Decluttering one item a day (and counting down til the opening of charity shops!) – thread number 17

[stealthninjamum]

This is an accountability and chat thread for mumsnetters who dream of living in an uncluttered haven of calm and tidiness.

Bit by bit we are slowly decluttering our houses and keeping our fingers crossed that charity shops will open on 12th April – although we’re also adding to the list of places in the second post that will also take our clutter.

The aim of this thread is to help us get rid of just one item a day or 365 a year. We just report back on our progress and then chat about anything and everything. The thread is for anyone so newbies are always welcome.

Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/4144854-Decluttering-one-item-a-day-and-having-nowhere-to-put-it-thread-number-16?msgid=105205665

Yesterday, decluttered a couple more outgrown kids' items.

Need to spend some time in R of D, bagging up more donations. Should I store winter-weight clothes till later this year? I've the space to do so, but it'll be a bit distracting.

@nocutsnobuttsnococonuts I bloody love my laminator! :o I won’t laminate them yet as I want to only do stuff that can be reversed IYSWIM - DH does like old stuff :o so I suspect being able to still handle the stuff is an option. But if he likes what I do with them I’ll ask if he does want them laminated. I might frame some as that could be switched around if he wanted - must measure them as they’re odd dimensions!

Don’t think I’ll get any decluttering done today as I’m knackered. Getting some more ideas of things to get rid of, letting go of potential which is a big thing for me especially when it comes to home ed supplies - the ditching of stuff that we could have, should have used. But actually DS gets a pretty decent education without using everything, and if anything having a less cluttered environment will be better for him and it’ll mean we can be more spontaneous with extra projects etc.

I’ve been in the Room of Doom again. I found more photos, school photo forms and holiday mementoes (eg tickets) so it made sense to do a bit more photos. Anyway it turns out i have bloody hundreds. I’ve put them in piles and got rid of another 21 photos today - wedding photos and photos from dd1s 4th birthday party. I also have a pile of about 80 photos of dd2 as a baby and I’m hoping to get rid of half.

I also found the whole school photo form from a few years ago and ordered one.

It’s slow work but all crap that’s been hanging around the Room of Doom.

singtothesky I love my laminator too but worry that I create plastic that can’t be destroyed so I’m sparing with how I use it now.

One thing I’m thinking of doing is putting up a couple of picture shelves so I can put a load of pictures in different shapes and sizes and rearrange them periodically.

This is the sort of thing I’d like. Not sure if you’d consider something like that.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/312260310092?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338364432&customid=312260310092_11700&toolid=11000

Ooh I love that! So pretty. I need to work out how to attach stuff to our crap walls (stud walls)!

I'm curious about you folks having laminators. Do I need one? What would I use it for? I'm going to be pondering this tonight now!

I've spent about 2 hours today going through a box of coursework and have got rid of 2 card wallets, a large ring binder, loads of paperwork and a big pile of plastic wallets. I almost can't believe myself actually - I'd been keeping this lovingly for almost 20 years! I'm hoping to be able to get rid of the lot but it's going to take a while yet.

We’ve got a dump slot booked for sat early morning before DH will join kids at his moms so although we have a quite a load to go already with things like the last dog crate , rags and clothes , books , recycling, old damaged kitchen stuff and all the general crap I’ve been gathering lately that can’t go to charity plus maybe a falling apart dining chair I’m Itching to burrow into the under stairs cupboard to find more stuff to go but I need DH to do that . I’ve ordered more large storage boxes to store the contents that we’ll keep better but now just want to get rid of stuff there must be something that can go there always is !!!!
I went back into decluttered living room toy drawers and removed

• 3 more games
• a dog Christmas collar
• dress up costume accessory
• another puzzle from DS that seems impossible to finish so it can go ( think I mentioned this steady though )

Thinking about a few more things that can maybe go like old modelling dough kit last one stained painted furniture despite my best efforts luckily ones we were not going to keep anyway , also some paper boat and plane kits that haven’t been touched for years after initial attempts , a sew yourself doll that doesn’t look so nice that could go to charity msybe someone else will like it better . I have asked DD to bring me her wooden blocks but now they look like they’ve disappeared again maybe she took them upstairs ggggrrrr... There will be more clothes to rags and clothing collection for the clean laundry pile as always I’m going through all clothes as they get washed

• earmarked two lamps from our living room I already have one replacement and I’ve seen another I like I was going to use in the new house but I think now I might as well here the old ones have too small lampshades and we’ve had them forever so it’s time they go in fact maybe in fact maybe in tomorrow’s load !

Thanks everyone, I am just going to get it all out of the house i think!

@stealth you are doing amazing with photos, I'm not sure I could get rid, I struggle deleting duplicates from my phone!!

@sing I get what you mean and definitely need your DH to decide on any permanent changes. When I've framed odd sized photos before I've made coordinated backing frames then placed the photo in the middle. So I can buy a standard frame (cuts some costs!)

@sandandsea I work in a preschool so I bought the laminator for work to make props/scavenger hunts and practising names etc with white board pens. I also use it for posters (we rent so no chance of painting the walls so let the girls go crazy with drawings/posters made from old calendar pictures etc) I also use it to preserve keepsakes such as tickets (made into a bookmark). Ive also used it for making costume props or bits for my daughter to play with.

DH emptied the under stairs cupboard into the kitchen /dining room corner for me and vacuumed it fairly quickly after complaining about it probably taking him hours . My storage boxes should arrive early next week then we can put what we’ll keep back hopefully in better order . In the meantime I’ll go through it and at least will get rid of shoes there’s 2 large storage boxes of them plus the shoe rack . Tonight DH got rid of right away

• 3 pairs of his shoes
• an old cycle helmet of his not sure if it’ll be replaced it’s not his only one

Hopefully I can add to the dump pile that’s going on sat tomorrow ...

Thanks nocutsnobutts I had no idea I had so many photos, I thought I had nearly finished organising them a few weeks ago, but this week I found hundreds in the Room of Doom and I m just desperate to finish that room. Today I put dates on the back of about 50 and have thrown away another 31. They’re almost all of dd2 as a very tiny baby.

sandandsea I used to laminate party games and spelling cards for dc but as I mentioned above I worry about the plastic on the environment so tend not to use my laminator these days. It is a beautiful beast that does up to A3 but this thread is making me wonder if I should declutter it as I don’t think I’ve used it for a couple of years.

nordicmom as usual you’ve been really productive. I have moved the winter coats upstairs but really need to do our understairs cupboard too. I like dc to help with this as is their shoes, coats, hats that get decluttered. Because of lockdown I haven’t bought them any scarves, hats or shoes (other than school shoes) for over a year so it will probably be quite a quick job.

I think the new thread is being used now so I’ll do another link and suggest we move the cat over.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/4259830-Decluttering-one-item-a-day-thread-number-18-quickly-stashing-our-clutter-in-charity-shops-now-we-can-let-people-back-inside-our-houses

Typo. agghhh.

I need to use the preview button.

We need to move the CHAT over not the CAT.

Glass broken. So that’s gone