August 2014 Declutter Club

[luludou]

Yesterday - I went through the 3-tier baskets I had for toys. Half went up to the attic, the rest is getting given away.

Today - deep-cleaned and decluttered the basement pantry. 1 bag in the garbage (expired dates) and 1 bag for mom (tin cans - I love tin cans! - and some stuff that is still good but we never use up).

 

[Tasha]

Got my husband on board with this and we decluttered the clothes in our closet. 4 very full garbage bags are now out! And an old iron.

Still need to go through the rest because there are odds and ends in there. Then I'll be able to move some stuff in that will free up space elsewhere. Feels good to make some progress.

 

[hollybow]

Tasha...bet it feels awesome..great job so far !!
Lucie .. wow you are a busy bee ..☺
SallyJ .. how did your weekend turn out?

I have to admit I didn't declutter anything as I went to see my parents for the weekend .. BUT I'm off for the rest of the week so I will start tackling the clutter tomorrow....wish me luck

 

[SallyJ]

Hollybow: I'm still staring at the boxes. I have it in my head that I will suddenly lose weight as soon as I get rid of everything. I really just need to set myself free. Maybe I'll just do one box at a time to see how I feel.

 

[hollybow]

Sally...can't you just store it away? Out of sight or your daily routine so that it's out of your way? perhaps attic or garage? put a date on it and if you haven't missed it for a certain period...give it away..
My thoughts: if you loose weight, you may reward yourself with new clothes?

 

[SallyJ]

hollybow: I think I'll go through everything one more time and keep only the truly, really good items. That way I'll have stuff to fit back into, plus I'll also be able to reward myself. I'll find a good hiding spot for the keepers.

 

[hollybow]

mission accomplished for today: deep-cleaned a huge drawer with little bits in the hall... yay me... 98% thrown away ...

 

[AnnieClaus]

I worked on my car and car trunk for an hour yesterday evening.

Looks so much better!!

Annie

 

[hollybow]

Annie: yay you!!

I completely cleaned the hall!! (except the crafting closet... will tackle this one later... at the moment it´s just fine to be able to close the doors)

 

[Lana]

I am hoping that since we are planning to paint and do flooring that at least my hall, dining room, front room and kitchen (iffy on kitchen cabinets) will be done by end of August. Dining room I have a buffet and china cabinet to clean out and another little glass cabinet.

Would love to have all the kitchen cabinets cleaned out too--shall see how the painting and floors go. Hopefully all done by the 24th with that stuff.

You guys are doing so good!

 

[hollybow]

just sitting down with a herbal tea and a peach to take a break...boy I had no idea that cleaning out the closet will leave me with THAT HUGE pile on my bed...phew...BUT I needed to be that harsh to myself because we will visit my parents this weekend and I promised my mum she will get the bags to browse through before they go to charity...and I need to be ready tonight! tons of work, but I know I have to be ready tonight!...
and it will be another huge declutter stone out of the way from my goal of having a clutterfree home...
next week will be paperwork week... huge piles there also... I went to the stationary shop yesterday and got lovely discounted back to school stuff there... this will be my goal for next week... declutter the paperwork area

 

[AnnieClaus]

I have a tote bag filled with this, that, and the other sitting in my wash room.

I'm going through it tonight.

Annie

 

[AnnieClaus]

I cleaned out the tote bag. About 90% I threw away.

I did find 2 Amazon envelopes that I had never even opened! One with a cook book (I was looking for that cook book not that long ago and KNEW I had bought it! Sheesh) and one with a movie.

It is now empty and is going to be where I keep all my church meeting and women's group stuff in the trunk of my car. That way if someone in my women's group needs the program book or a directory, I can simply go to my car, go to the tote and hand them what they need.

Annie

 

[jampss]

August De-clutter Area

Everyone is doing so well! Awesome.

Well, we are re-doing our kitchen cabinets so .... as I packed stuff up in boxes, I went through and was able to donate away some items. Yay!!


De-Clutter Areas 2014-2015
January – Homeschool Books
February – Craft Box of UFO’s
March – My clothes (closet, t-shirts, sweaters, pj’s)
April – DH clothes (closet, dresser)
May - FORGOT
June - STILL FORGOT
July – Kitchen cabinets
August – Kitchen cabinets, screen room
September – Computer Room Book Shelves
October
November
December

 

[sweetpumkinpye]

I am very inspired by everyones results so far.
Come September 1st (the first day of Spring here), I will be diving in to this place and not only spring cleaning but decluttering at the same time. I am determined that the only things left in this house will be,

I love it,
I need it,
and I cannot bear to part with it.

Anything else will be gone.

 

[sweetpumkinpye]

Spent the whole afternoon going through all the paper work in my filing cabinet and the tray where I keep the current paperwork. I shredded 2 large garbage bags full of paper. Some of the papers were 20 years old and just do not need to be kept any more. Felt so good getting it all done.

 

[Winged One]

I missed the thread starting, but I have been making good inroads into the clutter this month.

We sent a bag of toys that DD won't use to DNieces and DNephew yesterday, as a thank you for helping PILs to look after DD last week.

We finally gave DSil and her DFiance their engagement present last weekend (we'd wrapped it in the New Year's week [blush])

I found a lovely engagement present for DSis and her DFiance, another lovely photo frame, in our collection of "Thank you, it's lovely (now where the heck will we use this?)" presents in the storage unit. So we'll give that at their party in 3 weeks time.

We bought new crockery in Ikea over the weekend, when we were getting other things needed by DBil and ourselves. So we got a full dinner service (6 dinner plates, 6 side plates and 6 bowls) and actually threw out all the old chipped ones that didn't match (we already had about 4 left of the same plates as we just bought the new set). I have another bag of crockery that is non-matching but still fine to use, that I will give to goodwill later this week. And dump if they don't want it. We also found a lovely set of mugs in the storage unit, that I always knew we would use but had so many we couldn't when we got them - so again we dumped the chipped or really faded old mugs, have a few for goodwill, and now a nice new set of 6 mixed in with maybe 8 or so old ones (those don't match, but nice individual ones that I didn't want to lose yet - and we do use a lot of mugs daily).

I have a large bag of clothes and fabrics for the clothes bank. And another bag of clothes that are in good condition for goodwill. And a bag of books too, with some other odds and ends thrown in (like the socket covers we don't need anymore, and BIL already has loads). They're going on Friday.

We threw out 4 black sacks of rubbish in the past week from decluttering and tidying activities.

And I also found a couple of nice things in the storage unit that will be good Christmas presents which I'd forgotten about. Like a nice game for DNiece that DD would never play with (too "girly"), and a set of glass angel tree decorations for DSil.

And DD's craft materials and toys are now accessible again downstairs.

I am still working my way through both the study/craft room and the spare bedroom this week. But the decluttering is making progress!! [grin]

 

[Winged One]

Oh, and while we were in Ikea, we bought 6 new facecloths. Slightly at cross purposes - I thought we were getting them as handtowels to hang in the kitchen (small space and frequent use, happy to change frequently too, we couldn't find small enough towels), but DH thought we were getting new cloths for faces in the bathroom upstairs. So we've put them upstairs, but he did agree to throw out (well, clothes bank them) about 10 old ones that were gone really threadbare and had definitely had their value used. There's still a handful of older ones that are fine to keep using, but the ones that we both brought into the house from our college days are finally all gone!

 

[Lana]

Impressive work getting done here! You al are doing GREAT!

I did get 2 sacks out to my sister that was stuff for her granddaughter.

I will be sorting on some stuff later this week. When they start the flooring. Not sure if I will be helping Allen (Ryan will if off) or something he will do himself and I will do something else.

 

[Ahorsesoul]

I cleaned out my Dh kitchen cabinet. He keeps his medications and snacks in it. Had two bags of expired meds. Some from 2011 which tells you the last time I cleaned it, lol. It looks really nice now. I used little baskets for his medications. Have one basket for meds he uses to refill his pill box weekly. One for pain meds (all aspirin, Aleve, etc) and then two baskets for the extra pills. We can order $50 per month from our health insurance so we do stock up on some over the counter pills. I'd rather pay $50 less per month for the insurance.