Become a Konvert in 2015 - Kondo thread 5. All welcome!

[PeoniesforMissAnnersley]

Thought I better set this up when I realised I had inadvertently posted the 999th post on thread 4!

Join us in purging our lives of things which do not bring joy and discover the wonder and magic of folding your knickers!

I bought a Hudl2 at Christmas time, and it turns out you get a free £10 voucher to use in Blinkbox books app so I bought this book

I shall start reading and get back to you all :)

pointless I concur. I missed some replacement mugs on ebay, and today I messaged the seller to see if they are still available. I am worth nice things that I can see and appreciate. I went to see a friend yesterday. Her house is an advert for buying few but beautiful items. And you know what, I could afford it if I didn't fritter money on tat. I moved into this house 5.5 years ago with only a bed. We are now shedding so much stuff it's amazing. Its that shift from poor and starting out to our position now. And less is more, especially if that less is lovely.

It's DH's birthday today, so we've had lots of family round, so very little kondoing DH will be playing his new computer games after dinner though, so I might get stuck in to the rest of the kitchen, hooray!

Starface That's how we roll too. I will also be doing the folding of DHs clothes once he's gone through them. There will most likely be a moment, probably when I'm folding his pants, where I pause and think, WTF am I doing?! But I won't be doing it because I'm female, or because he's not. Just because I'm better at figuring out how to fit things in. Same way that it's me who packs the car boot when we go away. So I'll remind myself that not doing a job I'm better at because of gender is just as bad. I'll still have that moment though.

FrancesHB I know what you mean about the paperwork as it IS daunting. But if I can do it, so can you. I just gritted my teeth and got on with it. Feel so much better for it too. So will you.

My closet is the project for today.

I'm completely ashamed to show you, but...

I do Facebook selling too! Very easy. I could probably get more for some things on eBay but I'd have to go to the post office, muck around with PayPal, etc. This way they come to my door, take the item, give me cash, and Bob's your uncle. :)

long term lurker here :) about to tackle clothes, but I wonder, what do you store at the bottom of your wardrobe? currently mine is a jumble sale of jumpers, pjs, dressing gowns, gym stuff and things that have fallen off the hanger - this will soon change!! I have my wedding shoes and DH fancy shoes that I could store there in their boxes, but the rest of our shoes are under the stairs on a shoe rack. what do you put there? or will it just be space?

I have collected all the paperwork together. One full filing cabinet. URGH.

Not one single bit of that paperwork brings me joy.

Iqueen - yes, that's what I was thinking because mine looks like it could work quite well...might go and look at the food cupboard and see if anything in there could be put in it. Whilst I threw out loads of stuff from there, it's still overflowing and in a fairly poor state.

Cheerfulyank - I've just taken similar photos of my bedroom and if I could set my mind to working out how to upload them, I would maybe after it's been kondoed.

Franceshb - I've been storing my paperwork for an embarrassingly long time. I have a lot in a room upstairs and (usually) a pile in the kitchen, waiting to be 'filed'. Yesterday, I went through the kitchen pile and kept about 5 pieces of paper out of a pile 50cm high . Also, this is a pile that is sorted through regularly...or so I thought...there were phone bills and bank statements that were 18 months old. And that is the pile that gets sorted regularly. I bet there are bank statements/phone bills upstairs that are over 10 years old. Infact, thinking about the newly cleared kitchen surface has given me the motivation to go and start on the paperwork.

Weaselwithin- I haven't got as far as to see the bottom of my wardrobe but would be interested in others' suggestions

starface you are right, I could also spend more on fewer, nicer items if I didn't buy so much. I love to find a bargain which means that I often buy something that does the job rather than something I love.
I'm still putting off paperwork, just can't face it!

weaselwithin I have fitted wardrobe with 3 sets of doors. There is nothing on the bottom behind the first set of doors where I hang dresses, flimsy tops and jackets. Behind another set are suitcases with the tall ones at the back and small ones on the front (nothing hanging in there) and behind the final set of doors are shelves.

thanks for the ideas :) never thought to put suitcases there! what do you keep on the shelves if you don't mind me asking?

frances but dealing with it and setting rid of most of it will bring joy. Believe me, I get it as I put it off and put it off and kept putting it off. Every time I thought of it, it brought me down and there was a lot of it that made me feel ill just handling it too - stuff to do with finances, divorce and health. Makes me want to puke just thinking about it. But it's no longer in the house. Good riddance.

weasel I keep all the rest of my clothes in shoe boxes and other various boxes that I had lying around.

CheerfulYank - that's going to feel AMAZING once it's kondoed!

Seeing as CY has been brave enough to post her latest photo, I'm going to share mine, even though if anything's going to out me, this will do it. Here's half the academic book collection. No room to do the other half till these have been boxed up and gone to the library, but already 5m of shelving cleared, and I haven't even thought about fiction, hobby-related books, recipe books etc.

I'm not self employed, just disorganised with filing!

HiccupHaddockHorrendous I'm sure you could find a use for the 'bread-bin' box in the kitchen - baking trays, dry-goods packets, cleanong supplies, saucepan lids, pasta packs... ?

I haven't got as far as to see the bottom of my wardrobe but... Yay! I'm not a hoarder after all... nothing in the bottom of my wardrobes! And I haven't kondoed them yet!

Paperwork. Has anyone considered what will happen in a major cyber attack?

This week I went for a regular blood-test at the doctor's. Paralysed! The Internet was down, no appointment bookings, no idea who was in, or who they were to see, no access to records! So, the locum couldn't treat most patients.

weasel we have shoes in one and a box of gym clothes and diy clothes in the other.

Whoever asked earlier, chests of drawers work well inside wardrobes. My SIL did this very successfully for her children. My MIL has a huge wardrobe, and bought ikea wardrobes without doors, which had deep shelves and fitted inside half. She stores a huge variety of items, including some folded clothes, some in baskets.

Managed to get all Dh's clothes done. 2 charity bags full! I'm really chuffed and it all just fits into his wardrobe and drawers. I also got him to go through two big boxes of his precious crap things from under the spare bed as we needed the boxes for his folded clothes. Crucially, the top of the wardrobe is clear and I quickly put a wooden box for each member of the family up there to store sentimental bits - like photos, drawings, etc. I plan to keep a bit from each kid from each year and hopefully I'll just have 3 boxes or so of items to pass on to each of them from their childhoods. DH and I both received an avalanche of stuff from parents and I really don't want to do that to my kids.

As to major cyber attacks, I don't know. I kept paper copies of crucial documents and plan to scan copies of less crucial, but still important to keep, both on a hard drive and drop box (probably, still dithering on that). Our internet has been patchy and unreliable for months and the engineers can't seem to get it fixed. It has really driven home how dependent we are on constant internet access and it does give me pause about doing everything digitally. On the other hand a house fire would destroy everything, so I feel it is important to store things in a cloud as well.

I have a lot of paperwork. I am self-employed but my actual work means I keep a lot of paper as well as the records I need for business!

I've just spent a happy half-hour shredding business receipt copies from 2006!

I hope our (communal) paper recycling bins get emptied soon. I don't think they've been done since before Christmas!!

lightningstrikes

hopefully I'll just have 3 boxes or so of items to pass on to each of them from their childhoods and later! I've got five memory boxes for mine, including dated Christmas and birthday cards they have sent, and other nostalgic crap memories - first attempts at sewing, woodwork, little notes, their academic publications, etc, to bring them joy! (Also, easy for them to kondo!)

I was an ICT teacher... I don't trust anything electronic or digital, not even the remote Cloud!