What happened to the declutterung?

OK, next time I make a big declaration on here I must think it through. I started the big declutter last September. Then we went on holiday for 2 weeks in October and although I managed to stay on track a bit between that and Christmas it has just stopped since then, even I was wondering wtf happened to it so you may have thought I'd just given up! But no, I just lost track of time and all of a sudden it's May next week and the decluttering is still not done. The last post was here in December.

A few things I really couldn't plan for, like deciding to climb 2 mountains this year and therefore having to start training and working on fundraising in January, kind of hijacked all my time. However I was so close to the finish line, I had pretty much finished the list, with only the furniture left to go and then rearranging all my new empty space to look gorgeous! To get to the furniture I had to actually get rid of the boxes piled up waiting to go though. The last photo I shared was this, for scale that pile of boxes came to my shoulder height. 

Not a lot happened then for a few months, but in Jan I threw a bit of a strop about this stuff STILL being in the hallway and Tom took 2 boxes of books, DVDs and random stuff to the charity shop. I got rid of the cream chairs of freecycle in January, as we now have our benches. with the dining table. Then last week I got rid of the old turtle tank filter, the old tent with a broken zip and some bubblewrap on freecycle. Now there isn't much left. I took the old computer to my sister last week, and sold the armchair and chest of drawers on Gumtree for £15 so we are really getting there. There is one box still left of random stuff, mostly electronics and Toms old man cave stuff (i.e. an old broken xbox, approx 500 pairs of headphones and random cables) which have lived in this box since we moved in together, but we used to have an attic to keep it in so it was OK, but now it's got be used or got to go.

We are slowly getting there with getting rid of stuff, then last weekend I started moving the furniture around out there. I moved the music equipment from the little drawers in the corner into boxes in the now empty bookshelf, then moved the wardrobe round to by the door and the bookshelves to the opposite wall.

 That's a bouldering mat leant on the wall, nowhere else to keep it for the moment.

All the music equipment that was in the small chest of drawers is in the butterfly boxes (£2.99 from B&M), the gloves and scarves are in the bottom one too.

Look at all that space in the middle!! As a reminder this is how it looked before:

All of the chairs are gone, the small drawers are gone, the brown bookshelf next to the door is now inside the wardrobe, the guitar cases are on top of or inside the wardrobe and half of the books are gone. The only thing I want to do in this room now is get a better shoe rack, one which is enclosed so the shoes don't look so messy and also one that is a bit more sturdy as ours is a bit wobbly.

Now the hallway is full of things for a jumble sale at my fete on 17/5 in aid of Maggie's Centres, so the decluttering has stopped again but I am contributing a load of my own stuff to the jumble sale so hopefully that will be the last and I can share some more before and after pictures!

Nearly There!

I did the second to last room in the big deluttering challenge last weekend, the kitchen. This is how it looked before.

This room wasn't really too cluttered but since we moved in we've not really been using some of the space in the best way. For example the space on top of the microwave had become a bit of a mess as it was often where we just put larger food items due to not having enough cupboard space.

So I cleared it off, threw away the crisps and crackers as they were out of date, and put my porridge oats up there in their place. This jar stays down from the cabinet top as I use it every day (the others have flour etc in which I don't use daily) and I don't want to have to climb the cabinets every morning to make breakfast! I got a box out for stuff to go to the charity/car boot pile but actually everything ended up in the bin liner for the tip, so Minty claimed the box as her fort for the day.

It was already looking better, but still there was too much out on the counters in here for my liking meaning cooking can get a bit frustrating due to lack of counter space. This is our largest cupboard, and it is just full of random stuff.

 The pots and pans were all in this smaller cupboard next to the oven

So I dragged it all out and swapped them around. Now the 'random kitchen stuff' cupboard is the smaller one, and the cookware, tupperware and tea towels are in the larger one. Much more sensible. The carrier bags are all in the hallway now, as I figure if they are near the front door they are more likely to get reused than if they're hidden under the sink.

The next to do was food, we had a bigger kitchen in our last house but now only have one cupboard for food so we need to get better at buying less and only what we will eat straight away. I got all the food out of here and sorted through it.

After getting rid of all the out of date things and reorganising the cupboard I was able to get more things into the food cupboard, like oils and spices, so there is less on the counter and I could move the toaster round and also fit a chopping board in front of it.

 This is the out of date stuff. We have out of date tinned goods, how embarrassing!

We have gained a usable counter space!

It's amazing what a couple of hours and a bin liner can free up, we now have more cupboard space and another work surface. 

I will get a few more small jars when I'm next at The Range as I want to move some more of the dried stuff like couscous up to the top of the cabinet out of the cupboard, and there is room for another row of smaller jars behind the big ones. Other than that now it's nice and clear I'd like to replace some stuff in there like the bread bin and canisters, and bring in some more colour and interest as it looks pretty boring.

Also observant people might notice that the view out of the window looks different, the garden is being redone so the landlords part of it now looks like this.

I will ask if I can take some snaps when it's done but it is certainly more open and they now have a nice spiral staircase in up to their back door instead of the old wooden stairs they had before. We are hoping this will mean more sun into our little part of the garden in the summer and it certainly feels a lot more spacious out there. Our part looks like a dump though as we had to move all our pots into the centre to let them do the work so I need to spend a few hours out there! Another thing for the to do list...

Back on it!

Back on the decluttering list! I did intend to take a 2 week break while we were away but kind of got sidetracked once we were back and am just getting back to it now. So the last post back here was over a month ago, oops! It also didn't help that the hallway was too full of stuff and we were having to climb over boxes to get in and out, so adding more to that pile was difficult. After a trip to the recycling centre to get rid of a load of cardboard and reorganising the boxes it now looks like this 

I didn't take before photos as there was literally nowhere to stand in the room to take one! The most recent one is this (but picture those boxes piled higher and stuff reaching over to the shoe rack out of shot on the left)

The most recent additions to those boxes have been from this corner

Items from the list are:

• Living room – CD’s - I was not able to get rid of any CDs as Tom wouldn't let me get rid of any of his and all my old embarrassing ones are in my mums loft already, but I was able to just tidy up the shelves and organise the general cables and headphones etc into a more presentable arrangement

• Living room – Corner by CD’s - The main issue here, the stuff piled in front of the CD shelves. The box had all the equipment from our last internet provider in it. We brought it with us when we moved as we thought we'd be staying with the same provider, but we didn't in the end and now have a BT home hub (more on that here). I wasn't sure what to do with it so just kind of kept it but that was a year ago now so it's got to go...I figure if they wanted it back they'd have asked by now! Also the blue bag had some of Tom's birthday presents in it, from February, he is a lazy sod sometimes. So those all got put away and now it looks like this.

So much better! I knew the living room would be the room with the most noticeable difference from getting rid of clutter. Next up was:

• Living room – Box under coffee table - This is meant to be a kind of 'drop spot' for stuff that usually collects in living rooms like post, lovefilm DVDs as well as usual living room stuff like remotes, controllers and cables. However Tom appears to use it as a dustbin/coffee table cleaning aid. He said to me a while back that when he tidies the living room he just opens the top and sweeps everything off the table into here. Sigh. It has since been explained that this is not how we clean...but this is how it ended up looking like this

I mean there are nails in there for God's sake. Now it looks like this after everything actually got put away or put in the bin

This is everything that came out of that one small box, all sorted into piles of which room it actually belonged in

Next on the list was

• Living room – Ornaments, frames, candles - I didn't actually get rid of any but I'm hoping to move some around soon and get something hung up in the bedroom so I've kind of mentally earmarked what's due a changearound. 

• Living room – Coffee table - Just a general tidy really - NOT sweeping it all into the box underneath...

• Living room – Misc - Last sweep over the room didn't really find anything as I seem to have covered it already.

Next up is the kitchen then the bathroom then it's done! I can't wait to get rid of the stuff, we just don't have time to do it bit by bit which is why it's all getting piled up then we will do a huge trip to a charity shop. 

I'm also mentally earmarking furniture to go, which is always the surprise doing this as you think that you won't be able to get rid of many bigger items but the more little things you get rid of the more larger items become empty and you realise they can go too...

Um...

I've been feeling a little uninspired about the flat recently, the big decluttering mission was kind of started by this. I just felt like I was sick of everything we owned and it all is just rubbish and I want to get rid of all our crap and start again...ever have those days? I'm having one of those months I think!

I just keep looking at our flat and wondering how we got so.much.stuff. Seriously, where does it all come from!? I also feel like it's getting in the way of the place looking how I want it to. We have things I don't really love but that are functional and we would need to save up to replace (bed, turtle tank, coffee table) which is fair enough and I know we'll get there in the end (although sometimes I wish we could just buy it all now!) but there is also a lot of stuff I just cannot see why we have!

The the flat just looks so 'blah' sometimes, I just feel like it's not how I want it to be. I don't know if it's just frustration that the to do list isn't progressing as fast as I'd like, or that as we've been living here nearly a year now the novelty is starting to wear of the 'new' flat. This might be a part of renting, not being able to really make your mark on a home so always feeling like it isn't quite right. What do you think? I know certainly at our last rental I felt a lot more ownership and pride in the decor there as we were allowed to paint and do DIY (although I didn't want to spend too much time and money doing anything much). Whereas here the place is nicer but we aren't allowed to do anything so it maybe is a bit impersonal. Any tenants out there feeling the same? 

However, we also have a lot of stuff that I just do not like at all that were mistake buys, or gifts, or were once useful but now serve no purpose other than getting in the way. I think this might be clouding my judgement a bit as I just can't see past it all at the moment (e.g. the living room is a constant mess and there are always things out on the kitchen counters as the cupboards are full so I'm never happy with those 2 rooms). Once I've decluttered the place I'm really going to try not to keep so much but I know I'm a hoarder at heart. This is the problem really, I can never get rid of things one by one, it takes a realisation like this that we are getting overrun with things to kick start me into getting rid en masse. Hopefully once I've gone through this process and gotten rid of some clutter I might be able to 'see the woods for the trees' and I might get a bit more inspiration...

Don't worry there are plenty of projects and posts coming up it's not like I'm out of ideas, just feeling a little unsure of what direction I'm going with this place at the moment.

Do you know any ways to keep the amount of clutter to a minimum? Please share if you do!!

Week 4

Week 4 of the decluttering mission in our household, you can see the previous posts here, here, here, here and here.

Under the bed finally got done this week, and it looks great! Before:

The cardboard box had Avon stuff in and I gave that up last year so that went straight in the 'to go' pile, the rest is bedding, wrapping paper, cosmetics, candle making supplies, and a small Christmas tree. If the tree doesn't get used this year it will go too but I wasn't sure so kept it for now.
After:

I wanted everything under there to be in a storage box, as some of the stuff that came out was so covered in dust and cat hair it had to go in the bin! It also will make it easier to hoover under there every now and then (you can see all the dust I dragged out on the carpet in the before pics!) if I can just pull a few boxes out and hoover under rather than finding stuff like this

Gross.

The rest of the week was:
 Bedroom – Under the bed - Weds
 Bedroom – Under the bed - Thurs
 Bedroom – Drawers - Fri
 Bedroom – Surfaces - Sat
 Bedroom – Misc - Sun
 Living room – DVD’s - Mon
 Living room – Corner by DVD’s - Wed

So pretty much finishing off the bedroom over the weekend, I just went through the drawers in the corner (mostly empty already after this clear out) then went over the surfaces. Then I gave it all a good tidy up as it had been a disaster area for a week!

The clothes on the bed were all for listing on ebay again as it was a free listing weekend (check them out here if you want a bargain!)

Starting on the living room is great as this corner has been doing my head in...

It has just collected clutter! Once it's clear I may actually move the sofa in a little to stop the junk collecting. Although before we moved we had a massive DVD clear out we till brought a lot of DVD's with us, and have watched about 3 of them since! So we decided most of them could go.
Before (bookshelf on the left)

Now:

Empty shelves! Although the DVDs have actually only moved about 3ft away to here as I need to check with Tom before getting rid of them all!

We're making such good progress, the to go pile is getting so big I had to reorganise it so we could get in and out of the front door! Pictures next week once we've done the living room as it will be even bigger!

Have any of you been decluttering? I'm actually having a whale of a time doing this, and I'm dreaming about styling up those empty bookshelves with some ornaments and maybe a few nice hardback books...

Week 3

Started in the bedroom this week which is great as it's one of those rooms with a bit more clutter than the others! Back story on the big declutter here, here, here and here. 

The list this week was:
Bedroom – Kate’s wardobe - Wed
Bedroom – Tom’s wardrobe - Tue
Bedroom – Makeup and cosmetics - Fri
Bedroom – Ottomans - Sat
Bedroom – Ottomans - Sun
Bedroom – Under the bed - Tue
Bedroom – Under the bed - Wed
Bedroom – Trunk - Mon

Remember - All 20 minutes each and leaving the stuff in the 3 categories (although ours have now kind of morphed into one huge pile due to lack of space to spread them out but we'll sort that out at the end!).

I did change them around this week a bit as there is a bit of mould back on the wall and ottoman on Toms wardrobe again so I wanted to do the ottomans over the weekend and give them all a good clean while I was there. It's condensation mould I think, as it isn't coming up from the floor or down from the ceiling like damp, it has just appeared in a fine layer on the middle of the wall, wardrobe and ottoman. We're trying to control it but will let the landlord know as if we keep cleaning the wall the paint is going to start coming off!

I actually haven't started under the bed properly yet (we went climbing yesterday after work, then food shopping then the next installment of The Walking Dead came on DVD so we got distracted!) but kind of inadvertently started it when I did the ottomans as one had loads of space in so I moved some Christmas decorations from under the bed into it. Tuesday is Toms day off and I left him his clothes to go through and the one ottoman which is full of his stuff.

Ottoman one (those are empty boxes which for some reason I keep, both the playstation and Wii are about 5 years old, not much chance we'll be returning them!)

 Boxes out

Spare pillows and rest of Christmas decorations in. We now have a bit more room in the hallway wardrobe and under the bed we gained 2 whole storage boxes which did have these decorations in them

The trunk also had a pretty massive overhaul. I've come to terms with the fact recently that I do not wear heels nearly as often as I think I do, and when I do I can't walk in them. So most of my 'dress up' shoes in here went, along with a lot of little clutch bags and loads of belts. I kept the big bag on the top I just put it with my shopping bags where it'll get used as I kind of forgot about it in there!

Perfect room for my climbing backpack and harness, which have just been hanging around in the hallway

I'll do under the bed later today and tomorrow, but look at the pile to go - we're making good progress!

 There are also all these books behind it under the chairs

I didn't get a photo of the second ottoman as Tom took a few things out of it to add to the to go pile and very nicely put it straight back on top of the wardrobe,so now I can't reach it! However, it also now has some empty space in it so once we've done under the bed there might be more things to go in there.