September already??

Well, the school year has resumed and my busy summer is behind me, so some pre winter decluttering is required!  I haven't actually stopped decluttering but the activities of the summer hols just saw it amble along gently in the background rather than romping home to the finish line!  Finding time to blog has been elusive, my art and food blogs have languished a bit too but with renewed vigour hopefully all three will perk up again now!

One thing I did last month was to sort out the two book cases in our bedroom.  My book case looked like this....

And now looks like this....

And my husband's bookcase looked like this...

And now....

Granted it wasn't a major decluttering mission but it was very satisfying as these bookcases have been neglected for aaaaaaaaages!  And, even better, they still look pretty much the same after a month!  Most of the books I decluttered went to the book bank that I recently discovered in one of the local car parks.  Whenever I declutter books they more often than not sit about for a while before I summon up the energy to cart them from the car park to the nearest charity shop but I can get up close and personal with the book bank so it's much easier to release my books into a new life!  And, who doesn't love the satisfyingly smug feeling generated by the thud of a bag of decluttered goods hitting the bottom of a recycling bank??  Or maybe that's just me!  lol

It's good to be back!  Let's do it!  ;oD

15 Minute Moment

Inspired by my lovely friend, Laura, over on From Clutter to Tranquility, I set my timer for 15 minutes and set to on this sorry kitchen top:

and when my timer pinged it looked like this:

Ok, so it's not perfect but look, there's kitchen top there!!  ;o)

Oops!

So, I haven't exactly been racing to post on my blog about my decluttering adventures but that would be because life overtook me a tad and I lost the decluttering urge amongst a severe dose of overwhelm!  Anyhooooo, I am battling on and have done a teeny tiny bit of decluttering this morning that might just spur me onto some this afternoon.  ;o)  I currently have redcurrant chutney bubbling away on the hob and once I'd got it on I started to hunt for my jelly bag as redcurrant jelly (yummeeeeee!) is next on my culinary to do list.  I started my search in my bottom kitchen drawer....good lord, how long is it since I got anything out of there other than a tea towel or dishcloth??  I didn't think to take before and after pics but it's gone from a heap of disorganisation to neat piles of tea towels, aprons and dishcloths.  ;o)  In the process I moved some items to their proper homes and managed to declutter a set of weird flashing plastic ice cube things (why on earth I ever thought these were worth buying I don't know!).  So, a miniature bit of decluttering but I do have a tidy drawer now!  ;o)

Progress

Feeling pretty pleased with myself for making some progress this afternoon.  ;o)  I had planned to get on with going through the bed linen this afternoon but when I arrived home E had found a long lost item in a bag in the airing cupboard and it set me to thinking "What else is lurking in there?".  So, on a whim, I decided to declutter in there.  At the moment it's part airing cupboard, part storage, part dumping ground for coats and shoes etc.  When it hits top of the list this area will be opened out to expand the entrance so this is a temporary measure but, my word, it certainly needed looking at!  So, here we go with some before and after pics, yay! ;o)
The door was cluttered mainly with bags and coats...

and now...

The floor was just a massive heap of boots, shoes and assorted bags, oh and the cool bag lobbed in after our holiday last week...

The shoes and boots that aren't being worn regularly have been dispatched to their respective owner's wardrobes and, look, there's floor under there...

Underneath that heap of coats there's a row of hooks and the green thing is one of those hanging jobbies with pockets...

Again, coats that won't be used over the summer have gone to wardrobe land and those that are well past their usefulness have been binned and now it looks like this....

Next up we have the shelving area....top shelf, just a big jumble of bags mostly....

And now it's just home to my badminton gear...

Second shelf is towels...

Look at this, neat piles??  Whatever next?....

And at the bottom, picnic stuff, waterproofs, outdoory stuff...

And more orderly...

To the right of this, underneath the hot water tank, there's a shelf of vases and beneath that the tent, cool bag and assorted barbecue stuff but I neglected to take a photo of that bit so you'll have to take my word for it when I say that too is much improved.  ;o)

And so, what is the tally for today....

• 20 bags off to the charity shop (honestly, you'd think I have a bag fetish or something!)
• bean bag cover to charity shop
• 3 hats, a pair of boots and a scarf to the charity shop
• barbecue thing, looks a bit like an instrument of torture, to the charity shop
• 12 vases (will let my flower arranging mum look these over at the weekend but they're destined for the charity shop if she doesn't want any of them)
• feather duster (now why would a girl like me want one of those??)
• 3 bags plastic bags into the recycling
• picnic hamper into the garden to become a decorative flower thing "until it rots away" apparently!

This doesn't include the crap that got thrown out and, of course, some stuff was relocated to more appropriate places rather than leaving the premises but even so a happy day.  ;o)  And, just to finish off on a whimsical note, here's Floss after her encounter with the feather duster...

Creeping up

My total that is!  Today has been an odd one but I have decluttered the following:

• 2 dresses (both much to big but I persist in wearing them!)
• 2 shirts (ditto!)
• 2 single duvet covers & pillowcases (yes, I've finally started on the bed linen!)
• plastic drinks bottle

I know I'm not racing along but I have to say I'm feeling quite pleased to be doing even if it is teeny tiny steps at the moment.  ;o) 

Now, you may want to brace yourself with a stiff G & T before you look further as I'm about to share some disturbing images!  Bit of explanation in case anyone other than Laura drops by!  ;o)  Our house is two semi detached cottages which we have knocked into one.  When we put the corridor through upstairs we lost a big chunk of our bedroom so we knocked through into the box room and effectively have a bedroom with just the bed, bedside tables and a couple of bookshelves and the box room has wardrobe, chest of drawers etc in it.  So, are you ready??  This first one is looking into the box room from the bedroom...

Chest of drawers on the left...

And to the right, behind the door....

And the far end....

Now then.... I'm not normally given to airing my dirty laundry (quite literally in this case!  lol) but, well, for me this blog is about more than just decluttering, it's about getting my house in order... getting it straight.  ;o)  For a variety of reasons we have been renovating for way too long, I want a haven, I want a home I'm happy to share instead of actively avoiding inviting people in, I want space and order (I'm not talking minimal here, I'm talking a lived in, loved home) and I wanted to share the sort of thing I'm dealing with!  Today I started working on the box room and it has already improved from these pictures, progress, yay!  ;o)  So, you can expect me to drone on at regular intervals and hopefully I will, in the not too distant future, be sharing much improved views!     

Busy day away from home ahead.....

....but I've already managed to declutter two items:

• a pair of metal goblets bought for a long ago primary school junket to a Tudor day (and my baby is 17 now!) into the the charity bag
• an unworn new bra (completely the wrong size now!) also into the charity bag

A little bit more....

I still didn't get to the bed linen as I went back in the kitchen and did the other open shelf unit and two shelves above the draining board instead.  The shelves are coming down and will most likely be recycled into firewood, the things I've kept will be on the cleared open shelf unit.  So, I can add to today's items...

• ceramic chicken shaped salt and pepper pots into the charity bag
• terracotta pot into the charity bag
• pig ornament into the charity bag
• big heap of used postage stamps into an envelope to be posted
• assorted broken crap into the bin!

I'm off to get a ticker jobbie, what a copy cat!  ;o)

Getting distracted in the kitchen...

Soooo, bed linen was top of my decluttering list for today but I haven't got to it yet due to a moment of distraction in the kitchen!  My kitchen isn't too large and to maximise the space, years ago, we put a shelf up over the kitchen doorway.  This is what it looked like this morning....

And it now looks like this....

Ok, it's not spectacular in decluttering terms but baby steps!  Besides I thought it was time for a few pics to perk up ye olde blog!  ;o)  It is a bit of a dumping ground (I have so many!), one of those people-are-coming-where-can-I-shove-this sort of places!  All but two of the magazines (and a few extracted recipes)have been recycled and various books returned to their appropriate bookshelves elsewhere in the house.  While I was about it I tackled one of the two double shelved end kitchen units.  The other one will be quaking in it's boots now as it's next up!  So, decluttering for today so far looks like this....

• 
  
  stack of magazines off of the shelf into recycling
• 
  
  metal pink photo frame (which I've never liked. Why do I keep this stuff??) into charity bag
• 
  
  china teddy ornament (which I've loathed since the moment it was given to me!) into charity bag
• 
  
  and an unused set of small colouring pencils into the charity bag
• 
  
  assorted bits of unidentified rubbish gathering dust, which none of us recognise or want, into the bin

Now then, bed linen.....

Refreshed and raring to go...

I'm back from sunny Scotland!  Yes, I did say sunny!  I have the sunburn to prove it unfortunately!  ;o(

So, back to decluttering..... I haven't flung myself into it wholeheartedly since arriving home at tea time but even so I have managed to declutter the following....

• black jacket to the textiles bank
• 2 magazines into recycling

Ok, so not a huge haul but nevertheless still items going on their merry way and out of my overcluttered life.  ;o)

Wandering off the point a little, but it's all part and parcel of decluttering to me, I decided to change the beds this evening, nice clean sheets for our first night back after the holiday and all that.  As I took the duvet cover off our bed it occurred to me that I bought it before I got married - the happy event was 22 years ago this August - and not only is it thinner than a doilie in places but it's terribly faded (and not in a good way!) and has a hole in it put there by our oldest dog when she was a puppy - she's 8 now!  Added to that neither pillow case matched each other or the duvet cover or the sheet!  They never do!  Now I'm not obsessed about everything matching, in fact I love mismatched, but not in this instance.... the point I'm slowly rambling towards is that it's a minor thing but it drags me down, I tolerate it but, hey, guess what?  Ding!  I don't have to!  I was reading about "tolerations" while I was away this week.  ;o)  I have a tall boy full of bed linen inherited from my in laws plus a drawer full of fabric I've bought at various times to making bedding from and yet I persist in using this rubbishy stuff which a) is horribly worn b) is WAY past it's best and c) I don't like it and I don't want it on my bed anymore!  Now I sound like I'm stamping my foot in tantrum stylee!  I'm not really, promise!  ;o)  Needless to say though, top of my decluttering list for tomorrow is going through my disastrous bed linen collection!  Now, aren't you glad you ploughed through that over long paragraph to get to the triumphant conclusion?!  lol

And to close, I'm ditching the boring Day 1 etc blog titles in favour of, hopefully, more pithy labels!  ;oD

Day 2

Well, I've been dashing about all day getting ready for tomorrow, eek!  However I have still managed to declutter a little.  ;o)  On the conveyor belt today, Anthea, we have...

• a set of red plastic heart shaped cookie cutters still in their packaging so off to the charity shop
• a bag of previously decluttered books in the bedroom that I've been tripping over every night as I stumble ino bed in the dark, also destined for the charity shop
• not really a decluttered item but I also posted an arty item back to it's owner which I've been meaning to do for a good while!

So, there'll now be a little hiatus while I'm knocking about in sunny Scotland but normal service will resume!

Day 1

Ok, so I haven't rushed off on an all singing all dancing first day (mainly because I was out for most of it painting a 40ft mural!) but I have met the minimum requirements at least and that's ok by me.  So.....today's decluttered items are:

• a carrier bag of old and unused medicines decluttered from the cupboard that houses all the first aid gubbins went to Boots.
• a carrier bag of stuff for the charity shop decluttered a few weeks ago and left in the hall waiting to be put in the car finally went to the charity shop.  I'm counting this as just one item as it had already been decluttered.
• not sure this counts but I decluttered the bottom of the oven of a burnt on rice pudding overflow! I won't share with you how long it was there for!!

Getting going

Ok, following in the footsteps of my lovely friend, Laura, I've pledged to declutter my house (and life) by discarding a minimum of two items per day over the next year.  Surely even I can manage just two items a day!  Thanks for the nudge, Laura!  ;o)