Adventures in Decluttering
Posted by: SueClutter is a very timely topic of conversation for me. Two years ago, I began embracing an idea that I got from one of the Frugal Families members: of keeping only what I love. The fact that we were renovating our downstairs at the time really helped me out with this. Since everything that wasn’t nailed down (and I do mean EVERYTHING – although now that I think about it, we also removed things that WERE nailed down) had to be moved out of the first floor of the house during a several month period, I had an opportunity that I might otherwise not have had:
I could see all the stuff I had. And oh boy, it was considerable. Some of it I loved. Some of it was given to me. And some of it…let’s just say What. Was. I. Thinking? Of course, much of it was on display, whether I liked it or not. Things I love, that makes sense. Things people gave me…that needed to be sorted through. My mistakes? Well, just because the money was spent doesn’t mean that I have to look at them ALL THE TIME. Other people might actually like this stuff. I must have, to have bought it once upon a time. Or I was just on a shopping induced high that told me “Buy it. Buy it. BUY IT!!!” Yeah, probably that last one…
We had rented one of those storage “pods” for the interim. And the storage pod had more than enough space for all my furniture and appliances. It also had room for my clutter. So that’s where the clutter went initially. I mean, we were kind of under the gun to get all the stuff OUT so the cabinets could be done, the floor could be put in, etc. I did no sorting through stuff as it was carted out to storage.
Once the floor was done, we waited several days before moving anything back in. It would be one week before the floor would be completely set and at its hardest, so we continued to live upstairs while having a completely empty first floor.
That empty first floor was the beginning of the great declutter mission of 2010. Because I realized I liked the lack of clutter. The open space. How large our downstairs had suddenly become. Only thing I didn’t like was the echo. I did not know that without carpet and furniture, my house would echo. Not the “hello…hello…hello…helloooo…” of a true echo, but that hollowness. No, that I didn’t like. Not much. But I knew that wasn’t permanent. The trick was going to be how to achieve the balance between decluttered and stark.
Some things, I initially thought I was keeping for sentimental reasons. Take, for instance, the pink lamp that was grandma’s. Ceramic 50’s style pink deer lamp. The only reason I had that lamp was because it was Grandma’s. I was pretty neutral about it, but leaned more toward dislike than like. My husband hated it. My son offered to shoot it. Finally occurred to me that Grandma kept the lamp in her basement, so she probably wasn’t all that fond of it to begin with. Yes, I just realized that 12 years after Grandma died. Sometimes I can overlook the obvious. The lamp was donated (hey, some people are really into 50’s interior décor, or so I’ve read).
I’d love to say, two years later, that I kept up with the decluttering. As we prepare to sell this house later this year – a house we’ve lived in for 25 years – boy do I wish I could say I’ve kept up. The sad fact is, when I removed clutter, other clutter seemed to fill in the void. And I let it.
Clutter is something I have to stay on top of constantly. And “Clutter: The Sequel” is a blog post for another day. SOON.