Cleaned out my 2 story house, basement, and garage in order to sell the house. I sold the snowthrower, lawn mower, a gun safe, a deep-freeze, a Nordic trac, and gave away pots/pans/appliances/clothes/bedroom sets/entertainment center. Books, art supplies, hundreds of CDs and DVDs. Childrens books, big rubbermaid planters of all shapes and sizes. It was wonderful. I was glad the good stuff went to a new home (whether they used it or resold it, didn’t matter). I just called the cleanout truck to take my kitchen table and chairs and the wheelbarrow, among other things. I did cry a little watching those put onto the truck, off to who knows where…we spend the first half of our lives accumulating things, and the second half trying to dispose of them.
There are still some things standing in the way of me getting rid of stuff. I got a really nice bag last Christmas from my husband’s grandmother. I can’t think of a use for the bag. It’s not my style. It has a single large compartment so it doesn’t make a very good purse. And anyway, I’ve pretty much settled on a small backpack as my purse, at least as long as I have kids’ stuff to carry around. So I don’t really need this bag. But it’s expensive. It feels wrong to get rid of it.
Then there’s the guilt. My grandmother got me a rocking chair when my son was born. Now it’s just sitting in his room, taking up space. But it’s from my grandmother. What if she passes away and I have nothing to remember her by?
I haven’t figured out how to get past these emotional entanglements with certain items.
Getting rid of stuff is OK… but I really might need that distributor wrench for a 1981 truck engine someday.
You never know, right?
Trek?
My departed mother started to get rid of stuff a few years before her death. Wasn’t hard for her.
I’m now managing her ‘estate’ and am glad she did what she did. My wife and I have donated a bunch more stuff, but we have a ways to go…
Nobody that I know needs more ‘stuff’. We are not rich, but everyone has what they need. We will continue to donate, and have some sort of estate sale I guess. Luckily, it’s a small one story house.
The few things that pull emotional strings have gone to family. I and my brother have digitized a lot of slides and 8mm film and distributed that to anyone that wants it.
I’m getting in the mood to purge. If I’m not in the right state of mind, it won’t happen. But after rummaging around in my basement and attic cubby-hole for Xmas decorations I can see it’s time. Waaaaaay to many things. I have numerous boxes labeled “Xmas Decorations No Longer Used”!! Why didn’t I get rid of them before I put them in a labeled box?? My husband and I keep saying we’re going to rent a dumpster and start throwing out crap, but it’s always - we’ll do it this fall or we’ll do it this spring. It has to happen.
Having helped my mom downsize several years ago, then dealing with her remaining stuff (which is shockingly considerable) after her passing in September has definitely put things into perspective for me when it comes to things. I don’t want things I won’t use, and I use remarkably few things on a regular basis, and those things are almost always the same things until they wear out.
I don’t want my kids to ever think that something is “too good to get rid of” like I was taught. If it starts growing roots in your mind because of the space it takes up, it’s time for it to go. Which is why I’m staring at a piano-shaped portion of my carpet that was just revealed to me (along with eight dead spiders) about an hour and a half ago.
It was technically an heirloom, but I couldn’t sell it or donate it - no one wanted it because pianos are made of better materials now. Finally I was told point blank that giving it to someone else would in essence be putting them in the negative in terms of restoration and upkeep. So I recycled it. I thought I’d be sad, and I am a little, so I took pictures. And now I have a place to put my Christmas tree where I won’t constantly be running into it.
A couple of years ago we bought a new, narrower tree. As a result, we displayed only our favorite ornaments, tho we kept several we still thought nice. This year, we realized whenever we replace this tree, it will be with a smaller one, not larger. Our daughter, with 2 young kids, was happy to take our old ones, some of which were quite nice but just not wat we wanted to display, and others that had sentimental value for her.
We are REALLY digging this recent purge! Just so nice to have space to store and display what we want to have, and what we can imagine using in the future.
When we went through my mother’s stuff after she died, we killed her shredder and had to buy another one. We also ran the small town that she had moved to out of large trash bags. We were just glad that dropping off loads at their landfill was free.
FYI, I cleared out some old personal records and shredded them at a local Staples store; they have locked bins with slots through which you feed the paper, and then the bins are picked up by a commercial shredding service. I think Staples charged about $1.50 per pound. And some towns have regular events at which you can get paper shredded for free.
These may be better options than using a personal shredder and possibly burning it out. (Plus feeding a few sheets at a time in a personal shredder gets old really fast.)
As I mentioned in the thread about finding stuff you didn’t know you had, my wife and I are going through the house, one drawer or closet per day, and putting stuff we no longer need in a throw out bin or a donate bin. It’s not hoarding as much as getting stuff for Christmas, say, and not wanting to throw away stuff we had. We had way more place mats than we’ll ever need.
We’re not hoarders. We have lots of books. I saw a T-shirt that reads “It’s not hoarding if it’s books,” so there. I used to hoard jigsaw puzzles but I now donate ones I’ve finished.
It is a pleasure to take something from a drawer we’ve done have room to see all the contents.
The big challenge will be the garage.
Fancier than that, Italian iirc Bianchi?
Haha. No, I thought that you might know my friend Trek who did the same thing.
Yeah, but I needed to look at every single piece of paper. For the most part she was quite organized. On the good news front no relatives want anything.
I find moving things out of my house is smoothed by donating them to people who can use them. Today I gave away three area rugs, a bathroom scale, and a sack of organic goat pellets my goat won’t eat (not to any of the same people). I have an imaginary conveyer belt that moves the unused and unloved to my studio for photographing and then gradually proceeding out the door to their new homes. Because I do it a few items and a time – and I’m always doing it – it isn’t overwhelming.
Very little ends up in landfill. Only if we can’t repair it or repurpose it or donate it or burn it in the wood stove or feed it to the chickens or compost it.
I did so much decluttering and reorganizing over the last few years that my friends and family are starting to ask me to help them. My dear old Auntie (90, but feisty and still living on her own) has been in her house for 65 years. She absolutely cannot bear for “still useful” things to be thrown out. I have a deal with my cousin. When she’s in town, she helps my Auntie sort and organize (a wee bit at a time) and when I am visiting, I take it all with me. I volunteer for an org that helps unhoused women, so she assumes everything I take is going there. A lot of it does, some goes to other orgs, some to thrift stores, and some to the trash/recycling. It’s a team effort, but given her age and the amount of stuff she has, we’re doing our best.