Moving Forward With Minimalism

[MinimalistMommi]

This is a new thread following on from the previous 'm' thread on Good Housekeeping!

All Minimalists or aspiring minimalists welcome!

Well you go away for a week and a whole new thread starts - great title MM !

Fuzz hope you're feeling better today well done on the two HUGE achievements DDs play date and her sleeping in her cabin bed. You should be really proud. Don't worry too much about the teacher home visit. As long as the house is clean(ish) I don't think you'll have too much to worry about. You obviously love your DC and want only the best for them. The teacher will see that -and make sure there is tea/coffee and biscuits/cake available-

Harriet we have another convert to the Lego blanket, my friend thought it a fab idea, thanks again! You must be getting very excited/nervous about the FT job

Artemis happy anniversary and I have serious desk I need a desk but I think it'll be ikea for me re laminate we have laminate in the basement, we paid for about mid range 6 years ago. It's wearing well. It's in a high traffic area and looks fine -old carpet and grippers are the work of the devil-

TheYami any chance of a link to the old get organised thread, please?

hi to everyone, you are all doing so well!!!

Aargh I made the rookie mistake of getting too much out of the cupboard to clear it and now I have nowhere to put stuff. I need more boxes. Hmmph. Feeling all hopeless now

Hi Fuzz. I know the feeling. Not hopeless....just put it in a carrier bag or three and carry on tomorrow. Work in progress. Not a crash diet.

Hi badpoet I think it was me talking about needing to do several 'rounds' of decluttering. It's just different and deeper to being tidy ands organised isnt it? The fab posters on these threads are great inspiration.

I feel calmer knowing the insides of some of my cupboards are neat and orderly, but I wouldnt really admit that in a RL convo!

That said my task for one remaining kitchen cupboard and under the bathroom sink has remained untackled this weekend.

Great to read everyone's progress.

Oh, and fuzzpig surely you've earnt a brownie point for sending DH back to bed for a lie in?!

Have accidentally decluttered three of our kitchen drawers. Two junk drawers rationalised into one drawer of useful bits, found a couple of genuinely useful things, and now have room for a drawer of tea towels and a separate drawer of cleaning cloths, rather than trying to jam them all into one.

Hurrah!

Am so pleased I have suddenly got my head round this.

Well I did nothing all weekend In my defence, I'm still getting over a med mix up so I'm just climbing back up to normal energy levels. No excuse now though!

Have actually adopted something else (oops) but it's for DS and fits into his 'area' in the living room, so it takes up no more room in the house. So I think that's okay. And it was free! And I wanted it but decided not to buy it in the name of money saving and minimalism. I think it's all okay

Artemisa Tbh I don't know how much it was, but the laminate where we live was laid about 10-15 years ago, would not have been top end (probably a mid-range, on offer, something like B&Q) and was laid as DIY (ie no one was brought in to do it). It has seen a lot of use - foot traffic, renovations, heavy duty items and so on. Amazingly you would think it was relatively new, no scuffs/dents/scratches so it's held up very well, better than the real wood flooring of some of my relatives that have deep scratches and scuffs after only a couple of years.

Oops, decluttered another kitchen drawer.

Please feel free to send some of that accidental decluttering this way

I honestly think that a free hypnosis session on motivation helped me. I listened to it once, came out with a plan, and am now executing that plan in a completely uncharacteristic way.

I think it is an app by a hypnotist called Joseph Clough.

Weird and fantastic.

I actually did some stuff this evening (yay!). Finally cleared the stuff in our hall, we now have a couple of bags (small/medium carriers, not bin bags!) to sort but it's all stuff needing a home (eg wires, stationery) and not random things I'm unsure of. Took a few big bags/boxes to the bins so I feel that I have made up for my shortcomings last week

My aims for this week are:

• a general organise of the kitchen (already complete but got a bit untidy with a massive redo of the living room, plus need to home surplus baby snacks etc arriving tomorrow)
• sort the remaining bags into homes
• occasional table back to living room
• some stuff into loft

I have other stuff to do of course! but this is the basic level I'd like to achieve this week.

Now a question for you all: we buy a lot of stuff on offer and stock up, in order to save money. We have a kitchen cupboard for cupboard goods, freeze meat and fish, but we don't have a set place for larger items like toilet roll packs, nappy boxes etc. Where do you fit your stuff if you do the same? Ours currently tend to end up in any room at random

Well done delasi !!

I have de-cluttered 2 DC out for the day, so I'm hoping to achieve something today as the clutter bug has been to visit and left furniture/Stuff everywhere and it's making me exhausted thinking about it and moving Stuff to access the wardrobe again how did it happen????

Loo rolls I stash in the bottom of the airing cupboard, DH hasn't put any shelves in there yet. Nappy boxes used to go on a shelf in the nursery, no nappies in this house anymore

When we had a garage/utility room I used to put the offer things in there. TBH I no longer do offers as our house was-is- so disorganised when I was clearing out our bedroom, I found a large quantity of hand wash/shampoo stashed in a cupboard I had totally forgotten about it!

But I do have a lot of loo rolls, so if there is a world loo roll shortage, you know where to come to

We have a room that collects stuff with no other place to go. Sounds like a disaster.... And is little more than organised chaos. i know what every box contains but no one else does.

However, in the wardrobe (that has lots of shelving on one side) we store extra shampoo/conditioner etc plus toilet rolls on top. Due to a tescos great offer about 2 years ago I bought a lot of Andrew. I reckon ill get another year out if the stash- it is all on top of the wardrobe. We don't have nappies ATM but similar size boxes of clothes etc live under the bed. Can you fit an under bed box under the cot? You know those thin ones? You could pack it with nappies ?

Going into town today- have a few thing ago find / try on but lots of room for buying nonsense as well so need to stay focused! Also treating myself to a nice lunch. Just need a day away from my (lovely... Mostly!) family and time for me.

I had success yesterday, DH agreed we have too many chests of drawers! (I think at least 2 can go) I didn't make a big deal of it -although inside I was shouting "at last at last"-

I think the first step is done, he knows, now I just need to get them out of the house before he changes his mind

I am an unashamed loo roll hoarder not only do I have a horror of running out of it, but I also resent paying £££ for it, so if there's a good offer I always go a bit mad. DH has been known to phone me from work to tell me the co-op near him has buy one get one free...

The desks are arriving any minute, so once they are here I can unpack the rest of the boxes which are all office stuff and get the PC set up.

Have decided on laminate flooring for the hall and living/dining room I think - I was tempted by bamboo but this is a rented house and we don't want to spend too much in case work offer us a better house 2 years in,
although we get it through my work at a vastly reduced price, and we are "responsible" for installing all flooring, curtains, curtain poles etc, so we will have to put something in, even if not bamboo!

Ooh Artemis I am so pleased (and somewhat :o) for you having a nice fresh start! I would love to start over somewhere new.

I am consoling myself though with the fact that we have plenty of time to adjust to a new simplified/minimalist type home and lifestyle, so when we do move, we will be ready and uncluttered... That's the plan anyway!

Yesterday I asked DH to bring down the bookcase that was in our wardrobe, I cleaned it and then moved all the DCs' non-picture books (mostly stuff like art/science/history books, plus stuff like where's wally and big books of old fairy tales etc) onto it, ooh it looks absolutely gorgeous and it is finally accessible (it wasn't when it was on the broken bookcase behind the table!) - DH took the DCs on a nature walk yesterday and they were able to go straight to the right books to identify what they'd seen (including a dragonfly nymph!) so I'm really glad I moved them. We've moved our DVD books onto the top of it too so they are finally off the piano.

Our homestart volunteer is coming on Thursday so I might see if we can go and get some boxes to store the other books in (adult non-fiction mostly). I was tempted to ask dad if we could do that today as then we could take the old bookcase to the dump, but I am too tired anyway. Just me and DS at home and I can't really see me getting much done.

I am annoyed about something though. We inherited some furniture (a brand called Ercol) years ago and we've been using it all, and there's a cabinet with cupboards and a drawer that we use to keep our telly/DVD player on. The inside is still full of random shite and I was going to organise it, but one of the handles is missing and another is broken, so I was thinking of buying some new handles from homebase or wherever to spruce it up a bit (also a matching chest of drawers in our room) BUT it turns out they aren't screw-in handles, they were just on little bits of dowel, is there any way I can put new handles in? I don't really want to get rid of it as there isn't anything else we could put our telly on really. Unless I moved the chest of drawers downstairs... Hmm.

Any ideas?

keep the Ercol!! It is worth a fortune now, so fashionable we have an ercol coffee table that we got in a charity shop and I saw a "replica" in John Lewis for £300

I reckon you could glue or peg new wooden handles on - worth asking in a hardware shop (I have found the men who work in local hardware shops to be invaluable sources of information on things like this and they really go above and beyond)

I am a bit as I phoned my landlord to ask for a massive tree in our back garden to be trimmed as it is casting the whole back half of the space into deep shade. Apparently he needs planning permission to trim it!! I am all for preserving nature but it is ridiculous that people aren't allowed to trim trees in their own property. I'm not talking about cutting the damn thing down, just giving it a haircut ffs.

Artemis Post in property and DIY about that, there's a v helpful poster called mistlethrush who helped me with a tree issue.

Medicines rationalised. Dates of expiry in diary. Huge bag of expired meds going to chemist later. Hurrah!

Thanks for the welcome everyone. Still making progress here, I am on my own this morning (have a meeting this pm) so getting on with my own wardrobe. I have decided to embrace Project 333 (and having read the thread properly on the computer i see it was TheYamiofYawn who I need to stalk for inspiration ).

This is really going to help - long story, but basically my clothes are not stored in our bedroom but upstairs in the room which is shortly going to be pulled apart by builders. I've persuaded dh to clear out the HIS clothes from the small wardrobe in our current bedroom and make space for my capsule wardrobe. And I'm doing it! (so is DH i guess ) I'm not finished yet and have not limited my accessories (scarves and jewellery) because there's no space issue and because I wear them all a lot. I figure if I can do it out of necessity and see how it goes, I can adapt and keep going after the building is over. After all it's a lifestyle change, not a crash diet! (love that). More clothes will be going into recycle bin (today, on way to meeting!) and I'm packing up the rest in suitcases.

Artemis We've put down laminate and moved into houses with it already - I think it's a good choice in your situation, it's very hard wearing AND I have put down bamboo before, in last house - gorgeous but it did scratch. That's mad about the tree - it's actually in your garden??

fuzzpig I agree, keep the Ercol! Quick google found this blog and other links which may help? ercolholics.blogspot.co.uk/ That's so lovely about your children after their walk, it's amazing how reducing and properly storing stuff you choose to keep makes such a massive difference.

Everyone else, enjoy your day/week! Lots of great goals.

Here is the old getting organised thread.

Thank you thank you thank you

Will read it and hope some of it sticks

building putting dates in diary of when meds expire is genius! I have a list on the inside of the cupboard door but its not really that useful unless I remember to check it! Will transfer dates into diary later :)

Blue that's what I had. Never looked at it. If it isn't t in the diary it is as a good as gone round here.

I remember that thread TheYami!

badpoet yes, the stupid thing tree is in the dead centre of our garden ... according to my work, who are our landlord, the whole area is subject to a tree conservation order and we will need a full report from an arborologist (?!) and to give justification of why we want it pruned etc.

I unpacked the last 5 boxes today... they were all DH's stuff and it was a real shock. Full of little boxes and containers stuffed with random clutter - e.g. in one small cardboard sweet box I found: 4 used and empty tea light candles, 2 padlocks, 2 passport photos, a broken bead bracelet, a rubber eraser... you get the picture. I spent 2 hours categorising it all and putting it in his new desk. The annoying thing was that I found 8 passport photos and he's recently paid £5 for new ones, when he had loads which would have done. I also found loads of duplicates - stamps, 5 rubber erasers, 3 pencil sharpeners and other things we have paid out for. This is my main issue with hoarding -he has no clue what he actually has in all these mini boxes of shit.

evil wife award