Coming clean: Go!

Late last summer I started my Four Weeks clutterbusting project. It soon became clear that I'd make time to clutter-bust or to write about it, but not both. I did make a lot of progress during those four weeks, but I abandoned this blog in the process. Oops.
Around the end of the four weeks, we decided to gut and renovate our basement, with just two weeks notice. I had just two weeks to empty the basement, finalize the basement plan I'd been fantasizing about for years, and select every fixture and finish on a tiny budget. Two extremely busy but fun weeks, followed by months of the same as the walls came down and the basement was transformed (more on that someday!).
Imminent demolition was the ultimate de-cluttering incentive, and I purged a ton of stuff before storing the rest. Driven by necessity we emptied the basement completely, but much of the stuff that came out of the basement for the renovation had to go somewhere else. We didn't just throw everything out (although we did purge a lot!). Where did it go? Some got squeezed into the main floor of our house. The rest went into two storage containers. When the storage containers were emptied, we gave away a truck-load and the rest came back into the house. If there's an upside to moving stuff repeatedly, it's that eventually more and more gets given away.
To this point, this post has been a hurried attempt to summarize months of transition.
Bringing it up to the moment, this is what our bedroom, dining room, and office (formerly the guest room) look like right now:

Boxes, boxes, everywhere. Let's see how much I can do with these boxes in the next two hours... I probably won't make much of a dent on the office, which needs some full-scale filing and organizing. My goal is to get all of the boxes out of the dining room and most of the boxes out of the bedroom, and to purge along the way.

Four Weeks: Baby Clutter

Baby clutter was a real challenge for me, because I've been trying to have a second baby for more than three years.
On one hand, I wasn't ready to give it away because I hoped to use it again.
On the other hand, it was a constant reminder of our unsuccessful attempts to conceive again. Or, as it struck me each time, the child who wasn't. Exhale.
I eventually came up with a baby-clutter solution that worked for me. Baby clutter has been my biggest clutter-busting challenge, and I broke some "rules" to overcome it.

I was faced with a landscape of baby things that my son had outgrown. Bins, bins, bins, strollers, swing, 'saucer...

Before:
The tower of baby-gear.

More before.

Still more before:
Baby-clutter, etc.

The quantity was shocking considering that we'd been shipping clothes and other things to my nephews since they were conceived in 2010, and had consigned some toys too.
It was overwhelming, but I had to start somewhere. I needed a plan. I came up with 3 categories of baby-clutter and suddenly the job was do-able:

1. Keepsakes: Things I'd keep even if we never have another child.
2. Toss-ables: Things I wouldn't miss even if we do have another one.
3. Store-ables: Things worth storing just in case we do (for now).

Keepsakes are self-explanatory. We now have one sweet bin of tiny sleepers, itsy-bitsy Sorels, and other treasures. I invited my husband to select items for this bin too. It isn't about having another baby; it's about our perfect son. I'm grateful that my mom kept a similar selection from my babyhood, and I'm happy to keep these for us and for J.
Toss-ables are clearly clutter. Baby clothes that looked itchy; toys that were ignored; duplicates; etc. I took a few of these to a consignment store and I gave the rest to charity, along with some maternity clothes I never wore. We also sold J's beautiful but unnecessary cradle on-line for $100 ($25 more than we paid for it!). It didn't sell in our garage sale.

Store-ables is the rule-breaking category that got me over the emotional baby-clutter barrier. I didn't want to give it away -- I didn't want to look at it -- so I stored it. Storage may be taboo in clutter-busting circles, but it worked for me here. Similar to my little bag of wear-dated clothes, but much, much bigger. The key is, I only stored things I'd actually use if I have another child, and would ditch if I don't. In other words, this stash is keepsake-free. I didn't want to have to go through it again before purging it. Also, it's temporary and off-site. I'm indebted to my mother-in-law who graciously agreed to store this stuff in her garage-attic. (She's hoping for another grandchild.)

Left: Toss-ables. Now in better homes.
Right: Store-ables (plus strollers, swing, and Exersaucer).

As a result we now have just one blue bin of baby gear (keepsakes) in our home! Yaaaayy!!!
......
A few months have passed and today, perhaps in part because I'm no longer tripping over baby gear, I'm at peace with our family of three. We're no longer trying to conceive another child.
Last week I gave away J's playpen and playpen sheets.
My parents-in-law are away for three weeks and I'm thinking about purging all the "store-ables" from their garage before they get back... Their next vacation will be in July. Hmmm...

Four weeks: Day 9 -- Sick as a dog

Now I know why I felt so unmotivated yesterday; by evening I had a nasty sore throat. Today, fever and non-stop nasal drip. Nothing like a cold during a heat wave.

Have I whined enough to account for the fact that I did no clutter-busting today? I spent the morning in bed. I spent the afternoon doing some emergency re-staking of our tomato plants; dabbing my nose; and entertaining my son with the least possible effort (we took our dog for a long, slow walk).

I did download my garage sale photos, starting with my personal favourite:

Mid-morning.
How many generations does it take to assemble a cradle?

We left these stragglers unattended
for two hours after the sale.
Nothing moved.
Then we donated them. 

After the sale, a bit more basement floor than the week before.

Formerly the 'garage sale merch' corner of our basement as seen last week.
Now, breathing space!

Finally, thanks to a great idea from Tanja Hoagland's 30 Day Clutter Bootcamp, I sold some CD's that had been taking up space. As I prepared for the garage sale, I listened to my CD's that were neither obvious keepers nor obvious tossers (I'd already donated the obvious tossers). I discovered one gem that I didn't even know I had(!), and identified about twenty that I don't enjoy anymore. I'm only a few chapters into it, but already I'm loving Tanja's book and her practical tips. 

After the CD's sold, my sister-in-law said, "you did copy them first, right?" Uh, no. I didn't think of that. And in hindsight, I'm glad I didn't. If I don't enjoy them, why waste my time or my hard-drive with them? Still, it's an option and I'll keep it in mind for those CD's with just one great song (you know who you are...). 

The best thing about parting with the CD's was seeing others smile. My brother-in-law put an old Smiths CD in his car and pumped it up in our driveway. I was immediately transported back to my late teens. It almost made me want the CD back, but not quite. I don't want to go back to my late teens in my own home! On his deck, with a beer in my hand, from time to time, sure. My very youthful seventy-something mother-in-law grabbed a handful of the CD's too. Turns out she's a Dwight Yoakam fan.

Another twenty bite the dust.

Four weeks: Day 7 - Rest; Day 8 - Restart

On Day 7 of my four week clutter-bust, I rested. I painted pictures with my son. I did a little baking with my son. And I spent a relaxing afternoon by the pool with my (husband's) family. It was all good.

Now it's already Day 8 and I find myself oddly exhausted. I dragged myself to yoga where I was irritated by my inability to stand up straight to my teacher's satisfaction. Each time he pushed my body into perfect position I forgot the position as soon as I moved. "Don't forget your pelvis," he keeps reminding me. I remember my pelvis -- I just can't remember exactly where to tilt it. Sigh. Back home and still feeling blah. Perhaps I'm feeling the effects of too many Palm Bay cocktails this weekend. Perhaps I'm just uninspired by today's task. I want to clutter-bust; but I have to clean up this place...

So, since I'm also trying to clutter-bust my mind, time for a little meditation. Then a lot of cleaning. I'm predicting that the meditation will leave me even more tempted to spend the day under the covers, but the cleaning will energize me. Time will tell!  ;-)

On the upside, I'm still really happy about the clutter-busting my progress I made last week, and can't wait to continue. My hubby told me how happy he is about our improved basement too. I'm going to post some pictures from the weekend shortly.

Four weeks: Day 6 -- Garage sale!

We did it; we had a garage sale.
Was it worth it? Uh, no, probably not. We made just $130. The sale lasted for four hours, as planned. Plus all the prep time buying change (no, we didn't need to do that, in hindsight); buying price-tag stickers and a fat marker and foam board (could have skipped all of that); making and posting signs (probably worth doing); and setting up (unavoidable).
Dollars for time, no, it wasn't worth it.
But did it get stuff out of our basement and into the rest of the world? Yes, oh yes!
Could I have done that without the garage sale? Sure. But would I have done so at the same pace? In all honesty, probably not.
I learned a few things.
If you're going to go to the trouble to make signs, make more than 4.  More signs probably would have meant more traffic. Our traffic was pretty light. In that regard, it might have been prudent to wait until September.
I also learned that price-tags are optional.
We priced everything in advance, which took a long time. Then I spent the first two hours of the sale worrying that the prices were too high. My husband and father-in-law said no.
Then my girlfriend and my mother-in-law showed up. They told me to take the price-tags off. While my mother-in-law was speaking from her church-sale experience, where profit is not a priority, my friend had just made $300 on her garage sale. So I took the price tags off.
We did sell almost everything, within our intended four hour period. And yet, perhaps my father-in-law was right; perhaps our asking prices were not too high. After all, had we started with lower prices we would not have sold any more things -- we sold almost everything as it was. Had we started with lower prices we would almost certainly have sold for less. So in the end, perhaps our asking prices were appropriate. And yet, if I did it again I would probably skip the price-tags, if only to save time.
Of course, I probably won't do it again.
Awesome thing: almost everything went.
We are left with the two "big-ticket" items, because we didn't want to let them go for low prices. A nearly-new tent, that's now listed on-line. And a cradle which, once we reassembled it, tugged at my heartstrings until I didn't want to let it go. It was the only child-related thing in our sale, and it didn't sell.
We are also left with one burden -- a big, heavy, scratched TV stand, which we literally tried to give away.
We sold everything else except for a handful of flower pots, books, etc., which my father-in-law took away to donate to the church bazaar.
The best "sale" of the day wasn't a sale at all -- it was someone taking our tube TV after I put a big "free" sticker on it. This saved us a drive to the dump and tipping fees. Sadly there is no market for a good quality, working, tube TV. Funny how perspectives change.
I was also very happy to receive $25 for two large, heavy framed pictures, which will look pretty in someone else's home.
Best of all, there's now so much room to move in our basement. 
There's still plenty of clutter to bust, but I am definitely on a roll.

We are grateful to two good friends who helped us out. I'm grateful that my mother-in-law didn't get too upset that we sold a vase she gave me for Christmas a few years ago. And I'm hoping that I didn't alienate everyone with my garage sale angst, in which case it really wouldn't be worth it at all. Oh, dear. I think I need to take another walk in that more-spacious basement now. 

Four weeks: Day 3 -- My way

Six months ago, when I took some "before" photos of our rec room, it looked like this:

February, 2011 "before"

February, 2011 "before"

This morning, it actually looked much worse:

This morning

This morning

I've got lots of explanations and excuses, but in a nutshell, disorganized clutter looks worse than organized clutter. I seem to disperse my stuff before I finally part with it. 

That's okay -- I'm thrilled to say that after three hours of work today, there are signs of progress:

This afternoon

This afternoon  

I can see the floor again! There are more empty bins! 

Garbage out!

Best of all, I threw out two bags of garbage and a box of recyclables.

Perhaps most intriguingly, I'm building a pile of merchandise for a garage sale this Saturday.

Common wisdom seems to be that garage sales are a clutter-busting no-no. It's true that as long as it's in the house, it's still clutter. 

For me, though, the garage sale is totally motivating. Until I got started in the basement today I wasn't sure that we would have a garage sale this Saturday -- I didn't know if we'd have enough stuff to sell. But as soon as I got started, I realized that having a garage sale in three days is tremendous incentive to cull as much clutter as possible, as quickly as possible. The key is that the sale is imminent. There's nothing like a deadline.

I won't know until after the sale whether it's worth the hassle, but I'm hoping to avoid a few trips to the Goodwill and gain a little cash. I'm particularly hoping that we can sell a couple of large framed pictures and an old TV, because I don't like moving heavy glass things. 

Yes, we'll have to hang out in our driveway for the morning, but that seems a lot more fun than fielding Craig's List viewings, or hauling breakable stuff to charity. Lemonade, anyone?

It occurs to me that trash is the easiest way to clutter-bust, but my conscience isn't happy dumping useful things.

Garage sale merch

I can't wait to see how big this garage sale pile is by tomorrow afternoon.

Underway!

The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy, in a good way. I went to the Folk Festival for the first time in years, twice -- first catching up with an old friend and then introducing my son and husband to the hottest (literally), largest music festival around. We've been on staycation, welcoming another family to our town and joining in the tourist fun -- mini golf; street theatre; canoeing; Turkish spa... Staying up too late on long summer nights; even our three year old is sleeping in.

With all the fun, I haven't had much chance to write, let alone declutter. But I'm happy to say that my basement clutterbust is indeed underway. Just after my last post I went into the basement with a few black garbage bags and got to it.

I wasn't particularly methodical and I didn't have a lot of time, but I started with the first thing that caught my eye and kept going for about two hours. 

The next day I took a box and bag full of books, games, etc. to the Salvation Army store. 

The day after that a friend helped me take three garbage bags full of winter coats and other clothes to a shelter for the homeless. Or at least, that was our plan. We went in the wrong door and found ourselves standing amidst the cells of the local intoxicated persons detention facility. Yup, decluttering has driven me to the drunk tank.

It felt so good to drop off those winter coats, knowing that they'll help people stay warm this winter.

Thanks to my husband for contributing lots of his old clothes.

Finally, I filled a box with old dishes and other bits and pieces, and took it out of the house today.

I'm looking forward to resuming the basement clutterbust as soon as our vacation winds up. 

Clutter Busting with Brooks Palmer: A Trick of the Mind

On Friday, which was a holiday for us, I went into my basement to start clutterbusting. It's is our ultimate clutter repository. Everything that doesn't have a home above ground eventually ends up there (or, rarely, gets kicked out of the house). The basement looks worse than when I started clutterbusting our house. Two reasons. First, when I clutterbusted the guest-room some of the clutter ended up in the basement; not good. Second, I've successfully removed a lot of toys and clothes from the basement (and the house), but in the process the neat piles of storage bins have been disturbed. A lot of the bins are now empty but they are strewn about so it looks worse than when they were stacked full of clutter. Go figure.

Anyway, I went into the basement on Friday afternoon, armed with a garbage bag, and I got totally overwhelmed. I didn't know where to start. I didn't know where to put things. It was too late in the day (I slept in; I went for a run; we went to my parents-in-law's for a family brunch; just before we left the brunch I accepted a nice, cold beer, and then I succumbed to the need for a short nap when we got home; I put on some laundry and emptied the dishwasher and marinated some chicken for supper...).

So there I stood picking up bits of clutter and putting them back down, looking around at all the disparate bits and layers of clutter. I was overwhelmed. I came outside and sat down and said to my husband, "I can't do this."

Instead, I put my son in his Mr. Turtle pool and he splashed and slid and played with his boats and I smiled and talked with him and pulled out some weeds from between the patio slabs. And that was the right thing to do. I was happy. He was happy.

In hindsight, 4:30 p.m. on a beautiful summer day was the wrong time to start clutterbusting my basement.

That night, after my son was in bed, I read this post on one of my favourite blogs: Clutter Busting with Brooks Palmer: A Trick of the Mind. Brooks Palmer advised that, "you can be overwhelmed and clutter bust. They can happen at the same time." That resonated with me.

[I pause to note that I named my blog clutterbuster before I had ever heard of Mr. Palmer or his great book Clutter Busting. A clutterbuster was who I wanted to be, and I was happily surprised that no one had snapped up the clutterbuster name when I first signed on to blogspot. A fellow blogger, Clutterkiller, later recommended Mr. Palmer's book and blog and I am grateful.]

Rather than quote Brooks Palmer's entire post, go read it.

But this is the part that I'm going to take with me as I go down to the basement now:

"When you pick a place and start asking of each thing, 'Do I actually need you, or can I let you go?', the feelings of being stuck may still be there, but they will begin to diminish." 

That, and the idea that one can be overwhelmed and yet proceed. Because that's exactly what I need to do.

Thank you Mr. Palmer.

Nancy Drew's shoes

We interrupt this week's clothing clutter-bust to bring you an extra-large bag of clutter hauled out of the basement today.

Contains three large stuffed dogs, one promotional monkey, and one stuffed bunny with x-shaped eyes that recites "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep..." in the creepiest voice imaginable.

Yes, I'm throwing out five of my son's toys. He has lots more. As a precautionary measure, and due to lack of space, I've stored them in the basement for the past few months, without complaint.

I'm also throwing out a pair of incredibly comfortable mid-heeled patent leather pumps, which would have been perfect for the original Nancy Drew, until the leather got scraped. I wish I could say they got scraped in an old mine shaft, but it was probably just a parking lot.

Also five empty shirt-boxes. "What if I need to gift-wrap a shirt?" protests my clutter voice. I'll wrap it without a box, that's what. Check out Clutterkiller's piece on The "What If's?". I took her advice and moved quickly when I got the urge to toss these boxes.

I'm pretty sure that I put a couple of other things in the garbage bag that I've already forgotten. Amazing how that happens.

Now it's all on the curb with the rest of our garbage and recycling, waiting for the garbage and recycling trucks...

In the meantime, I'm resisting the urge to run outside and retrieve the pumps to make a kick-ass Nancy Drew Halloween costume. As if I could pass for a teen-aged crime-stopper anymore. As if I even go to Halloween parties anymore! But maybe when Nancy grew up she became a clutter-buster, hm?