I am desperate to have a clean and tidy home. It's always ruined my life and I always feel very lonely, partly because I can never have anybody over without a week or so notice to clean up! I am fed up of being like this and want to make a change for good. I know that the biggest step is to declutter, as it will make it so much easier to keep tidy.
I have delcuttered lots of times before, and I then end up filling it up again! I don't want to do this again! I want this to be the last time!!
Anybody up for joining me?
I have already done my girls room (They share a small double and it was always so full that they couldn't ever have space to play in it!). It is so much easier now, I finished it about a week ago but have actually kept it tidy!
I am now moving onto my Son's room. It's a TEENY box room with just a cotbed and one chest of drawers in, no spare space and I have an extra baby to fit in their soon as we are expecting again. Baby will sleep in our room for as long as possible but no idea where the baby's clothes etc will go! So iv culled his clothes and now have 2 spare drawers, and got an under bed drawer now which I can use although not really space to pull it out!
Anyway, would anybody like to join me in my mission? We could support each other and keep each other going? I have also strarted looking into flylady and hope to use some bits from there, but not follow it fully as I like to do my own thing a bit.
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Anybody want to join me in a mega, whole house declutter?
LilllyLovesLife · 04/03/2014 10:03
Well done bea.
I've almost sorted through all 8 Expedit boxes. Filled two green recycling bags with old paperwork and the kitchen bin with rubbish 
I've gathered today all the random euros leftover from previous holidays and put them with our passports etc ready for the next one.
I've also got together odds and sods of old foreign currency to donate to charity.
I've done a big load of whites, unloaded and loaded dishwasher and packed away grocery delivery.
Tomorrow I plan to clear the two bathroom cabinets and tackle the giant wardrobe in the spare room which is half full with random stuff that's not clothes! If there's time after that I'm going to sort through my many shoes and boots and really rationalise them.
Well done ladies! Sounds like lots of progress is being made!
With the charity shops, the one I used to live above used to just throw loads of perfectly good, useable stuff out into our communal bins (Often stuff got stolen after that which I actually thought was a good thing! But shows they could of sold/given away). They said once they were full they would still get donations and had no where to store it. I have seen people on here say similar things from people who have volunteered and seen the amount of waste. There is one local to me, that until recently only sold children's items. They were desperate for volanteers and I was going to talk to them about if I could help out as and when I had childcare rather than commit to certain hours. But while I was in there shopping, they binned 5 bin bags of cuddly toys (not crappy old ones, it included disney, current TV shows etc) and just put them in the normal rubbish. It annoyed me as even if they couldn't sell them, why not give them away? Stick them on freecycle, give them to a school for a teddy tombola or even just stick them outside with a FREE sign on. It put me off so I didn't offer to volunteer, if I had to witness regular waste like that it would really upset me. I do want to get more ruthless with getting rid of stuff but I NEVER want to be somebody who just bins stuff that somebody else could use. Takes 2 mins to list it on freecycle or something like that and free stuff always goes.
Right well for today! I plan to have a quick tidy up downstairs, then work on my dining room. It's been our dumping ground for weeks and we can't even eat in there anymore 
. If we got back to eating in there every day then it would probably help me keep the living room cleaner as I wouldn't have to hoover 3 times a day! And if the space was clear then maybe DS would be less mischievous in there. He is currently a total nightmare! (When I say dining room it's actually a very strand combination of dining room/utility room/route to the garden/storage of kids crap and uniform/route to downstairs toilet and shower. It contains the fridge, freezer and washing machine etc so the dining table becomes a prefect place to put piles of clean washing!
My food shopping is done and put away, Half way through clearing the mountain that was on the dining table.
My Sister has just invited me round to hers for lunch on Saturday along with my other sisters and all our children. Sounds lovely excpet I actually have a child free day on Saturday and planned to have a day actually achieving stuff and then maybe doing something nice with DH after he has had a stressful few weeks at work. Now I don't know what to do as I would love to see them and I feel bad turning her down when I could easily change my plans. But TBH the last thing I want to do on a child free day is be around everybody else's children. Is that really bad? Love them all to bits it's just that it's rare to have child free time and I have a to do list longer than I could ever write. So bit stuck!
I guess the problem with any charity shop is that everybody's standards are different. Plus I guess if they kept everything they would be overflowing. But I personally, if I ran a charity shop, would prefer to sell it all at a cheap price, than just sell stuff for more but end up binning half of it. The charity shops round here are massively overpriced and then wonder why they don't sell it. 
This discussion of Charity shops makes me feel that I am not mad in targeting my donations to certain shops. For example there is a Barnados book shop in the town where I work and I take certain old paperbacks and hardbacks there that I'm sure that the Cancer Research shop would bin. When I am sorting out stuff for Charity I often go around local shops to see who is more likely to display/sell it! For example, not all shops seem to sell children's clothes or adult shoes.
On the other hand, I am feeling less guilty about my large bag of run-of-the-mill clothes that I have deemed unsuitable for eBay and am collecting together for a Cash For Clothes place.
iv sold quite a bit today. about £50 worth of clothes and bits and bobs so that's cleared a bit of space and also reminded me how much easier Facebook selling is compared to the NCT NNS. Just about to have dinner and a bath and then get the rest of the unsold goods out the car. The boxes of stuff I sorted through turned out to only be half mine - loads of other sellers unsold goods had been put in my stuff! not by me I must add! now waiting to hear back as to what I do with it. makes me wonder what oof mine has gone home with other sellers as it clearly wasn't sorted properly 
Tbh it was probably sorted by other volunteers, who just like you at the end of a long day were trying to get home as quick as possible and accidentally mis-sorted stuff. Believe me when I say that sorting out hiccups like that is not fun for the volunteers who try and co-ordinate NNS either!
Glad you are having success with your fb selling
Blondie - yes it was sorted by volunteers (including me) but I was very careful and double checked everything I put in any bags/boxes. It's lots of very low priced items from a whole range of sellers so TBH it's probably not worth their while to come and pick it up or anything, which is a shame.
Sorted the rest of the NCT stuff very roughly, mainly just into what's already listed on facebook/netmums and another big box of stuff I need to photo and list. Stuff does seem to be selling but it's just a pain having so much of it hanging around in boxes in my living room. I wish I had stored it all upstairs now really, I don't have much space up there but there is a bit of floor space where the cot for the new baby will be going But now it's in huge boxes that will be too heavy to lift I would imagine. It's mainly down here as I like to sit in front of the telly and do it so it's not as much of a chore. But it is in the way big time now.
My friend might be coming over tonight now and she is the biggest clean/tidy freak ever and I am now stressing about the state of the house. I HATE this. We were meant to be going out for the evening but now DH may not be home in time so we have said here as a back up (she has no children). I am however giving her 4 bags of stuff I cleared out from my wardrobe, for a charity fund raiser she is doing at the weekend. So that will free up some space!
Right off to clean and tidy the entire downstairs to attempt to make it visitor ready
Warm - you still must be making good progress though. It takes time, and lots of it unfortunately!
NightCircus - I soo wish I could do it. Just give it all away. I really do. I am such a tight arse though it's the way iv been brought up I think 
Iv just realised the time! The day has flown by! I am lucky I checked as I was about to start on something else but i've got to leave in 10 mins and DS is running round naked after covering himself in food so having some nappy free time for his sore bum. And i got back in my PJs for the pregnancy comfort of not feeling squashed! LOL So better run.
Got lots done, House semi tidy and semi clean. I did realise the full extent of the amount still to go though it's bloody depressing.
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