Repurposing my media cabinet as a display case the other day ended up kicking off a home decluttering project that’s going so well it feels a bit like conjuring. Moving the Lunar Module case and the other figurines freed up lots of space on a six-tier bookshelf on the other side of the living room, which allowed me to move some of the books I had piled on top of other things to that shelf. Two small purchases have helped carry this increasingly nifty game of reverse musical chairs several rounds forward and it’s still in progress. A new 2-tier Winsome bookshelf – my fourth – allowed me to clear all the remaining books that were piled on other things, letting me further declutter those other things. A second 16″ long clip-on drawer for the InterMetro commercial wire shelving in my kitchen allowed me to declutter the six shelves on that 74x48x18″ unit, and also store lots of little kitchen gewgaws that had been sitting in my simplehuman dish strainer for many moons simply because I had no good place to put them. That in turn allowed me to give the strainer a good scrub this morning, and so the list goes on.
My aims are 1) to go through everything and toss anything I haven’t even looked at for a decade unless there’s a damned good reason to keep it – no rationalising allowed – 2) excepting the Samsung TV and Dimplex fireplace insert cartons, get rid of empty packaging unless the item it held is still under warranty, and – the main point – 3) not have things piled on top of other things. I’m about three-quarters there, but will pause for several days until the dumpster is emptied again, which occurs fortnightly. Since last week, I’ve tossed out a 3-yard dumpster’s worth and probably have about one yard left to toss.
Some of the inspiration for this was the woman in the middle of the three units here moving out eight days ago. It got me thinking, “Geez, what if I suddenly had to move? What a nightmare that would be.” Now, less so. And the house is looking spiffier by the hour.
I love it! Your post the other day motivated me to a similar action. Lights, tools, clothes (the old books went last year) all gone to either the dumpster or Goodwill.
It’s nice to have room in ones rooms.
The conjuring continues: I figured out today that when I dispose of two videotape shelving units that are in the spare room (and their tapes), that will free up enough space to put what I’ve always wanted in there, the same 74x48x18″ InterMetro wire shelf I have in the kitchen. That would greatly help declutter staples that I buy in bulk maybe once a year and store in that room, such as Luzianne quart size tea bags, freezer bags, paper plates, shampoo, dish detergent, cleaning products, and the like.
So I just checked The Container Store, where I found they have a special offer on exactly that shelf at 21% off. The store is just 18 minutes from my new office. Who am I to argue with kismet?
I love those InterMetro shelves:
More room: I got a 6TB external backup drive today at a ridiculously low price to replace my external 5TB drive at home, which will go with me into my office this week as my offsite backup, encrypted for financial safety. I’ll bring the 5TB home every now and then – maybe two or three times a year – to grab a fresh backup.
Seeing as how there’s twenty-plus years of stuff on my home PC, which includes the contents of three previous PCs, it’s high time I had offsite backup. With that, data loss would not be an issue in the event of various house-flattening catastrophes, and – here’s the “more room” part – I can dispose of one shelf and two large boxes filled with ripped music CDs now that I have proper backup protocol in place.