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Success after IF
Clutter or Sparse?
I have been in the mode to Spring clean and declutter. I know I am a couple of months early:)
In our living room is a play kitchen, an easel, a train table, a toy shopping cart, a ride on car, two foam chairs plus all our furniture and bookcase with the kids books and puzzles. I can't really put any of these things away anywhere. We don't have any closets on the first floor. The second floor has the kids' bedrooms but they don't play in their rooms! Our basement used to be the a rec room but now it is my studio.
Because my living space has so many toys, I want to get rid of as much clutter as possible in the rest of the house! Books, magazines, clothes, jackets, shoes, furniture! Nothing is safe!!!
I have a tendency to hang onto things due to the sentimental value. I have some of my Dad's cameras and pictures...and some of my Mom's dishes and cookbooks.
Sooo, any tips to declutter?
I have been ruthless with getting rid of the kids' clothes after they grow out of them because I want someone else to get use out of them.
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Re: Clutter or Sparse?
LO #1 - 1 unmedicated/self-monitored IUI w/ donor sperm.
LO #2 - 1 m/c, 2 BFNs, 4th IUI worked (unmedicated/self-monitored with new donor sperm).
Life is beautiful!
Married 8.13.2005, M/C 12/8/06- 5 weeks, M/C 2/27/07- 7 weeks, M/C w/ D&C 8/10/09-6.5 weeks *Charles Lawrence born 5/2/08 @ 3:14am, 7lb 8oz, 20.5 inches. Clomid, Crinone and baby aspirin. *Alexandra Claire born 9/14/10 @ 9:52am 6lb 14oz, 20.5 inches. Femara, Crinone and baby aspirin.
I've been in purging mode since Christmas since we have so many big toys. I hate clutter -- dries me insane. I've basically tried to think of the places in the house where clutter collects -- the places that just don't "work" -- and I try to "fix" that place. For example, for me it was the kitchen, right where we walk in -- we tend to throw shoes, mail, coats, keys, etc. on the table because there is no where to put them. I'm planning out a shoe rack in the entry way, hooks for our coats, a basket for mail, etc.
As far as holding on to things, I'm often in the same boat. I have ONE plastic rubbermaid container of momentos -- and that's all I'm allowed to keep. If it gets full, I have to start paring down its contents until the lid will close. When I sort things to donate, I generally box them up, then walk away from them for a few weeks or a month. If I hadn't missed anything in a month, I probably won't ever miss it.
Toy storage is tough, and I think that as long as we have young kids, there WILL be toys in every room. But, I try to find storage that fits in with our decor. I use tons of nice, heavy baskets or neutral colored fabric cubes to store toys (they are opaque, too, which makes the toys disappear). I try to find creative spaces for toys, too, like a padded storage ottoman instead of a coffee table. I go through toys very often to pull out things that the girls don't like or never play with. Some things I put away for the time being, if I think they just aren't the right age.
Hope that helps!
I think my main problem is that I got rid of the easy stuff already. I went through my books and clothes and dishes last year. I donated about 20 boxes of clothes and odds and ends. But now I am in the phase that is more difficult. To really downsize/simplify!! I keep thinking...okay if we were going to move into an apartment and needed to downsize, what would I get rid of? DH paints and plays bass and guitar so we have assorted musical instruments in the spare bedroom plus a huge collection of records and music. I sew and screen-print so I have fabric fabric fabric and dyes and screens in the basement. Maybe we just need to win the lottery so we can get a big house!
I think I might have to get rid of some of my fabric:( Noooooooo!!!!
Jill, I actually just organized the front entryway! We have a medium height cabinet with doors and a couple of cubbies. I have the hats/mitts/scarves in the cubbies. I put a box on the top for DH's wallet/keys/cellphone. We also got hooks from IKEA for coats and hung them low for the kids and also so you can't see the coats when you look in the front door. Inside the lowest compartments are where we keep all of the shoes except boots...they are under the coats.
We have one of those old school mail organizers in the kitchen next to the laptop so it is easy to pay bills...and the recycling bin is right there too so we can throw the junk mail in.
I find we have the same issue...The kids are now doing more art projects and the small basket I had for supplies is overflowing and chaotic! Now I need to find a spot in the kitchen for that.
A couple of weeks ago, I built some shelves in a little useless nook in the kitchen so I could free up some cupboard space.
ILs got us a slow cooker for Christmas which I love, but it takes up alot of room!!!
I'm also going to spend my winter/spring decluttering, I can ever get around to it. Nothing makes me happier than getting rid of bags of trash or junk. : )
My plan is to bring bags into the room for either trash, recycle, goodwill, or garage sale and distribute accordingly. I'm going to start with the kids' rooms (basically their closets), which are not a big deal at all, to get started and make me feel confident and successful so that I can move to the other more difficult areas.
Our biggest issue is boxes of old receipts, bills, etc. which I'm going to try to just do away with entirely this time. I can't stand them anymore.
Another thing that is bothering me is a guest bedroom that is too full of furniture, which we hardly ever use, so I'm probably going to take down the guest bed and make that room an office for DH. Our family room is okay except that our sofas are too big/bulky for the room. I've convinced DH to get rid of them this spring for a smaller set, which should open up the room a bit.
In my closet I have maybe 10 brand new or almost brand new suits (several with tags still on) from when I worked that no longer fit and a friend told me a local consignment shop will pay me for them, so I'm going to try and do that.
When I was thinking about options I had thought of getting storage like a lot of other Texans and just bringing all of our crap over there, but then I decided $40 a month was too much to essentially waste. We've decided to stay in our current house instead of move soon, but we were looking at houses recently, and we found one with a backyard detached 3rd garage and I thought that was the perfect solution to house our junk. Too bad. : )
I need to get motivated. I did a major clean out when DD was a few months old and it felt really good!
cmw&tdm - We just got a perfect couch for our living room. It fits perfectly and it was hard to find! We don't live in Toronto where they sell more urban style couches that are for lofts and smaller spaces...Where we live they cater to the people who are building new houses with great rooms and you can get a massive couch for less than what we paid for our smaller scale couch. We live in an 80something year old house so we have small rooms.
I have come to realize that getting rid of useless or annoying furniture makes me really happy:)
We have a chair that I am going to get rid of when DH is at work one of these days!!! LOL
dundas - It's going to be very difficult to find a smaller sofa here too. What I really want is a Pottery Barn one, but I'm not willing to spend the money plus shipping, especially with kids who are going to stain and damage it. I don't know if I'm going to be able to find something, everything is so big at the stores.
you are singing my song ladies! we have so much clutter all of a sudden (gee...since about 8 months ago...lol!) and not nearly enough storage in our 120 year old house! i'm hoping to buy a new bookcase that will take the nice cube baskets for his toys and such in the living room (although the last thing we need in there is another piece of furniture!! augh!) I'm doing the same things you guys are, thinking about things that will do dual duty (storage ottoman that can also provide extra seating in our living room), thinking about getting smaller furniture..and just trying to get rid of things in general!!
Luckily for me, DH is working on finishing up our attic...its been our half done "beer pong" room since we moved in, but he's finally taping the drywall and putting up trim so that it can be our craft room/studio, office and play room. That will help ease a lot of the issues in the rest of the house.
I used to pore over home reno and decor blogs and had all sorts of great, cheap ideas to redo parts of my home and organize them...i need to start doing that again!
-----Lisa-----
We bought an Ikea couch before this couch and we might as well thrown the money out the window. The fabric on it sucks! It shows every single milk droplet! And it is not comfortable at all. The only thing going for it is that it is small.
2 infertiles' journey to 2 pink lines (and a baby girl)
"our IF story"