The countdown to Christmas - but still decluttering one item a day. Thread number 15

[stealthninjamum]

Thread number 15 of the ‘declutter one item a day thread’ and this bunch of mumsnetters are still decluttering our houses slowly by getting rid of one item a day.

It’s always challenging at Christmas for declutterers, as we fill our house with more presents, food and children’s toys. This thread should give us a bit more accountability as we keep plugging away slowly while we making our homes more organised and decluttered.

Obviously Christmas won’t be the same this year and the stealthninjahousehold won’t be having any visitors but I’m still keen to spend the last couple of weeks making my house a nicer space to spend time in.

Newbies are always welcome. We just get rid of one item each day and report back on the thread.

Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/4053749-Getting-rid-of-one-item-a-day-thread-number-14-where-we-extract-precious-autumn-leaves-rocks-and-twigs-from-our-children?pg=1

@footprintsintheslow apparently they have exemplary behaviour at school!

I seem to have managed to tidy the dcs rooms.

I told ds (3) that some of his toys had to go in his room. He cried. Then I told him that if he put them in his room Dd wouldn’t be able to play with them

Trying to keep their own toys in their rooms and “joint” toys (duplo wooden food etc) in the living room.

Dh disagrees and thinks all toys should be in their rooms and they should play upstairs. Apparently when he was a kid no toys were allowed in the living room. I’ve pointed out this was because when he was growing up he had a playroom because fils house is huge. Ours isn’t. And if we made the kids play upstairs somekne would have to be upstairs all the time as they’re only 18m and 3.

@Times10 you probably already know this, but in case not... if there are additional needs /neurodiversity then holding everything in at school and exploding at home is very common and if you get as far as assessment then the health care professionals should be aware of this even if the school aren’t.

Are you already keeping a log of things you’ve observed or things that worry you? It might help you spot any triggers so you can make adjustments and will also give you good evidence to show the team if your eldest ends up being referred for assessment.

Decluttering Day 1:

In the Charity Shop Bag: x2 gift sets (unwanted presents), 2 packs of tights
Recycling: drinks cans, glass and plastic bottles, shed loads of loose paper, Christmas cards
Put away Christmas gifts, packed away reusable gift bags for next year,
Repacked geocaching rucksack and DS's school bag, sorted my handbag, emptied my purse of old receipts and coupons

It doesn't look much written down, but DH and I have almost fully rescued the kitchen and dining area. There was so much recycling and random crap strewn everywhere. Now I have no excuse not to clean it...

times10 when I was worried about my dd I had a gp appointment to discuss it and the GP suggested I sent an email. So I spent a few weeks writing the email and it ended up about two pages of quirks that was enough to get referred to a specialist. I think it really helped to get my thoughts down on paper.

MInimal decluttering done but I did finish a moisturiser that had been hanging around for ages.

Thanks @Miaowse and @stealthninjamum. I’ll start a log, and try the GP in the new year. I wasn’t sure if they would be willing to help as my eldest is fine at school, but it’s worth a try, as they might be able to improve our home life!

Huge success today: we moved around a couple of pieces of furniture around in the DCs room, and my aforementioned eldest was happy to get rid of 2 carrier bags worth of stuff. This is unheard of, but has really helped the room look at lot clearer, and will hopefully help them keep it tidy. And the DCs have been happily playing in the new space for an hour and counting!

Well done Times10 on DC getting rid of stuff! It's a fond dream of mine it will happen one day. I hope you can sort some support for your eldest.

I had a run around this morning and sorted through all the cardboard so it is either in the recycling box or flattened and in the garage. Have put away a few gifts of clothes that are too big plus sneaked a couple of things into the charity bag as well as a gift set for me that won't be used. It would be ideal for the school May fair so will hang on to it for a while on the chance there is one this year (no charity shops open here anyway!)

Also decluttering our way through lots of leftovers - just finished making turkey pie.

I've got rid of the receipts/return slips from all the online Christmas shopping.
Asked DP to sort through all his post in the letter rack as it's overflowing but DD wanted help with making an animation. That's finished now and she's chatting to a friend but he's apparently busy/faffing (delete as applicable). I want to make booking a dump run worthwhile and no doubt he has loads for shredding too.
I may tackle the living room cupboard tomorrow.....

Day 110:

🎄a set of three Christmas table decorations that I'm not keen on listed on Freecycle and being collected tomorrow morning.

🎄new baby present given out

🎄photos and emails.

Have missed a bit of time on this thread, need to have a good read and catch up! Hope everyone is well and has had a good Christmas.

I got rid of a boot full of clothes just before Christmas and three bags for life full of parcels for ebay, as well as the presents.

Have had so many presents come in for baby, which is lovely, but I need to get more things out as feeling quite overwhelmed. Recycling bin is full and have started filling boot again with clothes, but don't think I will be able to find somewhere that will take them until new year.

Determined to get more on top with house tomorrow

Sorted my product stash today and realised j have far too much of everything. Removed what I could from packaging to make space. And sorted things into make up bags so instead of spilling around in my drawer they’re sort of contained.

Also have a charity bag started in the bedroom. Some joggers a coat and some pjs. Will take them once shops are open again.

DP sorted his post out! Am hoping for a better night sleep tonight so will get up in good time and sort that cupboard out.

Day 1: Finally got back to the Room of Doom. I have a plan for the layout which means a fair amount of 'tetris' style shifting of furniture. Rather than sift through the contents of cupboards and desk, I decided I needed some sense of progress. So I plan to empty cupboards etc as I go. Any quick 'wins' - bin, recycle, re-home - I will do straightaway. Once the first item is in the correct position - the desk - I will have a proper home for items in the other storage.
I will deep clean the vacated floor/walls before moving furniture to the final position.
Not sure how long it will take. 30 mins today resulted in 3 binned items, a repaired empty cupboard (first tetris move) and the revealed carpet and wall dusted/vacuumed.

Still in the post-Christmas haze here, but I had to search through the freezer and found a quiche that is about a year old, so it went in the bin. Also finished the prosecco. That will do for today.

I’m not back at work until after the new year, so I want to try to get some decluttering done this week. Also need to find homes for presents and clear out some old toys to make more space.

@Vinorosso74 - hooray for the post sorting!

Another slow day on the decluttering front. I moved the microwave and found random receipts, labels, buttons, hair ties, pens etc both behind and underneath. I kept the hair ties and pens and moved them to their usual storage places. The rest of the stuff went in the recycling or bin.

I used up Christmas dinner leftovers for lunch and took two boxes of pasta sauce from the freezer for dinner, clearing a bit of space.

Despite minimal decluttering over the last week or so, I’m very pleased with my kitchen progress. It’s still cluttered but it looks a lot better than it did a few weeks ago and I’m managing to keep on top of it.

@thelastmullercorner welcome back!

@ememem84 I can't wait for charity shops to open. Thank goodness our local freecycle page is reliable on the whole.

@Vinorosso74 hooray I feel like I can sleep better now he's sorted his post 🍾

@pollyannaperspective are you day 1 because you are starting on 2021 items?

@Miaowse I should really move my microwave. Thanks for the nudge.

@Times10 it can be a fight to get gps and teachers on board with any process to get your child assessed for something, and will take time, but that also gives you time to learn about your child and read up on various strategies. My dd won’t grow out of autism but she is maturing and is in better control of her emotions and also asking questions about how she should interact with people. She has quite a lot of friends now and three or four years ago had none. Of course I’m making it sound easy, during holidays she is the most delightful, happy child, but the stress of school makes term time hard. Mumsnet has an Sen board which might be useful.

Anyway, back to decluttering, my house is a mess so I am going to find homes for all the presents today so I can at least tidy and hoover it all. I’ve also put on two lots of washing so I’m slowly getting back into my normal routine.

footprints it is day one of tackling the Room of Doom. This thread helps me to be accountable as no-one here is bothered and we are unlikely to need what would be a third spare bed for visitors any time soon.
I did reveal/explain the 2020 items on the wider family Zoom at Christmas and most family asked if I had kept a spreadsheet - a trait of my dad's. I didn't!
Good luck to all getting back to your routines and habits.

DH appears to have acquired the de-cluttering bug as he has cleared a large pile of magazines to the bathroom bin - though there are more to replace them, he says! And now he wants to go through his bedroom drawer of 'stuff'. He promises that we will also do the drawer of cables later today.

pollyannaperspective I’m wondering how bad your Room of Doom is and whether we can have a gentle contest to see who ‘finishes’ first. Not sure how we’d do that but it’s definitely my priority in 2021 to finish it.

Is anyone else trying to cram more recycling in their green bin! I'm trying not to fall into my thing of 'keeping a good box' but it's hard when there's no rooms to get rid of anymore...

You're all very efficient with post-Christmas decluttering! I forgot to put the black bin out on its changed date so that is now crammed and recycling bin due for collection tomorrow so need to desellotape the wrapping paper and put that in. I have finished up a couple of bottles of shampoo and a tube of foot cream and not replaced them as I want to use plastic free products going forward. Trouble is dd1 is a shocker for buying beauty products then going off them and I feel duty bound not to waste them. She's also driving me nuts ordering takeaways and creating more waste!
I really should do some decluttering today but it's my last day off and I feel lazy.

May be a slight hiccup in DH's enthusiasm as he has badly strained his shoulder and arm in a sling. Thank heavens for the NHS A&E.

Stealth happy to have a Room of Doom buddy. I have 2 cupboards, one pedestal desk, one 2 drawer filing cabinet, an old PC, 4 large crates, sundry storage bags of spare bedding and numerous 'piles' of stuff on said desk and filing cabinet. Bit by bit we can both make a difference.
First aim is to empty the desk, which will initially make more mess, then reposition it, then only put back what we need to keep. This will also involve getting rid of the PC which is so old we used to join the internet on a dial up link! If I achieve that this week I will be pleased.

Argh, got interrupted when writing a post and my phone seems to have eaten it.

@KateF oh no! I hate when I miss the bin collection. Silver lining is the weather’s cold, so hopefully it won’t smell.

@pollyannaperspective are you tempted to start a spreadsheet for your room of doom? I dug out my old bullet journal as I want to start using the method again. One of my old trackers was a list of things I decluttered. Quite interesting to look through and there’s nothing I miss at all.

Very unexpected success here this afternoon - my child accepted my challenge of finding ten things to throw out. I think it may have been a one off, but I’m delighted by this small step.

Plus, my airer, which is a permanent fixture in my kitchen, has been fully emptied and put away I have just put on another load of laundry so this won’t last, but I’m enjoying the temporary space.

Does anyone take pictures so they can see the progress over time?

polyannaperspective sorry to hear about your dh, I hope he recovers quickly.

It sounds like you would beat me with a Room of Doom contest as I can’t start until dc are back at school but I don’t think dd1 will be going back straight away - although to be honest I don’t know when she’s going back.

My Room of Doom contains a floor to ceiling bookcase - although half of it has empty folders, a chest of drawers, a built in double wardrobe full of boxes and piles of crap on the floor!

It sounds like an achievement for you to empty and move the desk. My first aim - which I started to do before dd1 self isolated - is to get all dcs paperwork and create memory / school files for them with reports, certificates, things like play programmes. I will see if I can start this week. It might be possible to put them in a box and sort when watching TV.

Today’s out is a one-off scruffy pillow case with no matching pillow cases. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, anyway it’s in the rag bag now.