Monday 21 September 2009

Decluttering Steps 4, 5 and 6

The Decluttering Project continues.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a giant yard sale in the driveway. I spent a week going through boxes and cupboards hauling out "stuff" that hadn't been used in years. Magazines, outdated computer games, toys, books, ornaments, picture frames, plus numerous boxes of school and university books and papers, you name it, I found it.
Both OlderSon and YoungerSon arrived with unwanted junk really useful items to dispose of, and we spent most of the previous day sorting, pricing and cleaning everything up, ready to get rid of it sell it to prospective customers.
Now that the kitchen renovation is complete, I've been replacing kitchen equipment so there were lots of kitchen items on offer.
We were out in the driveway setting up tables by 7:30am, and our first customer arrived soon after. Anything that didn't get sold by noon was divided into three categories:
  1. "stuff" to be donated to the local charity shop
  2. "stuff" to store for our grand 2010 yard sale (the whole street will take part I hope)
  3. "stuff" destined for the garbage. The garbage was the biggest pile!
By the end of the day the garbage pile included a large desk, 4 office chairs, a box spring mattress base, 4 big green garbage bags stuffed full, and 5 boxes of recyclable paper and cardboard.

Next phase of the Decluttering Project is well underway.
The sunroom that runs the width of the back of the house has needed some TLC for a long time. The indoor-outdoor carpet is old and stained and the furniture had seen better days, so I started emptying it out.

The white sofa in the picture is now sitting on the street ready to be picked up on garbage day, and will soon be joined by another old sofa, a rug, 8 rolls of old carpet and whatever else I can find to throw out.

I spent the last three days ripping up the carpet... ugh what a mess. The foam backing had stuck to the plywood floor so I had to scrape it all clean with a shovel.

Black dust flying everywhere, thank goodness for my face mask and the shopvac.

Next step is to repoint some of the bricks, wash down and paint the wall, install a new back doorstep (the existing wood is splitting), and decide whether to put down more carpet or tiles. Then it will need new light fixtures and some new furniture. (Update: wall was washed ready for painting and new light fixtures were installed today, yippee!)

I'm really enjoying this. The place has been a home for outdated clutter for far too long.

20 comments:

  1. Wow.. that's going to look great. Keep us posted, eh? :)

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  2. Sounded like you did A LOT OF WORK there.

    When I moved from a one-bedroom apartment in NYC to a one-bedroom apartment in Maine, I threw out 1/4 of my stuff. And still there were a lot of junk in there.

    So I can only imagine de-cluttering an entire house.

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  3. This is a LOT of work! I envy you the feeling of getting rid of stuff that just clutters up your life!

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  4. Tough job! I moved from big family flat to a smaller one some two years ago. Now I'm helping my mother in a similar procedure. Sorting, throwing away, offering to friends, trying to sell something... Not really fun!

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  5. We had a garage sale after retiring and de-cluttering and picked up a cool grand. You know what they say about junk and treasure.

    How come those purple crocs survived.

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  6. wow! I'm so jealous that you're getting all that done. I so need a major declutter.

    I can't wait to see the end results.

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  7. ps: had a great time w/ Rosemary, we wished you were there, too!

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  8. First send me your motivation booklet and then.....your secret energy potion:):) You go girl!

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  9. You are speaking my language. I enjoy nothing more than a good 'chuck out". Kep up the good work.
    BTW Tiles not carpet. I hate carpet these days. Just a thought.
    xx

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  10. Whew, I am so impressed. Things will be so wonderful and homey when you are finished. Doesn't it feel good to purge some of the past?

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  11. My, but you are busy, busy, busy! Good work!

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  12. I know the feeling of decluttering the house, Sham. What's strange for me is that every other week, something I thought I would keep gets added to stuff I no longer need. Pretty soon I'll be down to bare bones. But of course, I'm moving out of the country, so my situation is a bit different from yours. In another month I'll have an estate sale and THEN I'll be down to just about nothing but the kitchen sink!

    I bet you love this! It's like a new lease on life!

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  13. I'm impressed. When you're done there, I have a garage.... ;-)

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  14. I bet you feel great.

    I love a declutter and the older I get, the less stuff I want.

    It's looking good,

    GG

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  15. You really had a lot of work! But when we did the work we need to do, we feel good, isnt't?

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  16. Me again... I enlarged the first photo and I saw you have a beautiful tree out there!

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  17. I love decluttering since it makes the place more spacious and clean. I just gave a stationary computer to a friend since I dont need it and it just occupied a whole table with the screen and all. Now I can use that table for drawing and stuff.

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  18. This is what we are doing right now – looking at everything to get rid of most. Many good things have to be thrown away though because they just got too wet during the flood. Thanks for your comments on my blog. Happy belated birthday to your son on the 27th. I’d like to share something my daughter just told me when I called her to wish her a happy birthday today. She looked at her birth certificate to see at what time she was born and noticed under “race” they had written “Caucasian/white” for the father, but for the mother, they had written ”French.” I think this is hilarious, as if French was a race rather than a nationality. Don’t they realize that there are French citizens who are white, black, yellow or whatever, and that to be French is not a “race.” Actually in Francophobe US, they may want to make sure to know when someone is born from a French mother – too funny.

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