap to me.

I'm not making much progress very fast, but my bag from Cashforclothes arrived and I've sorted a few bits and put them in - I wasn't expecting the bag to be quite that big, but we do have an awful lot of junk, so I'm sure it won't take too long to fill.
I've been spending the last two evenings sorting through a drawer full of old photos and throwing most of them away.

By the way, Cider did you get my private message with my e-mail address in? It was the first one I've ever sent, and I think I must have done it wrong!

Have just found this thread, you all seem to be doing so well.

Our house is actually quite clear, however have been sorting through our loft this week and I am overrun with junk and I have no idea what to do/how to get rid of it.

Some of the things found include:

3 Black Bags full of Beanie Babies (I'd say there are about 200 in total)
16 Boxes of vinyl records
3 Black Bags of children books
Bags and Bags of old curtains and clothes
20 (I kid you not!) Suitcases/Holdalls/Vanity Cases
2 Cribs and other various baby items

Most of its junk we have been given, collected from the houses we've lived in and just taken with us incases it was ours and then also things I thought back in 1996 or something would be useful but haven't looked at since.

I don't mind getting rid of it, although I resent just chucking it as lots of it would be useful, but I also doubt a charity shop would be thrilled by a sudden influx of 200 Beanie Babies. I just want it out of the house asap (this is why I'm probably not going to ebay it), as its in every room and I cannot bear the mess.

How should I get rid of it?

Curlyfrizzball - I did get your PM yes. Sorry - I didn't reply to that but I did email you the list. Did you not get it?

Rubyfakenails - I think I would just charity shop it. Or you could try Freecycle?

I didn't think I had, but have just been through my junk mail folder and found it - sorry, and thanks!

Rubyfakenails - you might need to spread the Beanies over a few charity shops! Or if you're on Facebook, is there a local buy/sell group - the sort where you stick a photo on and people collect stuff from you? There are about 5 in my town (2 general ones, 1 toys, 1 books, 1 baby & children) - try searching the name of your town/nearest large town and the word "sell", or "facebay".

Having to tidy for family party at the weekend so full-on decluttering is on hold for now, just shutting doors on things! We are at least now at the stage of having too much stuff, but it can all go away (except for a few large toys). Just looks too cluttered as every shelf is crammed full, and I know there are more toys/books than we can ever use.

By the way, please help me to be more ruthless with Beanies and cuddly toys - their little faces look at me and I find it so hard to part with them, even though some have been in a box and not looked at for a couple of years!!!!

I've been attacking the hallway today. Tons of crap I had no idea I was keeping! Have so much more space now and it feels so much better! I can actually see the electricity meter now, no more embarrassing digging around when the meter reader pops round

How are we all doing?

I am plodding along slowly. Very slowly!

Cleared out the cupboard under the sink yesterday and DH fitted the Elfa pull out basket I bought when I was buying all my other stuff last week. It's great! Much easier to keep cupboard tidy.

Also started tackling the spare room. We had 6 single duvets! And not a single bed in the house! Am keeping two - a lightweight one and a regular one. Handy for sleepovers and duvet days on sofa if DS is ill. I also found two spare kingsize duvets and two super king goosedown ones that I had made in Hungary.

I have emailed our local women's refuge to see if they can use the duvets. Also have crockery and cutlery to dispose of so hoping they will want them.

Today's plan is to put new curtains up in the other spare room and finish the sorting. Need to vacuum pack the duvets I am keeping. Also want to sort airing cupboard.

I've ground to a halt.

The sum total of this week's work is putting one book and one DVD on eBay.

Have made minimal progress. Found more computer games and some old strategy guides (XP is a gaming nut and he left them all behind) so sold those online and posted them last week. My clothes for cash bag is full so need to organise a collection for that. I have piles of black bags of stuff waiting to go but need my bin emptied first!

I do think that I will achieve my aim of moving to the new house (mostly) clutter-free though

I have never sold anything on eBay. Not sure I can be bothered! Although DS wants to sell his Nintendo DS and games so may have to bite the bullet. It all seems a bit scary!

I'm too lazy for ebay

I use:
music magpie for cds/dvds/console games
cex for pc games (they also take cds, console games and dvds, but I find music magpie easier to use because you just type the barcode in). They buy consoles and mobile phones as well
fat brain for the strategy guides, although that hasn't been completed yet

I probably get less money doing it that way than via ebay or similar, but I just don't have the time or inclination to individually list, sell and post things. I've had a lot of stuff to get rid of because it's mostly XP's stuff, so I find I have enough to send to get a reasonable amount back, even at 30p an item or whatever (and I have had a couple which were worth a bit more so that's bumped the amount up).

I made storming progress with the garage, I'm now onto tricky stuff. I find it so hard to get rid of books, even ones that only get moved everycouple of years to dust the shelf when it's that bad!!! (MN doesn't help, there are plenty of people on here who think parting with a book is on a par to abandoning your child!) Also kitchen stuff - in my head I will one day use the fancy serving stuff/stupid gadgets (I now turn down every invitation to Jamie/Pampered Chef parties)

I've lost the motivation to bother with eBay as well OptimistPessimist apart from higher value items (£30+). I think the key thing is just to get rid though! I took a pretty expensive Underground Ernie electric train set to the charity shop the other week (purchase price all together at least £175+) - I had angst that they would sell it for too little etc but after well over a year of it collecting dust I realised that I just had to take it. Now. Don't regret it at all!

Great news about the garage housemum! I managed to give my porch a good de-clutter tidy just now and it feels good! I have plenty of book hoarding tendencies though - so hard! I am having problems getting rid of OS maps too (for places that I don't live near anymore and haven't been to for 10+ year but might, one day). Over the last year or so I have got rid of quite a lot of books - I don't have a problem getting rid of fiction now it is the non-fiction that lingers. I set myself a target of getting rid of 5-10 every now and again...

I haven't been on here for a few weeks as I've been so lazy busy, but the Cash for Clothes bag is full - literally - and is being collected tomorrow. I've also made a start on the filing/admin that's sat around for years and have made files for bank statements, utility bills etc. Just need to keep it up by filing or binning stuff as the post arrives, and also get stuck into the backlog stuffed into plastic bags in the spare room. So I'm doing ok but need to do more. Got loads of housework to do tomorrow so I'll get on with that while I'm waiting in for the CFC courier.

I really, really love the wrapping storage cider! Mine is all in a storage box under my bed but am tempted to get something like yours to hang on the back of the spare room door. Quite fancy one of those hanging things with pockets that you put shoes in too, although I've no idea where I'd get one from. I have a shoe cupboard but it's full, plus I have boots and wellies on the floor in the spare room. My poor spare room, it's a total dumping ground .

What's this wrapping paper thing everyone's referring to?

This blog show's cider's whizzy Elfa storage rack for gift wrap. I have a cheaper alternative, one of these Really Useful boxes with wrap/tape/tags in it.

I spent Friday night sorting an under stairs cupboard... it was a bit crazy as it took from 8.30-12.30pm (started after DS was in bed and I had to carry on as workmen were coming on Saturday morning and would need to walk past the chaos I'd unearthed! Not the best time to start, but I was looking at this blog and suddenly felt inspired to organise!

I'm pretty proud of myself as, after emptying out 7 years worth of assorted clutter, I had to use a claw hammer to take off the old small shelf supports (as new shelves wouldn't fit within them as I hoped), then started assembling the new Broder shelves ([[http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/S99871457/. these, but with only deep shelves and only 1 section wide). The cupboard was about 1mm wider than the shelves and supports, so it took a bit of effort to get it in there... but the satisfaction of sorting things out, arranging them on the shelf, then putting in the next shelf was huge!

So far I have put:

• under bottom shelf - shoes (mostly DH's - how does he have so many more shoes then me - oh yeah cos he will never get rid of any, even if they don't fit, squeak have holes in or whatever !),
• 1st shelf - picnic/cool bags, changing bags, buggy liners, rain/sun covers etc
• 2nd shelf - diy stuff, vacuum cleaner attachments, old bubble-wrap envelopes for ebaying
• 3rd shelf - gift shelf! (OMG this feels very grown up, but means I've cleared the top of my wardrobe where these spare-presents-bought-in-the-sales were stored)
• 4th shelf - craft stuff (needs sorting/organising/decluttering, but at least its in 1 place and out of the bedroom for now)
• 5th/small half shelf above - spare kettle, deflated pregnancy gym ball (very random, do I need to keep these?)

I've also been tidying upstairs and managed to persuade DH to get rid of 6 ill-fitting shirts (does he actually need 34 work shirts? I think not!), got rid of a load of books (I just got a kindle touch, after being really anti them, and I'm liking it, so that should help reduce clutter too)! DH helped me put a lot of empty boxes in the attic (he insists on keeping speaker boxes etc and they've been in the hallway for weeks). So all in all its looking much tidier. :)

Well done leeloo that's impressive