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Post by larsti on Mar 17, 2016 19:55:17 GMT
Imminent house move (next Tuesday) We are having packing done as DH works for himself and not able to take much time off. And 2 children at home all the time So...we had our quotes and apparently 200 boxes have been ordered for packing. The proprietor told me on the 'phone that normally you'd need that many for a mansion. He thought maybe the 'move consultant' had overestimated. Well I don't know but better safe than sorry! Well we DO have a lot of books, some of which were put in storage before viewings. And of course the bookcases to put the books on, but I really can't understand why it seems to others that we have a lot of stuff. When we moved here they needed more than one of the largest lorry but I have been decluttering for ages and contents of DH's office in the garden is not part of the move this time. Keeping that totally separate. There are 2 adults, 4 children (2 away but store some stuff here), 2 dogs and 2 cats. I was watching 'Shop well for less' and was truly shocked at the number of clothes they all had. We are nothing like that. I suppose I feel a bit defensive as if we are materialistic but I wondered how much everyone else has. I do seem to have a lot of bedding and towels but apart from that and the books I am at a loss to know why we are so 'excessive'? 6 men are moving us  |
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Post by mrmlegal on Mar 17, 2016 22:33:28 GMT
My sympathies. Last time I moved, I spent every weekend from March to August taking one car load to the dump and one car load to the charity shops. We still had a large van load of stuff to go. I don't think we were close to 200 boxes though. I must have been more vicious with my decluttering!
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Post by pluto on Mar 17, 2016 22:57:55 GMT
You need flylady, give away, throw away or keep.
I recognise this problem, Now the other way round. If I unpack one box a day it will still take me over a month, and I have no idea what to do with those belongings. So I leave the boxes untouched. I need flylady to move in with me for at least 6 months.
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Post by milly on Mar 17, 2016 23:21:23 GMT
I can't recall the number involved but I do remember the removal company giving us a huge number of boxes last time we moved. We scoffed, thinking it was way over the top. By the time we finished packing though, all were full and we could barely move round our house! On the day, loads of men came and spent hours loading the van. I remember they said we had a great deal of stuff! This was in spite of numerous trips to the dump previously.
Worse, we unpacked hurriedly and, years later, still haven't got round to sorting it all. A lot does belong to DH's business though - he has an office at home. Our garage is jam-packed - not with cars. I've tidied it several times but it always reverts to a mess a few months later.
We're all hoarders but I do feel there's a minimalist inside me desperately trying to get out!!
So yes, we have loads of stuff. (And never enough cupboards)
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Post by pingu on Mar 17, 2016 23:41:22 GMT
Yes, books were the big thing when we moved, and hubbies cd collectin. I also remember some comments about a lot of stuff from the removal men. And that was just from a two bed flat pre kids !
I got my clean the sink routine from flylady but have never registered so didnt realise she had some clutter clearing tips. I would love to clear a load of our stuff but dh is a hoarder and gets edgy if I try to tidy, much less dispose of stuff, so i have to be more subtle and gradual. I am presently refusing to buy any more diy stuff till he checks the garage thoroughly ( usually he cannot find what we had already bought, and in order to get jobs done I have to buy more materials, tools, etc )
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Post by elderberry on Mar 18, 2016 7:20:30 GMT
I learnt a lot from clearing my late parents' house. Weekend after weekend driving in convoy with my brother the two miles to the tip and back multiple times. I swore I would never make anyone, least of all DD, have to do that for me.
Before DD came I had to convert her room from a study to a bedroom, which meant reorganising just about everywhere else. It was impossible to keep all my books, so I took more than half of them to the charity shop and bought an e-reader. I decided it was ridiculous to keep disassembled flat-pack furniture on the offchance that it would be useful in the future, and I disposed of things that were duplicated with things from my parents' house -- when I brought home their much-newer vacuum cleaner, for instance, I kept my old one, I guess just in case one broke down. I went through all my files of paperwork and found that half of it was no longer needed. I balked at doing anything with the CDs, though -- they stay.
So I started out with DD four years ago in a home where the cupboards were uncluttered, there was nothing unnecessary, it was all tidy, I could find stuff. You can imagine how long that lasted.
When DD went to boarding school I made a list of all the cupboards and drawers I wanted to reorganise. Two terms later I have done about two of them. I still try to avoid big-time clutter, but the small-time stuff is building and building.
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Post by rosie on Mar 18, 2016 14:29:21 GMT
I must admit when we moved to our present house from a small 2 bedroom starter home the removal men were amazed how much we had fitted in such a small property ! WE arrived at our present house and didn't have enough furniture, but loved the spare space. 18 years on and with an untidy 14 year old our house is full up and we need to move again. Not sure we would need 200 boxes though. I think you expand the junk to fit the space. We are well due for some de cluttering.
Hope the move goes well.
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Post by jmk on Mar 18, 2016 17:40:53 GMT
Huh ....... and how long have you been living in SA for?  Bit of a long way to go to do your washing.  |
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Post by milly on Mar 18, 2016 21:16:03 GMT
Looked up Flylady this morning, Pluto. Tried to get my sink shiny but must admit I'm still only halfway through that as I keep needing to use it! Did a 15 minute declutter and hardly shifted anything! Sure it would take 20 years to declutter our house in only 15 minutes a day. Well, if it ever did, as it is being constantly recluttered. But I do like the 15 minute idea so will keep going and maybe I'll be amazed. It reminds me of watching 'How clean is your house?'. I always had to get up and clean afer it finished! (But my house is nowhere near as bad as those featured on the programme, so I can't be getting it completely wrong).
We moved from a medium-sized house to quite a largish house - I have no idea how we ever fitted into our old house....
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Post by sooz on Mar 18, 2016 21:21:45 GMT
I have an aversion to clutter.....it's been a lot harder since snooze came along!
I'm always clearing stuff out.
Mr j mentioned he'd like to clear out his closet.....so guess what I'll be doing when I go back over.....so excited. Lol
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Post by larsti on Mar 18, 2016 23:30:01 GMT
All very interesting  I have fallen off the Flylady wagon Pluto. She is good though. One thing I learnt about from somewhere is 'aspirational clutter' and I am definitely guilty of that. Buying a jigsaw or game because it would be nice to do with Dash or alone (depending on what it is of course). I have taken several map jigsaws back to charity shop. We never did them! I did give away my breadmaker to a lovely young couple...used once! That would be a prime example of aspirational clutter. 'Wouldn't it be nice to make bread?' Could make it without bread maker anyway! So I have let a lot of stuff go but more to go methinks. I *may* count the boxes as I unpack them. Pluto the hardcore declutterers would probably say if you haven't used the contents of your boxes, you don't need them. Elderberry I totally agree about someone else having to deal with the stuff. We only had to do that with MIL, and she had moved into sheltered accommodation after 35 years in same 4 bed flat, so had got rid of loads at that point so when she died there wasn't too much. Some of the stuff from her lifelong home came our way though, but that that has all been dealt with long since. It helped when we moved to a house with no garage and no attic space. DH had to get rid of a lifetimes worth of academic paperwork form primary school to uni.....aaaargh!! Just in case it help anyone though, I did find a new system for DVDs. I took them all out of boxes and put them in plastic wallets which go in a narrow box. No need to find the right box as they go in any clear wallet and they take up hardly any space. That's for Dash's DVDs. With streaming soon we won't need any of our own I expect we could get rid of most of them. Milly I watched a couple of Aggie and Kim episodes on youtube recently and it made me feel a whole lot better! Sometimes I think, whats the point in cleaning/tidying it only gets dirty/messy again but I realised the reason why my house has never been anything like the houses I saw on the prog, is because there aren't layers of grime that have never been touched or knee deep clutter. Must be doing something right at least  Over and out until after the move |
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Post by larsti on Mar 31, 2016 21:50:07 GMT
Well we did it. Moving day went well and weather was perfect. dash out of the house by 8.15 doing school run with friend of the family and stayed out all day. I asked her to bring him to take some photos of moving van and they made a little film as well. his room is bigger and he is happy with it. it's more or less organised and a new blind ordered which is the same as his old one! Vintage cassette design. We still have some story cassettes (and cassette player of course) so he knows what they are! They didn't need all the boxes AND they said it wasn't as big as a job as they thought. DD filled a carrier bag for charity shop while unpacking her boxes. plenty left to do but it feels like home. Dash has just been his normal self which is to say sometimes ok and sometimes not at all ok. Back soon ........ |
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Post by sooz on Apr 2, 2016 21:08:06 GMT
Its sunny, the temperature is in the 80s......and today I cleaned out a closet!
There's no hope!
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Post by pingu on Apr 2, 2016 21:37:19 GMT
My dh put up a set of shelves in the bedroom, as our king size bed tales up so much room that I dont have space for a bedside cabinet. The shelves did get loaded with books, but somehow I presently have a foot high stack of mainly library books on the dressing table ( aspirational, selection, but I am determindly renewing them till I get through them all !!)
I did tell dh though, that I am not buying any more decorating stuff for the living room till we find and use the stuff we bought ages ago that he keeps saying is somewhere in the garage!
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