2017 Declutter and Organization Thread

[bean29]

Well, DH and I got the outdoor Christmas lights down yesterday.  It was a little warmer, and I wanted the stuff in front of the door down.  DH went out with me and took the lights off the 4 evergreens and the one other tree we had decorated, and I removed the net lights off the shrubs and the Ornaments I had on shepherd's hooks. I had to bring the lights inside to dry them off, and I put them in tubs and moved them back to our 3rd car garage this am. I think there is one cardboard box full of lights that I have to find the Rubbermaid container they came out of...DH said he put the lawn chairs where the tubs of Christmas lights were, so he thinks it may have to wait till spring. 

DH and I made it to the home show. The builders we talked to are really building high end houses. Yikes. Idk. we had talked about moving to a more rural area to lower our taxes, but if we build a higher end home one thing defeats the other. He have low interest locked in, so I think it will serve us well to stay put for a few more years (I think we have 12 years left on the Mortgage). In the meantime, DH is talking about replacing the front door, and the windows in front. He also wants to change the family bath from a 36" door to a 32 or 30" door. I agree the current door is awkward. We wanted the bathroom to be handicapped accessible, but once you are in the bathroom, you have to close the door or you can't get to the toilet. We should have put in a slider.

Mr. and Mrs. C. Congrats on the new addition to your family! 

Chloe, sorry to hear about your Co-worker's friends.

[dee27]

Chloe, I am so sorry for the family that lost two lives. It was indeed a tragedy.

[tcu2003]

Chloe, I am so sorry about your coworker's friends. I saw that story on the news - heartbreaking.

[tcu2003]

Peter Walsh 31 Days to Get Organized challenges.

Day 1 - TABLE TOPS
Day 2 - SET UP A DONATION BIN
Day 3 - GIFT BAGS
Day 4 – TACKLE THE FREEZER
Day 5 – UNDER THE SINK
Day 6 – TWO DRAWERS IN YOUR OFFICE (OR ELSEWHERE)
Day 7 – SHOES, SHOES, SHOES
Day 8 – THE CRAZY TANGLE OF CORDS AND CABLES
Day 9 – SOCKS AND UNDIES
Day 10 – SUITCASES AND LUGGAGE
Day 11 – GET BACK IN TOUCH
Day 12 – KITCHEN UTENSIL DRAWER
Day 13 – CONQUER THAT MAIL
Day 14 – CLEANING PRODUCTS IN YOUR LAUNDRY
Day 15 – UNDER THE BED(S) CLUTTER
Day 16 - MAGAZINES

Day 17 – PENS AND PENCILS
I’m guessing you’ll be surprised at how many pens and pencils are in your home. Today’s challenge is all about getting rid of what you don’t need and to pass them onto a local school that will love you for it.

[wvugurl26]

That's awful news Chloe. So sorry to hear that.

[WholeLottaNothin]

Chloe - that gave me chills when I read it. I am so sorry for their losses.

[startsmart]

Chloe - Oh, what a tragic loss! I saw it on Facebook this morning because I think a WIR friend shared it. That poor family!

I'm still working away at my list and have no excuses this week. The car is finally in the shop for repairs but it's going to be there all week. I can drive my Cadillac but it's not the most reliable/warm and I'd rather not have the convertible top out when it's raining so much. Therefore this week is homebody week so I can get sh*t done from the list.

I finished the 2 closets last night with paint and then moved the boxes to the hall closet. It actually works a little better to have my oversized computer boxes + book boxes in the hall closet, a few coats and my purses. There's still room on the top for light items as well. For now I'm keeping the vacuums in my master closet since I pulled out a lot of clothes for consignment and donation. (I have 3 vacuums: steam vac for rugs, steam vac for laminate/tile, regular vac) 

My PA is coming today and I need to work on her list and figure out her new schedule. Right now the house still looks all kinds of horrible because of the trim and decluttering so I'm hoping for a semblance of order by the end of the day. 

ETA: adding 6 to my total because I cleaned my closet and got rid of some really old pairs of shoes. I would count it as 12 but that might be cheating...

[Jaguar]

Gee that's horrible so sorry, Knee Deep in Water Chloe

[busymom]

So sorry Knee Deep in Water Chloe! 

The weather is finally good enough, and I'm feeling better, so I did a lot of walking today, and I just hit 10,000 steps.    As I mentioned earlier, one of my "decluttering" goals is getting rid of some extra pounds on me. 

bean29, do you know of a real estate agent in your community who may be able to direct you to a builder who puts up smaller houses?  When we were looking for one in the past, we found our local agents were a great resource.

We've still got a lot of paperwork to organize.  I'm going to try to put that on my priority list for the next day or two.

[whoisjohngalt]

Jan 17, 2017 11:09:51 GMT -5 tcu2003 said:

Peter Walsh 31 Days to Get Organized challenges.

Day 1 - TABLE TOPS
Day 2 - SET UP A DONATION BIN
Day 3 - GIFT BAGS
Day 4 – TACKLE THE FREEZER
Day 5 – UNDER THE SINK
Day 6 – TWO DRAWERS IN YOUR OFFICE (OR ELSEWHERE)
Day 7 – SHOES, SHOES, SHOES
Day 8 – THE CRAZY TANGLE OF CORDS AND CABLES
Day 9 – SOCKS AND UNDIES
Day 10 – SUITCASES AND LUGGAGE
Day 11 – GET BACK IN TOUCH
Day 12 – KITCHEN UTENSIL DRAWER
Day 13 – CONQUER THAT MAIL
Day 14 – CLEANING PRODUCTS IN YOUR LAUNDRY
Day 15 – UNDER THE BED(S) CLUTTER
Day 16 - MAGAZINES

Day 17 – PENS AND PENCILS
I’m guessing you’ll be surprised at how many pens and pencils are in your home. Today’s challenge is all about getting rid of what you don’t need and to pass them onto a local school that will love you for it.

This will never ever happen in my house.  Not only I am addicted to office supplies, my children seem to inherit my trait.

My husband just brought me a huge box if his "treasures" and told me I can look through it and get rid of what I want.  So far I got rid of 1 pen

Knee Deep in Water Chloe - what a horrible horrible thing to happen.  That poor woman - not only loosing her family, but right in front of her - how do you ever survive something like that ?

[debthaven]

This week
- rewrite letter (Wed)
- get DD a second (matching) towel (Wed)
- grocery shopping (Wed)
- laundry (ongoing)

DS1 is coming over for a few days so I went grocery shopping. We call a truce on the freezer / pantry challenge when the kids come for dinner or to stay.

[tcu2003]

Peter Walsh 31 Days to Get Organized challenges.

Day 1 - TABLE TOPS
Day 2 - SET UP A DONATION BIN
Day 3 - GIFT BAGS
Day 4 – TACKLE THE FREEZER
Day 5 – UNDER THE SINK
Day 6 – TWO DRAWERS IN YOUR OFFICE (OR ELSEWHERE)
Day 7 – SHOES, SHOES, SHOES
Day 8 – THE CRAZY TANGLE OF CORDS AND CABLES
Day 9 – SOCKS AND UNDIES
Day 10 – SUITCASES AND LUGGAGE
Day 11 – GET BACK IN TOUCH
Day 12 – KITCHEN UTENSIL DRAWER
Day 13 – CONQUER THAT MAIL
Day 14 – CLEANING PRODUCTS IN YOUR LAUNDRY
Day 15 – UNDER THE BED(S) CLUTTER
Day 16 - MAGAZINES
Day 17 – PENS AND PENCILS


Day 18 – BROOMS AND MOPS AND THINGS THAT SWEEP
If it mops or sweeps it’s up for grabs today!

[tcu2003]

I hear you on pens and pencils, @lena. I, too, love office supplies! I have gotten rid of a few that no longer work, and I try to not pick up freebie pens/pencils - if I'm going to have lots around the house, my preference is they be ones I love.

[bean29]

Jan 17, 2017 22:45:12 GMT -5 busymom said:

So sorry Knee Deep in Water Chloe ! 

The weather is finally good enough, and I'm feeling better, so I did a lot of walking today, and I just hit 10,000 steps.    As I mentioned earlier, one of my "decluttering" goals is getting rid of some extra pounds on me. 

bean29 , do you know of a real estate agent in your community who may be able to direct you to a builder who puts up smaller houses?  When we were looking for one in the past, we found our local agents were a great resource.

We've still got a lot of paperwork to organize.  I'm going to try to put that on my priority list for the next day or two.

 My house isn't exactly small.  I live in a 3 bedroom 3 bath 2,000 square foot ranch with a 3.75 car garage and a fully finished basement (with exposure ie. it has 4 full sized windows and a door to the outside from the basement).  We have a full bar, a full kitchen, a full bath, an office and a guest bedroom along with a family room in the basement.  If we build a new house I would go for a little less square feet, and maybe not figure on finishing the basement.  DH would still plan to finish the basement no matter what he tells me now.  The problem with the below grade finished square feet, is I swear the city charges me more for the below grade sq feet that I would be charged if I had a 2 story house.  Seeing what some houses that are much smaller than mine are going for on Zillow and realtor.com, maybe the assessor is not nuts, idk.

I am thinking we should just fix the bathroom door, replace the windows DH wants to replace and let him build his built in outdoor grill and hold tight for 5-10 years. 

When we were building the current house I had the subdivision lot layout with the topography lines on it and I worked for a company that did Commercial construction.  One of our engineers looked at the lot I was talking about and looked at the available lots and pointed me to the one we eventually bought.  I plan to seek similar input if we start over.  Most subdivisions require a minimum single family house size of 1600-2000 square feet around here - we should be well within the minimum.  It is not so much the size as the build quality.  The houses we like, seem to be with builders that put Fiber cement or brick on the exterior, higher end windows and doors, 9 foot ceilings with those transom windows above the windows, tray ceilings etc.   I like the look of transoms, but I question if I would like them, because I have sensitive eyes and sun glare is a constant issue for me.  My windows all have blinds on them.  We want some of the high end extras but not a full component of them.  We will see. 

The current community I live in has development exploding around us.  Lots of Commercial development, multi family housing and medical facilities coming in.  We should get some pretty good quality retail too as we are getting an Ikea and I am sure it will attract other retail around it.  When we moved here we had a grocery store and a walgreens drug store, and Kohls department store.  Now we have Kohl's, Target, Meijer, Woodman's (grocery), Petco, Petsmart, One hour Martinizing Chick filet, lots of other food places, a Brewery Pub/restaurant, a new city hall/library, new schools etc.  It is a very vibrant community - much more desirable than when we first moved here.  It was just a bedroom community.  If we wait a year or two I think we will get more $$ that if we sell this year - if we wait for IKEA and the new Medical Facilities to be ready, there will be more demand and we will pro'lly make more $$.  Decisions. Decisions. 

We might want to be close to the Medical Facilities as we get older, idk.

[startsmart]

Add me to the list of office supply lovers! What worked in my office was to organize and keep my favorite pens, everything remotely good after that went into a box in the car because I NEVER have pens when I need them there. Except the car is in the show so the pens are actually in a box in the garage right now... 

Oh and apparently I have to UNcheck off taking the gutters to the because I missed one   How I did not notice an 8' long length of gutter is beyond me. But now I'll need to wait until a) the car is back from the shop and b) it stops raining so much. 

[debthaven]

Another office supply lover here too! I've recently discovered Frixion pens! Yesterday I bought refills for the two red ones a friend / colleague gifted me, plus 3 more (blue, purple, pink).

I keep one of those small wooden 3-drawer organizers in the coat closet for the kids' school supplies. I figured that now that all the kids are out of school, I can finally get rid of it ... but no, too many office supplies lol. (I did give the French "school paper" to a friend / colleague.)

ETA: DS1 is here ... and he didn't bring tea! He doesn't want the Jordanian tea, so he'll get rid of it. (He too said it was "interesting" ...)

[Iggy aka IG]

Jan 16, 2017 13:35:13 GMT -5 Iggy aka IG said:

Haven't heard any feedback from Saturday's showing, and the RE office is apparently closed today. 

 

The feedback:  They liked the property, but couldn't get the back door open.  SIGH.  WE can open it, it just sticks.  DH is off Wednesdays and will work on it some more.....

We will be part of the realtor tour tomorrow.  Fingers crossed! 

[debthaven]

Iggy, that's a REALLY dumb reason not to buy a house!!! EVERY house has its quirks!

[Iggy aka IG]

Jan 18, 2017 14:54:12 GMT -5 debthaven said:

Iggy, that's a REALLY dumb reason not to buy a house!!! EVERY house has its quirks!

Right?  So, I'm not sure if they'll be back or...?

To be continued...

[busymom]

Good luck Iggy aka IG!  After it took so long to sell Mom's house, I'm of the opinion that the younger shoppers are just spoiled, & wanted everything PERFECT.    If you want a "perfect" house, build or buy new.  Even then, it won't be perfect. 

I had so much trouble falling asleep last night that I took a long walk before picking up DS this afternoon.  However, because I did 9,000 steps at once, the ball of my right foot is bothering me.  I guess I'd better go back to doing 2 shorter walks each day.  I don't know...

The price of our internet service went wayyyy up, so I did some shopping around the last couple of days, & now we'll be paying $44 less each month. 

I'm catching up on laundry now that I'm home, so I should have NO problem getting in at least 10,000 steps for today.

[bean29]

I have to talk to DH and get on the refrigerator/pantry clean out gig. My problem is that I rarely cook myself as my DH is gifted in the kitchen. His parents dog sit for us too - last night I stopped for groceries before I picked up the dog and MIL offered me enchiladas. My groceries went in the fridge and we ate the enchiladas and leftover chicken.

Busy Mom, I so much agree with you. DH would prefer to buy the house and fix stuff himself - he figures then he knows it is done right then. The young people have watched too much HGTV imho. Their expectations seem way out of line from what they can afford.  DH and I have always been able to afford more and been very careful not to divulge that. When we bought our second house I had 40,000 that I did not admit to the agent I had. I wanted him to show me a different house in the neighborhood and he would not show it to me b/c he said well you can't afford it right, and I asked myself if I wanted to tell him I had more $$ and I could not bring myself to do it.

Right now I have a 15 year mortgage and a 5 year Home equity loan that is almost equal to my 1st mortgage payment, so yeah, we really can afford a lot more house if we want to (I remind myself I don't want to eat cat food in retirement though).  That's why I like hanging out around here, it keeps me on track thinking about the whole picture. 

Iggy good luck on the house sale.

DH brought the neat receipts scanner home, now I just have to connect it and start scanning and organizing my virtual office so I can get rid of some of the paper files.

[debthaven]

I have to talk to DH and get on the refrigerator/pantry clean out gig.

Bean, we started doing it as soon as DS3 left for college in late Sept because we're pretty broke these days. This said, it's been a great exercise, and we've saved a LOT of money on groceries since then (except for this month, because of Christmas and having our kids home).

But stocking up occasionally because of the kids doesn't bother me at all. It's occasional, and it allows us to stock up on certain items again. I'm much more careful about what I buy and how much it costs than I used to be. And it gives us a break / boost that allows us to keep going with the freezer / pantry thing.

[chiver78]

Jan 18, 2017 16:07:58 GMT -5 busymom said:

Good luck Iggy aka IG !  After it took so long to sell Mom's house, I'm of the opinion that the younger shoppers are just spoiled, & wanted everything PERFECT.    If you want a "perfect" house, build or buy new.  Even then, it won't be perfect. 

I had so much trouble falling asleep last night that I took a long walk before picking up DS this afternoon.  However, because I did 9,000 steps at once, the ball of my right foot is bothering me.  I guess I'd better go back to doing 2 shorter walks each day.  I don't know...

The price of our internet service went wayyyy up, so I did some shopping around the last couple of days, & now we'll be paying $44 less each month. 

I'm catching up on laundry now that I'm home, so I should have NO problem getting in at least 10,000 steps for today.

it isn't just the younger HGTV shoppers. the woman that bought my condo was a retired widow who was downsizing. her post-inspection checklist was 3 typed pages long!     and none of it was due to failing equipment or things not meeting code. f that. I pushed back hard, and she caved. 

[startsmart]

debthaven - I was so excited to clear some things out of the fridge and freezer today and set aside a couple hours for cooking. And the storm has knocked out the power 3 times. 

I think everything is finished cooking but took a lot longer since I would have to re-set the oven even though there's just a few minutes with power out. 

[wvugurl26]

I decluttered some Christmas chocolate to a good home. The landlord is headed to Vietnam this week. They really love US chocolate. I made some progress tonight but I feel awful. Gatorade and water on the agenda for tomorrow.

[Sharon]

I am off for a couple of days and hope to do a great deal of sewing and probably some knitting.  Tonight I did get the Shite pile cleaned up, the bills paid and YNAB up to date.

[Lizard Queen]

Late to post this, but here is week 2 progress:

Sunday: fail
Monday: fail
Tuesday: yay
Wednesday:  cub scout stuff
Thursday: fail
Friday: Fail
Saturday: yay

So, not so great, but making progress on the decluttering 
Current #: 55 + 18 KM

(KM= stuff I would've otherwise held onto had I not read the book.  DH has also been a bit inspired by some of the parts he heard.  His discard numbers are in the first # though.). There have been so many days off from school, that I've had kids home way more than I expected.  Hopefully, since there's only one more snow day built into the school calendar, there won't be any more snow days called for stupid reasons.

[Sharon]

I sat down this evening and went through my knitting bag.  Untangled yarn, found some small containers for stitch holders etc and most importantly collected up my knitting needles and sorted them.  I do have the sizes needed for the blanket I am considering doing.  The straight needles are put away in the knitting needle holder that my Mom made me years ago.  It has a place for a circular needles.  It will probably only hold 2 or 3 pair maybe and I actually prefer to keep them in the little bags they came in so I will know what size/length they are.  I even found the little bags for all but 3 pairs of needles.

I have so many unfinished projects it is pathetic.

[jenpen]

Well, I hadn't planned on wasting everyone's time by trying to participate in this thread again this year (though of course I intended to continue lurking ), but I got inspired by some of the Peter Walsh lists.

Day 1 - TABLE TOPS

Day 13 – CONQUER THAT MAIL

 -- these are started and will be ongoing, as they are the bane of my existence

Day 2 - SET UP A DONATION BIN
--- not really going to happen. I bag things up and it's a quick trip to GW now that we have one in town, just up the street from my office.

Day 7 – SHOES, SHOES, SHOES
-- done! I tossed 4 pairs and have 8 pairs to donate
Day 12 – KITCHEN UTENSIL DRAWER
-- done! took < 1 minute.  I don't cook, so don't collect a lot of kitchen stuff, and even have had 1 or 2 empty drawers in my kitchen at times.  But I did throw out 1 broken plastic spoon (used for cat food) and a really pretty but entirely useless case for a pair of chopsticks that are long gone
Day 15 – UNDER THE BED(S) CLUTTER
-- not done. I don't store anything under my bed

Day 9 – SOCKS AND UNDIES
-- this will be done by this weekend, as I FINALLY called the P.T.A. Thrift Store to come pick up my bedroom set (queen bed frame, 2 night stands and 6-drawer dresser).  They are coming on Friday evening, so I have to get the dresser (oh, and night stands!) emptied by then.  That means going through 1 drawer each of: socks, undies, pajamas, swim wear, work-out wear and summer shorts. My plan is to wean this down to an amount that will fit in one small-ish 4-drawer dresser that I can put in my closet. 

I am keeping the other PW challenges on my to-do list and may or may not end up posting them here. Either way, I have to thank you all for the continued inspiration, motivation, indirect encouragement, and sharing of your own challenges.

Lizard Queen, I'm so glad you seem to have found the Marie Kondo audiobook usefull!  I downloaded it but haven't listened yet (I read the most of the book last year).  I'll have to do that this weekend, while (I'm assuming) I am finishing up going through everything from the emptied dresser.

[wvugurl26]

If I threw out clothes that didn't bring me joy I'd have hoodies and yoga pants left and work wouldn't approve! It's a good concept but I think realistically most people have certain things they need that might not fill them with joy.