The minimalist quiche

[educatingarti]

This is a new thread to replace the minimalist journey one which is nearly full!

I think that I will keep maybe 6 or 8 frames. Variable sizes and only the nicest quality. There must be at least 20 others.

Some good work going on here. The desk is looking good bec, I'm sure it will make you want to sit there and work more.

I seem to have had another breakthrough, a sort of spurt of decluttering energy. I was lying in bed this afternoon nursing my hangover--, and suddenly had ideas of how I could organise my wardrobe and DDs wardrobe. Both are built in and store loads of crap. DDs has lots of baby stuff she no longer needs that I haven't got around to selling/dumping. I will list for sale or dump a fair few things tomorrow.

I have two Ebay items to post tomorrow and have listed one baby carrier. The other I hope to list later in the week. I should make £100 easily for the two carriers.

The boys decided to let go of some more toys yesterday. Not sure if I mentioned this already, last week DS2 was wanting a toy car in the supermarket. I said he could have it if he let me sell his Bob the Builder toys. I've been trying to get him to part with them for ages, but every time I mentioned it he would play with them, but only for that day. Long story short he agreed and someone is collecting them on Wednesday.

I also managed to sell a spare ironing board I had. Wishing I'd taken before and after pics of my hall cupboard now as it looks amazingly different.

Think I should leave it there as this is a bit of an epic post.

Lemon, I do that with dds, if they need to discuss how to make room for it.

Do you keep popping back to admire the cupboard?

Every time I go into it for something it maked me smile. That is quite sad isn't it :)

I will be so happy when opening all of my cupboards make me feel like that though.

Back from the Garage of Letting Go... with so much crap!

I shall ask Sport precisely where in this house-with-no-storage the 30 wine glasses will go (as well as all the other stuff we carted back...). He doesn't drink. I drink very rarely, and if I do it's brandy or whiskey. We don't have huge parties. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!

However, we're one step closer to being shot of the house, which liberates us to talk about separating out our money and formalising separation, which is all good stuff.

bec happy to talk books/writing with you. Could we pm? (Never pmed before but I'm sure I could work it out).

lemon I love your cupboard and I haven't even seen it.

Isn't it amazing how much crap we all have? I can't understand why we are all finding ourselves in this position.

Most of us have gone through the baby and young child stage (or are going through it) and that brings with it it's own mountains of stuff, but even so. I'm realising more and more just how culturally programmed we are to consume.

it's all relative I guess though. I was reading one of the U.S. blogs and she was saying that a comment had motivated her to declutter her scissors. She counted up and she had ten pairs in her house. Ten pairs! How? But she did declutter them, down to a minimalist...seven pairs! Why would you ever need seven pairs of scissors?

These thread is keeping me on track though. Four bags of stuff to the charity shop yesterday, I've just listed 18 items on eBay (free listing weekend) and DP is settling down to do another 30+.

More importantly though, in the last couple of months when things have come into our house it's been mindfully and after discussion about how much we will really use it.

SilentMammoth laughed out loud at the thought of Lemon going back to admire her cupboard because I keep doing that with my desk. (And when I'm not at home I occasionally glance at the photos on my phone - but let's just keep that between ourselves, shall we?) It's not sad at all that you feel happy when you open your cupboard Lemon, we're all working towards that - it's such a great feeling!

I checked out the garage that DH today - he's done so much hard work... but he was exaggerating a little to say that it was done. There are still a few things in there that need Freecycling and sorting. That will be my job for Friday.

Have PMed you harriet - it's in your Inbox.

Happy decluttering one and all.

Went to the tip today. Took our old tv which has been sat in the hall awaiting final insurance cheque, iron which dh replaced a few weeks ago as ours spluttered and died a death, and our toaster which went pop one side on Friday, and the other went yesterday.

Kitchen has been fiddled with. I picked up a spice rack in Sainsbury's for £3.60. Have needed something for all my small jars. Decluttered a load of stale crackers and OOD food (dh insists they're fine, and they possibly are but we haven't used them this far, two years later, so probably won't use them...).

Am feeling ruthless with the downstairs space atm.

I thought that sounded like a lot of scissors but I have to stand up and say 'my name is sommewhereelse and I have 13 pairs of scissors'.

We have 7 "essential" pairs : nail scissors in the bathroom, scissors in the first aid kit, office scissors, kitchen scissors, 1 x scissors in 2 school pencil cases (one for each child), sewing scissors in the sewing box.

I can find good reasons for having all of these: sewing scissors are much bigger and sharper. I cut meat with kitchen scissors so they only get used in the kitchen etc

We also have scissors in a travel first aid kit and five pairs of scissors which make pretty patterns for craft projects. These aren't so essential but they make life easier and more fun.

Evening all!

Another productive day here today. Went to the tip and recycled some old electricals that don't work. Also took lots of cardboard and bottles for recycling.

Cleared out the magazine rack and took that to the recycling too. I also managed to pack up lots of DDs old clothes and gave them to a very grateful friend!

Right now we are looking at some furniture (to replace DH's giant bookcase which he has promised to downsize!). I think a nice sideboard would be good and make the room look lots bigger as its dominated by the huge, dark, bookcase.

Downfall making a scrap book of your favourite bits of the DCs' school work is a good idea. I think it probably means more to the parent that the producer of the work. I'm not at that stage yet, DD is only 18mo.

Now, scissors. I am having a mental scissor round-up now.
Nail x2
Kitchen x2
Decorating x1
Hair trimming x1
Dog hair trimming x1
My craft scissors:
Fabric shears x1
Embroidery x 3 (that I can think of)
Paper x 1

Twelve pairs. Hmm, that's quite a lot. I may have to do something about this.

Went to SIL's tonight and she gave us another stack of books and puzzles etc for DD. Most in good condition but a couple of those noisy books with only two out of seven buttons working, so although I'm grateful for the good bits, I do wonder why she doesn't just put the rubbish in the bin. Ah well, it'll go in our bin just as easily I suppose.

Have managed to give away 2 boxes of pristine and gorgeous girls' clothes, and completely fill a cash for clothes bag with others.

I reckon I have at least 12 pairs of scissors, too, and I insist that I need another.

Oh, scissors. I bought 12 pairs for a workshop - why I didn't tell the participants to bring their own, I do not know - and was given 7 pairs of varying sizes free with my sewing machine. Add that to the little sewing scissors I inherited & the 2 pairs we already had and we have a grand total of 22 pairs.

Sport is recognising that we need somewhere to store all the stuff from the garage and also sees we should radically reduce what we have. Not minimalist, but a start... We have 2 big boxes to add to our car boot stock. He wants to have the ceramic vases and jugs in his bedroom, so that's a good result.

Scissors
Work pairs - 3 in my "pencil case" I take when tutoring - 1 left-handed, 1 rounded end right-handed and 1 pointed end right-handed.
On my desk - my precious and wonderful large pair of left-handed scissors, another large right-handed pair.
Sewing - small sharp pair for embroidery and delicate cutting out, Larger sharp pair for cutting fabric, pair in hand embroidered holder given to me by godmother, pair of thread snips - new Christmas present.
Craft - 2 or 3 pairs in random sizes that I don't mind blunting by using to cut cardboard, tinfoil or other stuff.
Bedside drawer - nail scissors
Kitchen drawer - kitchen scissors

I make that 14 pairs!

Just remembered: 2 pairs of hair cutting scissors.

Loving Scissor Gate!

Ok, childrens pairs, 11 each, so four total (no, they can't share, this is asking for trouble)

Large kitchen so scissors
Small kitchen scissors
Sewing scissors
random pair in stationary drawer
Pair in work stationary folder that lives in my briefcase

Chicken scissors (for clipping wings)

Well, that's ten! I do need them all though (slinks off)

Have been considering the barn of doom. Part of me thinks, ace, I will tackle it on maternity leave (next week, whoo hooooo!). Part of me thinks, who am I kidding?

One pair childrens scissors each!

Hey folks. I've sorted out a few bits to go to the amenity site this morning. I'm struggling with one item and the emotions it's bringing up though. How do you get rid of something that reminds you of a time when you were strong, independent, and confident, if you are currently none of those things?

silent, you're seriously considering tackling the Barn of Doom while heavily pregnant/with a newborn? What does the Hive Quiche think about this? I guess that we might permit you to do things that don't involve heavy lifting...

Penny, that's a tough one. It's easy to ditch the stuff that makes you feel crap, isn't it?! Take a photo of it, maybe?

Nah, I'd feel stupid taking a picture of a lamp :). I bought it after I threw out my cheating, weed-smoking, non-financially-contributing, non-housework-contributing, no-personal-hygiene ex, and moved into a beautiful new flat all of my own. It was one of the very few times I have bought an item that I actually liked, rather than having to buy the absolute cheapest I could find. Even then it was only £5. How stupid, to be struggling to get rid of a £5 lamp. It does go with the decor that we have now in the living room, it just never gets used. Maybe I'll put it in the spare room for a while. I just feel like I shouldn't be attached to it, because I'm with DP now, we're happy. I suppose being a SAHM at the moment, I don't feel strong and independent, and I'm currently having a very shallow hair / body / clothes crisis, so not confident either. But anyway... in an attempt to remedy a small part of that, I'm decluttering my hair tomorrow. Going to the hairdressers, to have it cut. Either short enough so I can't tie it back, or very very short, pixie-style. I CAN'T FREAKIN' WAIT!!!!!

Good afternoon everyone. I am really on a roll at the moment. Unfortunately I'm at work tomorrow and that tends to stop me a bit. I'm only working one day this week though so hopefully will get back on it on Wednesday and Thursday.

Today I have taken a couple of large bags to the dump and organised a lots of clothing to go to the cash for clothes shop. I have also listed a few more baby items on FB, Gumtree and Ebay.

I have been thinking about hpw to best arrange DDs room as she gets older. She will be moving from a cot to a bed in the next few months and needs som toy storage too. I've managed to almost empty the bottom of her built in wardrobe as it was full fo stuff to sell or charity shop that I had never got around to doing. I have also bought a bookcase for her room to store most of the toys. It is from a shop that closed down and was very cheap.

I have almost decided on the new storage for the boys room too, it is going to be half of the original sixe I had planned. I realised that we do not need more storage in the house, we need less stuff.

I als emptied out some of the bottom of my wardrobe today. Why on earth did I have a large vanity case for so long. I never use it. Also sending my wedding shoes to the charity shop. I will never wear them again.

I think I've lost some motivation don't know why - It's the first proper day off work today and I've done very little - but perhaps I did need some chill time!