The decluttering on thing a day thread - part 11

[StealthNinjaMum]

We’re still here.

After 10 threads my house still isn't tidy!

So join me and a lovely group of mumsnetters who simply get rid of one thing a day and report back. Gradually we’re developing good habits, reorganising ourselves, often improving our mental health and having friendly chatter along the way.

So newbies are welcome, just check in with your news and join in the general chat about recycling, organisation and housework.

Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/3760076-Decluttering-one-thing-a-day-part-10-the-countdown-to-a-clutter-free-Christmas?pg=1

ALSO many of us have set a target to get rid of 2020 items this year and will report on that.

I managed to stop myself looking at coronavirus threads for long enough to do some decluttering today and make up for the days I've missed. Today I decluttered the top of a rather messy bookcase, also I went through my overcrowded kitchen cupboards and got rid of lots of plastic tubs without lids and takeaway containers, and chipped stuff too. Looks much better!

I've fallen off the decluttering wagon slightly. I did sort some paperwork out at the weekend.
DP is now working from home which isn't helping with decluttering. I think now may be time to crack on with some jobs around here.

I keep coming back here but with nothing really substantial to report. Feeling a bit demotivated so I am going to paint my toenails and decluttering a tiny amount of nail varnish. Maybe a face mask too.

I've had to pause decluttering, although we will finish DD's bedroom. We are socially distancing, as DH and I are both in receipt of flu jabs for asthma, so we can't get anything else out of the house and the garage is mostly full! Although I have realised my dream of a proper dressing table in our room, even if it is in front of the spare wardrobe.

I'm trying to keep some semblance of normality going for the DC, but it all feels very strange. I imagine this is what early September 1939 must have felt like, except with better personal communication.

I'm also 'socially distancing' and trying to use the time for the good. I've been through our food cupboards, trying to organise everything, so we can see what we've got, as well as what we need.

My outs today are packaging and the leftovers which will be dinner.

After tomorrow I'm on A/L (booked ages ago but I cannot travel now to DBro house) , Cannot carry leave till next financial year .
Cannot really go anywhere either

So plan to de-clutter upstairs (while DH WFH and the DC are doing their University/6th Form work online)

Winter coats will be put in SpaceSaver bags to the attic then I'll go from there .

Wow it’s getting quiet on here. I guess we’re all busy with other stuff. Can’t honestly say I’ve decluttered much this week but few more magazines have been read and passed on to MIL. I am also planning to pass on some books and unused craft kits to keep her busy during social distancing.

Yeah I've been bringing stuff in rather than out! Apparently it wasn't a good time to run food cupboards down.... We have enough though as I'm not stockpiling.
Bought DD a load of art supplies the other day too but they will get used up.

It’s the first day of spring!! Time to sort and clean your home, that in this mad world is the old place in the world that you can control!!

Also if you are sorting out your home it stops you sitting in front of the tv watching the news that is just so depressing!!

Use this time to sort you home, so when the world does and will get back to normal, you won’t have to think about your cluttered home as it’s all been sorted.

I have bought a load of paint and some new wallpaper so when my husband can’t go to work I can get him to give the house a make over.

Only place not old place

I've put a few more baby clothes into a bag for the refuge when we come out of it. I've tried to tidy up in anticipation of a full house as of tonight but lots of ins. Actual out - a pair of DPs holey pants.

@Nanalisa60 Thank you, great sentiment!

More cardboard boxes into the recycling, going to try and carry on with decluttering but will have the school aged children at home alongside the baby, plus will be back to work soon.

I have been meaning to update for a while, but other events have taken over. I am now working mainly from home, so should be able to fit in more decluttering over the next couple of weeks.

I have been slowly putting stuff back in the living room and dining room storage units. I have also moved the DVD unit from the hall to the back sitting room and moved a bookcase and its contents from the upstairs landing into a bedroom. The hall/stairs/landing carpet is supposed to be fitted next week. I have no idea if that will still go ahead. We are in an area with very few confirmed cases of Covid19, so I alternate between thinking it will be fine, and worrying about letting strangers into the house. I could have had it done this week if I had known that half the things I had planned to do at work would be cancelled, and I would be urged to start working from home asap.

A fortnight ago, I managed to drop off a largish box of random stuff to one charity shop, and a wine box of books to a specialist charity bookshop. I'm glad I managed to do that, before shops started to close down. In the last couple of days both Oxfam and the British Heart Foundation have announced they are about to close their high street shops.

All charity shop sorting moot now, I guess, in light of today's requirement to close things. I wonder what's going to happen to rubbish / recycling collections?

Our bin collections happened today. Unfortunately the brown bins (garden and food waste) were emptied at 7.30ish this morning, and ours wasn’t out because we intended to fill it with leaves just after breakfast. We haven’t had a bin collection at that time for months - they have been coming round after 5.00pm. Sigh!

Our local recycling site has closed temporarily due to staff shortages. We got rid of all the bottles in the bottle bank at Tesco yesterday, but I still have flattened cardboard boxes to get rid of. I guess if they get very short-staffed they will ditch non-essential refuse collections and we will just have to live with mounds of paper etc. Oh wait! I already do! Just as well I have been practising!

Thanks @AlexTheLittleCat! He’s only 7 weeks old but it already feels like it was ages ago. Poor kid hasn’t come into the easiest of times - born on the first day outside the EU and now confined to the house for the foreseeable future! I feel very fortunate that we have a garden or else we’d all go barmy!

How is everyone? I hope you’re all keeping well?

I haven’t been here for a while - @StealthNinjaMum I also need to keep off the Coronavirus board as it’s been draining my time and also not great for mental health as it’s making me quite anxious. @PurpleFrog I’m also swinging wildly between thinking this will all be ok and panicking that someone is going to die (me, DH, the kids, my parents...). It’s scary.

@IWillWearTheGreenWillow you are doing amazingly! I’m in awe that you’re nearly half way there!

I’m at 499/2020, which is suppose is right on track for this point in the year, though it doesn’t feel that successful given I had a good start and have tailed off recently. Like @Vinorosso74 I’ve also stocked up on art supplies to keep the two bigger Cletters (4 and 2) busy over the next few months, but they will get used up (eventually). I doubt much will be sold over the next few months (especially the collection only stuff) so I need to focus on the bits that can be donated. @StealthNinjaMum that’s a really good point about charity shops closing - we’ve got a few bags in the garage that are awaiting donation so I’ll try to get them down there on Monday. I don’t want everything in there getting damp/dusty/ruined if it has to sit there for 3+ months!

Thanks @Clettercletterthatsbetter I know that @Reastie is also spending time on the coronavirus board and is feeling stressed. Reastie why don’t you come here and we can all moan about our families messing up our houses?

@clettercletter as well as being ‘unnecessary’ for most of us charity shops are usually staffed by pensioner volunteers so I can’t see them being open for long.

I have practically given up on decluttering although I have done some gardening and picked up a load of twigs and branches that had come off trees in the storms a few weeks ago. I’m hoping the council will still do the normal garden rubbish collection because i’m Intending to do lots of gardening in the next few months.

Having said i’m not decluttering it is such a normal part of my routine now that I get things ready to go every day without really seeing it as decluttering.

I can’t believe we aren’t in lockdown already, people are behaving so irresponsibly. I hope everyone on this thread is safe.

Morning! Wishing you all a lovely Mother's Day without additional clutter! 💐🧁☕🍷.

Our charity shops were closed yesterday, although some had donation drop off points running. I suppose they will need to change their focus from selling-to-raise-cash to parcelling-out-needed-goods.

Now DS1 is home, I have a house full of all the crap stuff I got rid of in September again! 😭 Hey ho. It is nice to have him back, though, and good to feel that all my chicks are safe in the nest.

Purple, sorry to hear you're partially without carpet. Is this the time to turn the clothes recycling bag into rag rugs? 😂 Make do and mend, etc and so forth!

Good luck to those of you with tinies - they are so very hard on consumables. I can at least relax the screen time rules --give up altogether- and achieve a degree of peace here.

I feel a bit embarrassed to be stressing about carpets, when a lot of other people in the country are worrying about much bigger things. . I spent too long last week reading the Coronavirus boards, and was convinced government measures would escalate faster than they have done.

Willow - we are not actually without carpet. The fitters are lifting the old one just before laying the new, so if it doesn’t go ahead it’s OK. The landing is one of my dumping grounds for clutter, so it will have just been time wasted in clearing and sorting there that could have been spent on something else.

purplefrog it’s ok to be stressed about stuff like carpets, normal life is still going on and if you’re housebound you can’t really get away from the problem.

And after just one day of homeschooling my house looks like a bomb’s hit it. I have put a scruffy coat to one side as an item of ‘rags’ but I think most charity shops will be closed and actually it seems like a trivial thing to go to the shops with so I can wait. i’m still going to try to put aside one thing a day but I fear my room of doom will get full again which annoys me because it’s looking quite tidy at the moment!

Buggeration. All recycling collections except food waste now suspended for the foreseeable. Not a surprise, but deeply tedious. The tip is still open, though 🤔

Gosh @IWillWearTheGreenWillow, our tip is closed but I think we still have collections! Need them with everyone home. Cannot leave us living in 3 months worth of rubbish surely.

DC1 put on some clothes this morning and declared them too small, so more for the refuge pile. I think by autumn all of DC1s wardrobe contents will be gone - looking forward to streamlining it.

So far my council are collecting all waste but it would be awful if they stopped collecting any of it, although obviously i’d understand why. I would hate to drive to the tip, it would become a real family outing as dc are too young to be left alone in the house.

Dd1 is likely to grow out of her clothes soon, I don’t know whether to do online clothes shopping for has as it seems a non essential. Plus if they don’t fit I can’t send them back.

Anyway we’re busy homeschooling still. Today’s declutter is three biros - so far - as they’re old and dried up.

So, it turns out the District Council have suspended recycling collections (but still collect the Big Black Bin fortnightly) and say take recycling to the tip... and the County Council have closed the tip. Honestly, RH/LH!!

Decluttering is on hold. Obviously charity shops closed, the dump has closed, all bins being collected so far but who knows what will happen?