The decluttering one thing a day thread - part 12

[AlexTheLittleCat]

For StealthNinjaMum

We’re still here.

After 11 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/3799710-The-decluttering-on-thing-a-day-thread-part-11?pg=1

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

Sing I find myself constantly doing that sort of thing I have to constantly write lists or would forget so much. The two bags dropped off to charity shop today and the next one started with some bedding. I have another batch of stuff sorted ready to list on eBay. Have helped the eldest sort two small areas of their room and several items in the bin.
Have found more teddy bears but cannot remember the name of the great charity that collects them and sends them to children in refuge camps. Does that ring a bell with anyone, think it was this thread I first saw it on.

Thanks times10. I started the list thinking I hadn’t got rid of anything much and I realised at the end that the items would have easily filled the boot of my car.

singtothefly yesterday I subscribed to flylady again. I have received 5 emails already which I will NEVER read. I looked at one that suggested the decluttering zone is the hall and dining room so I spent 20 minutes dealing with post. My post table had collected a load of crap which has now been rehomed and a bag on it is in the charity shop pile. Today I’m going to file the useful stuff from the postal table (ie insurance info, bank statements) and make doctors / eye appointments and chuck those letters away. Then if I get time to tidy the dining room a bit I will.

She also suggests Friday is the day to clear the car and ‘purse’ (handbag I think). I did both last month so it will take a few minutes to declutter them.

glumygloomer what an achievement! It can be exhausting doing that stuff with little ones around but think of the space you’ve created.

I am feeling energised. As mentioned today I’ll be doing 15 minutes decluttering in the hall, my car and handbag. I might also watch a hoarder programme or read a flylady email.

Not much to show for my efforts just now. Most of it is home admin; going through paper and emails to make sure diary is up-to-date, everything is ready for school next week.

Concentrating on being tidy and on getting recyclables into the bin straightaway, and clearing garden and garage.

Thanks StealthNinja, thanks to the weather it was rather harder than it should have been, but at least it's one less thing in the kitchen corner of doom. The good clothes are still here, but I'm planning to arrange a collection for those (no car).

I got an early start this morning and scanned some manga into my selling apps before the kids woke up. I'm on a mission to half my manga/book collection from 12 boxes to 6. It's an emotional journey, but really needs doing. I don't think I can go below 6 though!

The DCs have got rid of a couple of toys, but only in the understanding that they can have a new toy, so not sure it’s a win, but I’m counting it

The 2nd lot of storage boxes should arrive Monday so I’m pausing on the paperwork until then.

The living/dining room is looking a lot better since yesterday, so I’m happy with that.

Well that was an efficient Charity Shop drop off. Parked outside, helped DH in to Hairdresser, posted card and then was 4th in queue for shop to open. Then listened to Desert Island Discs until DH was finished.
Bought croissants on way home as a treat. Home by 10.15.
DH has also started to tackle his pile of car magazines, I note, with 4 in the recycling bin today. Hope he keeps it going.
Have a lovely day all.
1179/2020

times10 I used to give dc £10 each every so often from the pot of Facebook earnings to buy a toy or small Lego set. In order to make £10 we had to sell a lot of stuff so the volume of the stuff going out hugely exceeded the volume of the stuff coming in. The idea caught on, dd2 gives me all kind of broken and dirty stuff thinking we can sell it to buy her more toys!

That’s a good idea, thanks stealth I will have to give it a go!

I bought them a kinder egg, so that’s them busy for a few hours.

GlumyGloomer That is a success, it's a lot to do with little ones! Hope you were able to have a rest in the evening.

Stealth and Sing I'm the same with FlyLady, I'm only doing the decluttering zones, when I remember. I managed to forget this week as other zones of the house needed more work. I haven't signed up to the emails, it sounds like she inundates you with them? I do clean regularly but can't keep her with her idea of keeping the sink spotless at all times (or have I misread it?). I'd be washing up ten times a day!

I'm inspired by all your hard work as always! I'm going to try and tackle the Kallax of Doom later. I don't think open storage works particularly well, it always looks messy, unless you have two vases and ten copies of the same Swedish book like the Ikea showroom.

Hello all, have finally started doing things and my mh is improving by the day. I feel so much lighter, but throwing it all away won't solve my problems, it's a good start though.

This week I have sorted the kitchen, tidied and cleaned it, rearranged shelving and bought some fridge dividers.
Apart from dh lightly criticising the fridge layout, it's very easy and less hassle.
Have also done a capsule wardrobe so have bags to go to charity shop when I can find one taking donations.
Might have to use supermarket recycle bin if it gets too much as dd and dh are doing their wardrobes too.

We still have a full room of stuff to sort, but it's in one place and not going back in other rooms unless it's needed.

Hi Devlesco, I've found this website offering to collect clothes donations.
wecollectwedonate.co.uk/
I'm not entirely sure about them as they don't say which charity they support, but as getting stuff to an actual shop is hard for me I might give them the benefit of the doubt.
Only in London and the southeast though I think, so may not be of any use to you.

Sing - I've just tested my new masonry drill bits, total game changer! Although having never used raw plugs before I worry that I made the holes too bit and they'll just slide back out. I'm wall mounting a stair gate, fingers crossed it holds.

singtothefly alexthelittlecat I have received 15 emails from flylady in just over day. One of them was even called 'are you feeling overwhelmed?' !!! It's worse than I remember. Having said that it only took a few minutes to clean out my handbag and car and if I did that every week would make an improvement.

I then got bored with doing my hall and started decluttering the kitchen even though that's tomorrow's job. I have put aside 18 items already including salad servers (I have two other sets already), two potato peelers (of the 5 I own), two bottle openers (of the 4 I own!), a casserole dish which is a bit battered, some spatulatas, and plastic things that came from a cracker. I still have things I haven't used but the drawers/ cupboard look so much clearer.

GlumyGloomer

Thanks for that, but no use as I'm in the NW Greater Manchester, locked down
I have seen one shop open last week but never thought to ask if they were taking donations.
I'll try early monday morning and hopefully dd and dh can walk up with me and help to carry.
It will certainly clear some space in what looks like our hoarders room

I'm still lurking, still putting a few things on one side when I come across stuff to get rid of. I still have a bunch of things to see if SIL will want them. If not, I will put them in our yard sale when we have one (hoping to have one this summer)

I did want to stop by and say that a few of us on this thread are on the fly lady thread too. It is recommended to NOT sign up for the emails or you'll get inundated with them! You should come join us Stealth and I know there was at least one more, sorry! I find it helpful to focus on an area, even if I'm not completely sticking to it (most of us on the thread don't)

Yes, agree with hazel - FlyLady’s emails are scarily frequent at best!

Glumy well done for doing your drilling. I think we have the opposite problem with our walls as the problem is they’re not solid enough at all! I hope the stair gate holds. We had to get screw fit ones this time round as the doors are too wide for pressure fit and I do prefer these.

I’ve still not achieved anything lately.

Dev well done for tackling stuff and improving MH! I find it such a vicious cycle being cluttered and having MH struggles that make it hard to deal with said clutter.

Oh and glumy good luck with the manga tackling! They should sell well I guess as buying individually adds up and people will snap up bargains! I want to get DD1 into reading manga, she’s dabbled a bit but not sure what to suggest, she’s 13 and dyslexic and struggles with complex plots. Not sure if it would be good to choose something that she can watch first. Any suggestions welcome! 💐

Oh also it did occur to me with the walls... stud walls have vertical posts right? So with the stairs at least, presumably we could just go directly up from where they attached the board for the hand rail and safely drill there to put up pictures? 🤔

Sing I got the wrong end of the stick again, sigh.
For soft walls have you tried plaster screws? I never even owned a drill before this house, just screwed straight into the walls.
Manga wise I tend to like shonen, Fullmetal Alchemist, rorouni Kenshin, yugioh. Mär is a fun one, a bit less well known. For drama comedy Fruits Basket is really good. My knowledge is very put of date though!

I need to sort out my make-up today. All of it is out of date according to the dates on the items, but as I don’t wear it often I’m loathed to buy new every 6 months! I wish you could buy tiny amounts, as I’ve never used any up... or I need to start wearing it more, but that’s too much faff for my liking (especially as I’m a SAHM) I do need to streamline what I have, as there’s quite a few bits I never use/doesn’t suit me.

Thanks for recommendations glumy! Don’t worry re the drilling, I haven’t described them very well. From what I gather there’s a thin sheet/board thing and then just empty space. Held up by posts. It’s weird as this house is so warm and actually pretty sound proof - we never hear the neighbours really. I assumed the walls were thick and solid. But maybe it’s because of the space, who knows?! It just means that it’s not safe to drill through at random, we have to stick to the posts as then there’s something to hold weight.

Love the cupboard meg - how do you find those baskets? I’ve seen them in many shops lately but not sure whether to go for them or plain plastic.

I’ve also been thinking about kitchen storage - I like these stacking jars, would like something a bit posher looking really 🙈 but I’d need a good few. So I might just go for a big Tupperware box and shove all the various nuts and seeds etc in all together. We use bag clips a lot but does anyone else find they don’t really work for small bags like that? Or maybe I’m just impatient and open the bags too far so they don’t close 😳

And then these are the drawers I found. The coloured ones are cheaper but I’m not sure we would want many anyway. And they aren’t see through which I’m thinking isn’t so good for a couple of butterflies like me and DH! A proper drawer might be better.

I’m just trying to think of space saving things really. I bought a little rack of hooks that slides onto a cupboard shelf to hang mugs on.

Dropped a bag of assorted items at the charity shop this morning. One less thing lying around at home!

Returned some baby clothes that we haven’t used, and DH has taken a bag of bits to the charity shop. I’ve also asked him to buy a few containers for our kitchen cupboard, you’ve inspired me there meg.

I've made more piles of stuff and tidied the room of doom a bit, but there's so much to come out of the loft yet, it's going to take some time.
It was never intended to be a quick job though as a lifetime of stuff can't be gone in a few days.
Selling stuff is slow to, but some things I really need the money for and were sort of family heirlooms. Not worth a fortune on their own but added together about 1.5k.