I am in back in one of those phases that all I see is stuff and all I think about is what I can get rid of. I would love to put the house up for sale in the near future and I can’t imagine showing a house that is so cluttered and paniic when I think of having to pack it all up…
Last week, I got rid of a big chest that was in the boys room and that had 9 years worth of accumulated “Little People”. With the boys help, we washed them all, dried them, put the sets together and then took a picture..
I figured a good price would be 100$ for the whole lot and put it up on a local Facebook page and within minutes it sold…
It felt so good to see it all leave the house the next day.
The week before I also sold our old toy kitchen for 20$…. not bad considering I had bought it used for 40$ 9 years ago and all the kids have played with it…
Now I want to get rid of more, with each thing that leaves the house I feel lighter, but there is still so much stuff.
I need a plan. I need a goal.
A few years ago I did a decluttering challenge… 30 days= 500 items. I finished the challenge without a problem. (wow, I just looked back and that was in Oct of 2006 when I was pregnant with Khéna!!)
It is time to do one again. I am not yet sure on how I am going to do it with December being the holidays and such, but I dont want to hold it off either. So I would love to get some ideas and once I figure out exactly how I am going to do this, if you want to join in I would love that too…
This post soooo much resonates with me Melissa and i had loved a post of your friend annie about all those things we’re “supposed” to buy for a baby and that is useless. it inspired me a post here http://matteovoyage.canalblog.com/archives/2011/10/06/22184574.html where i also mention the book Simplicity parenting by Kim John Payne. Do you know this book? I LOVED LOVED LOVED it so much! you can see a youtube interview of the author on my blog post i put above. it’s a waldorf inspired book about simplifiying our life, and the first 40 pages or so is about that : decluttering the things (toys aspecially but chothes etc too). he’s trick is to make a pile with all the toys in the middle of the room. take away all the broken toys and throw them away, then take away all the toys that are “dora, disney figures etc”, then those that are not anymore age apropriate , and keep on trying to take away more and more of them to keep the essentials. THen you can make a rotation so that there are not many toys around but the kids get realy deeply involved with the ones they have (same idee for the books, to keep just a few for a few week and then change).
Anyways, i thought this book might resonate with you. Some things are a little “too waldorfy” for me like eating the same kind of food on monday all year round etc but most things make a lot of sense!
ok, gotto go, my little boy is waking up!
No i haven’t read the book, but that kind of thing worked when my kids were younger (and when I had less kids…) minimizing toys and rotating toys and books etc was great!
I could have done more, I wish I had, but i had to deal with my own issues of buying too much and keeping too much. I did deal with it, or am still dealing with it, but now the kids have more say and I also need to respect that… they each have preferences, they have their own stuff, their own interests and they do their own natural rotation. My problem now is still in part the toys, but It is also our things, our books, our drawers, our hobbies etc… We just have too many things that we don’t use and we keep “just in case”… And too little space to keep them…
I understand!!! another book that was really helpfull for me was “l’art de la simplicité” by dominique loreau. A “golden rule”: did i use it in the last year? for the books, i always think if i want to read them again i can borrow them at the library. it is so freeing, but also so difficult at first, to get rid of “all this stuff”… maybe we’ve been squirells in the past lives, who knows! i wish you all the best for this decluttering period, keep us posted about what happened :o) take care!
Good for you! I love decluttering, it feels SO good. One rule we have (which I’m just noticing we’ve fallen back on) is that for every item that comes in the house (aside from food), one item must go. It really helps us with clutter, hoarding (which is what holding on to items ‘just in case’ is) and also helps our budget tremendously. I find it also helps children have control over their stuff and what cones and goes.
I think I’ll join you, our crawl space and my craft areas are overflowing with stuff!
I really wish that we had the rule of one thing in and one thing out but I really don’t know how I could go around doing that with the kids. I mean, how fair is it to have to get rid of one of your toys because you receive a gift? I know that my kids, or at least one of my kids, would have trouble with that but it is probably also a reflection of myself.
A few years ago (2006) I did have a real problem… there was one room that was so full of stuff that it was not usable. I recognized I had a problem, cleaned it up and turned it into my sewing room. I also vowed to stop going to thrift stores/Garage sales if I didn’t need something specific and I did just that. Now I go only if I need something in particular, only buy what I need and don’t care if I walk out empty handed.
If I look around my house now, I see a mess in places but it is things that we use that don’t have a home. Where I see the real clutter is mostly behind closed doors and in drawers etc… (Kitchen drawers and cupboards, closets, desk drawers and clothes) and that is what I now need to work on and when that is done then I feel that what we use will then finally gain a home and then we will have the upper hand… or at least I hope that that is what will happen.