When I moved here three and a half years ago, I began actively cluttering up my house. For the first time in my life, I had all these rooms, and all this space, and a basement too. How could I resist filling it up?
Well, my work here is done. This house is full. It’s full of furniture, books, art, art supplies, found objects to be used in making art, clothes that don’t fit anymore, camping stuff in case I ever go camping again, yarn, a giant loom bursting with good intentions, and a million tiny things that I only see when I’m looking for something else.
And then there are my collections. Over the years I’ve collected antique photographs, vintage cameras, old purses, playing cards, Saints cards, teapots, mannequins, vintage clothing, pottery and much, much more.
It’s time to declutter. These days I’m feeling drawn to the idea of being surrounded only by things I use and/or love.
I find the process of decluttering difficult because it’s all about making decisions, and I’m not good at snap decisions. I like to look at things from all angles and consider them carefully before deciding. It takes time, and there’s a part of me that argues for keeping every single thing. Just about everything is potentially useful when you really think about it. So decluttering is basically about arguing with myself, which naturally creates tension.
It’s difficult too because there’s so much emotional weight attached to so many objects.
I have a number of items that belonged to my grandfather, who died 15 years ago. I ended up with things nobody else wanted but nobody wanted to throw away. For example, his Christmas in a Frame prototypes, which he was trying to get patented. His Shriner stuff. His ugliest teddy bear. All his slides. I don’t really want this stuff, but I don’t feel comfortable throwing it away either. By keeping it, I feel I’m somehow protecting him from disappearing into obscurity.
Another example of emotional hoarding: I find a pebble in an old jewelry box and I think “I must have kept it for a reason; it must have had some sentimental value,” so I keep keeping it, even though I no longer have any recollection of its significance. I become sentimental about my sentimentality. I think it’s time for me to let some of this stuff go, don’t you?
A box of kitchen clutter
I feel exhausted even thinking about organizing my clutter for resale. Besides, once I’ve filled a box with stuff I want out of my house, I don’t really want it hanging around until garage sale season. I’ve barely just begun the decluttering process, but already I have three green garbage bags of clothing, a box of books and a box of kitchen stuff cluttering up my living room while I try to decide how to dispose of it.
Anyone want a rice cooker? Books about running? Small orange pants?
I gave all my clothes and kitchen stuff to the Family Emergency Shelter on Carling when I was in Ottawa, now I give to a local women’s shelter. Give them a call and see about a good day to bring it over. There are a lot of immigrant women there and I know someone there would love your rice cooker. Books, we have a “Free Market” attached to our Farmer’s Market and also a “Free Market” at the recycling depot. I can’t stand waiting for people and getting stood up on Freecycle so I tend to do anonymous giving this way now.
Oh and if you want to rehome Opa’s ugly bear I would give him a cherished spot with ours.
You could volunteer your home to one of those decluttering TV shows or get a professional to come in and help you sort stuff out and re-home it. Maybe it would be easier for you to go through and pick out all the stuff you really, really want to keep. Put it away in one room and then open up your house for a big crazy sale one day — let people root through everything and take or buy what they need.
Do you remember that rice cooker and how we drove around town buying and returning them until we found just the right one. And wasn’t that the rice cooker that we finally bought at Canadian Tire where I took a picture of The World’s Smallest Woman next to you (for scale) without her knowing… that rice cooker?? Well I guess it doesn’t matter if you get rid of it… we’ll always have Canadian Tire.
Mudmama, good idea, thank you. (I still have your infant car seat in my basement – I’ll take that to them as well. Unless you’re planning to have another baby or something.) And I will give you Opa’s ugliest bear next time I see you. He’s actually kind of sweet, in a smushed-up sort of way.
XUP, I don’t know why, but that idea scares me.
GC, I actually had forgotten the rice cooker’s back story, but now that you’ve reminded me, I realize it has sentimental value too. (Even though we only used it twice, and it wasn’t nearly as much fun as we thought it should be…)
Decluttering is like exercising – the more you do it the easier it gets.
I would not recommend a yard sale as I find it depressing to have people go through my stuff and judge it. Also, criminals have been known to go to yard sales to check out houses to later rob.
Donating useful stuff as you go along is easier. Also, I feel like by donating I am freeing up my stuff to go on to be more useful.
Another “z” blogger, Yarn Zombie, recently made a curtain from old slides. She’s on a mission to preserve old images, so she scanned them all in first and makes many of them available to the world on flickr. Similarly, when my aunt passed away several years ago, my brother scanned all her photos, slides, negatives, and documents (including letters from WWII), burning CDs for family and friends. It’s much easier to store and browse digital memorabilia! Speaking of which, you could take pictures of your collections and sentimental items before divesting; it might make it easier to let go.
Your rice cooker might be useful for dyeing or over-dyeing wool!
Good luck with your worthwhile project!
I, too, want it out fast once I’ve decided that it must go…And I feel bad about selling it…tried that once and ended up telling people: Here, please take it…. So no, I don’t do that well. So, I put down a tarp and let those walking by serve themselves. There’s a lowrise at the end of my street and the tennants are mostly carless students and new immigrants. I also prepare boxes for either the Sally Ann or Saint-Vincent de Paul. Once the box is left there, it’s like magic….out of sight, out of mind. I have never regretted giving away anything. Oh, and books…yes, I’ve sold a few to used bookstores, but now I drop off whatever I don’t want at the library. The proceed of their sales go towards their programmes, and we know who use these programmes….so good investment!
take opas slides to a shop to be converter to a disc and we (all the family members) would contribute to the cost
The infant car seat if used should NOT be donated. Car seats are intended to be single user items, and a used car seat SHOULD NOT be used again as it may not be safe.
If you want I can dispose of it (I’m a child restraint systems instructor) or you can cut the harness and cut the fabric so that it’s clearly not usable and then throw it in your trash.
I sell some stuff on usedottawa/craigslist and I drop the rest off at the women’s shelter in my area. Our purge pile is mostly kids clothes of late, so I keep what’s “good enough” for consignment and donate the rest.
Re, I like the idea of “freeing stuff up” so it can go being useful. I put a box out on the curb today, and it’s almost empty now. (But how do criminals check out houses based on garage sales?)
Auntiemichal, I love the curtains-from-slides idea!
Carmen, good point about never regretting giving something away. Now that I think about, I never have either. (That should make it easier.)
Deb, these aren’t family pictures. They’re mostly slides of buildings in Europe. Still interested? (There are hundreds.) How’s your vacation going?
Rae, does it make a difference if I know the original owner and she tells me the care seat has never been involved in any kind of collision?
I have a ton of clutter, and I also hate decluttering. Clearly these two trait go together.
I just spent the weekend going through 20 years of VHS videotapes – garbage and those to be replaced by DVD.
I will either buy DVDs if available, or dub them from the VCR to DVD using a nifty cable/software thing.
5 garbage bags of videotapes later … I freed up parts of 6 bookcases for overflow books.
Of course I was going to make CDs of vinyl records in the past … but that requires equalizing etc.
And then there is organizing the digital photos … and the knitting patterns … and the recipes.
sigh
Lisa
In my opinion, a garage sale is far too much work. I’d rather donate things I no longer need.
One method for getting rid of stuff with sentimental value is to pack it all up in a box (or boxes) and store it for 6 months. If you don’t remember what’s in the box after that, give the box away unopened.
vacation is great…weather is cold for Mexico…we had to wear coats last night
I would still like the slides if no one else does.
It’s good what you’re doing! And doing it once isn’t enough – I know – it’s sort of like going to the bathroom – it’s better when you’re doing it regularly, like there’s a system in place. Personally, I’m a little clogged up too with clutter, so I totally relate!
In my neighbourhood, if I put stuff out on the curb on a non-garbage day, within hours it’s gone. If anything remains, I bring it back in and then deal with it. And I try to resist the urge to take people’s stuff. I’m cluttered with friends’ useful objects – so now they’re sentimental too. Argh.
It’s amazing how much stuff a person hangs on to for one reason or another. When I moved, I got rid of tons of stuff. Cleaning is very therapeutic. 😉
How small are these orange pants?
The Carlington CHRC is close to you and the Caldwell famuly house isn’t toooo far away if you are still looking for a place to take donations.
I am intrigued by the rice cooker thing are they actually useful? I am also curious whether the green thing is a kettle or a curling rock.
Honestly, YSB will take just about anything — clothes you can donate to the young women’s shelter — they appreciate donated clothes more than anyone else I’ve ever met. They go nuts when new clothes come in and they all spend a day going through everything, modelling it, etc. and they just have a ball.
-JM
I feel the same way. I have tons of clothes in my closet that I refuse to get rid of in case one day I either fit into them again or decide to wear them.
Let me know approximately how many slides. I have the equipment to scan them..but depending on how many there are it may take a bit. Are we talking hundreds or thousands?
Lisa, good for you, that’s VERY impressive. (By the way, I have some of the same things on my to-do list that you do. Digital photos chief among them.)
Colette, but one of the things I love best about my things with sentimental value is discovering them all over again. I hardly ever see them because they’re squirreled away in boxes, but when I open the boxes, I’m transported back in time. (I think I have to find the right balance between keeping and letting go. Maybe one or two boxes would be better than 15 or 20.)
Deb, welcome back. I’ll put the slides away for you and Techwood. He might be able to digitize them.
Jamime, I love your analogy of going to the bathroom regularly! It makes perfect sense when you put it like that.
Chris, I got rid of tons of stuff when I moved too. Unfortunately I kept tons too. (I had over a hundred boxes three years ago – It’s probably closer to 150 now.)
Kim, I think they’re Size 2. And they’re short too – they come to mid-calf on me, and I’m 5’2. Almost.
Reb, the rice cooker was a bit of a disappointment. It worked fine, but so did a pot. As for the green thing, it’s a stove-top kettle that looks very much like a curling rock now that you mention it.
JM, I like the idea of giving it to the young women’s shelter. It’s not the most fashionable stuff though…it is, after all, my clothing, and it’s been awhile since I was a young woman…do you think that matters?
Shophaven, that’s the other thing – I gained weight after spending most of 2009 unable to walk. I ate a lot of Smarties to cheer myself up, too. If I were to lose 10 pounds, most of my favourite clothes would fit me.
Techwood, it’s three metal cases full of slides. I’d say hundreds – probably 500-1000.
Zoom, I’m not suggesting you get rid of everything sentimental. The “put stuff in boxes & get rid of it if you don’t remember what it is” method is more applicable to stuff that you don’t remember why you have – like the pebble. :).