Purge my house of anything that isn't necessary, beloved or beautiful, and get rid of it any way I can

This afternoon I went through my wardrobe and divided it into three piles:

1. stuff for the charity shop (stuff that either doesn’t fit or which I don’t like);
2. stuff which I still like and which I would wear but which doesn’t fit me – to be stored under the bed until such time as it does;
3. stuff which fits me and which I like (enough to wear, anyway)

The third pile is, unfortunately, the smallest by far and now I have almost nothing to wear. Ouch. I was really sad to put pile two into black bags and shove it under the bed, as it contains all my favourite and funnest clothes. But having them in the wardrobe isn’t motivating at all, it just makes me feel shitty about my body, and I deserve to feel good now, dammit. I shall have to have my new shopping mentor D around for a cup of tea and a rummage through my wardrobe to see what I need to get. I’m hoping that all the Wii Fit-ing I’ve been doing lately will actually offset Christmas because at the rate my boobs are growing right now I’ll have to get several new bras before I can even think about buying any more clothes. Ooh, though, must write a goal about shopping/re-stylenating myself. I saw D last night and she looked beautiful in a one-shouldered pleated dress – she wears herself so well. I hope she can wave her magic wand over me. But I digress.

Kitchen decluttering – I really should have taken before pictures, but I’m so proud of the results I’m posting after ones anyway, cos I’ll know what they mean if no one else does.

First all the cutlery and cooking implements got hauled out of the top drawer and are now residing in cardboard boxes in the kitchen, so we can see in six weeks or so which ones we actually use. I already have my eye on several dead-cert deadbeats – a lemon squeezer, FFS. I just use a fork and my hand.

I tackled the tupperware cupboard AKA HA’s least favourite place in the universe. Before, this genuinely was hell – it was impossible to find a matching lid and receptacle, and if you opened the door, plastic pots avalanched onto your feet. Now look at it:

I’ve got rid of all the crappy old yogurt pots and unmatched bits and bobs apart from the couple in the front left, and if their partners don’t turn up in a couple of weeks I’ll assume them to be MIA and consign these to the bin too. I’ve put a bit of tape on each matched pair, sealing them closed, so after a couple of months we can see which sets’ seals are broken and so which ones actually get used, and make a decision about the rest.

As a finale, from this cupboard I also removed three huge jars I used three years ago to make pickled onions, and which have been standing empty ever since, and offered them on Freecycle. No takers as yet, but I’ll give it a couple of weeks, re-offer on another group, then recycle if I have to.

I went through the middle kitchen drawer, normally a rag-bag of tea towels, dishcloths, dusters and scourers, mixed in with rolls of foil, greaseproof paper, clingfilm, sandwich bags etc and feline medical supplies. I moved most of the cleaning cloths and the cooking-type rolls to the wire storage rack (including the kitchen paper, in the process ditching the kitchen roll holder that I inherited from an old flatmate years ago, which I don’t even like, and which is so broken, FFS, that it wouldn’t even stand up) where they’re far more accessible.

I counted up 11 dusters! EL-EV-EN! Who needs 11 dusters? I kept three, and gave the rest to a woman from Freecycle who came to pick up an old dish drainer, along with three of the 15 bags-for-life I found and half a bottle of Oil of Olay, all of which she sprang upon with glee when I offered her a kind of surprise brantub of cast-offs.

Check out my middle kitchen drawer now:

I’m so proud.

Then I dove into the bottom drawer and hauled out a load of god-knows-what, I can’t even remember now. But there’s bloody loads of room in there now, just the food processor extras, the electric whisk, the obligatory Ikea bag, and a space for the iron to live in:

In other crap-removing news, I donated my rarely used webcam to Paperfaerie so that she can chat with The Boy With Whom Love Is Happening who is currently oh so far away from here. I re-Freecycled the crappy computer that someone off Freecycle donated to me – I don’t need it at the moment cos I’m not coaching, and if I start again I’ll buy a laptop. Biiig space in the spare room now, and HA swapped the desks over for me so now I have the large desk in the room I actually need it in. Yeah! He seems to have been mildly affected (infected) by the decluttering bug too, and spent a couple of hours filing stuff in drawers and filling a bag with rubbish from his end of the study, where there is now useable floor – should I want to, I can walk right to the window, draw the newly-put-up curtains, and look out (I just don’t want to, that’s all).

Other stuff – some old chairs, an old iron, an old radio alarm clock, a few other odds and sods – are currently on Freecycle awaiting takers. I suspect they’ll end up binned

Oh, I love decluttering! Every time I get rid of something I know I don’t need or want I can feel myself breathe a little bit easier as I reclaim that space – that space I worked hard for and paid for and deserve to use for something that adds value to my life, not saps the energy from it.

..bought me ‘It’s All Too Much: Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff’ for my birthday – awesome (words of this festive season have definitely been “awesome” and “racist”). I have only glanced through it so far, but I’m going to implement some of the techniques and mental tricks in the book to get rid of some of the crap from my house.

First thing: all the contents of the kitchen drawer – cutlery, cooking implements etc – are going in a cardboard box right now. If they’ve not been used six weeks from today, they are going to the charity shop, Freecycle, or the bin. I value that space and an easy-to-navigate drawer a lot more than I value that apple corer. I don’t have an apple corer. Actually, I may, the drawer is too cluttered for me to know.

And my wardrobe… ::groan:: I am going to grit my teeth and go through it with a fine-toothed comb, weeding out all the things that are scratty or no longer fit me, and decide whether to store them or fling them. I have no doubt that one way or another my body is going to go through some changes, and all the too-small or no-longer-liked clothes in my wardrobe are nothing but clutter, remnants from a distant time which do nothing but take up space and make me feel shitty about my body and my life. Outs you go. I have enlisted my friend D to take me shopping at some point in the near future and re-rev up my shopping mojo – she’s a large and lovely lady who loves her body and loves fashion, and she could no doubt teach me a thing or two about making the best of myself.

This morning I went through my underwear drawer and dragged out 16 unpartnered or holey socks, and a solitary black glove. Where does this stuff come from? More pertinently, where did the other halves go?

Yesterday I took a huge box of unwanted stuff and five assorted and unneeded CD racks to the charity shop. The space created was immediately filled by the arrival of a huge box containing my fella’s Christmas present. I shall take this as proof of the theory that when you get rid of the junk in your life, it makes space for new shiny fun things to plug the gap.

If only I could gather the mental strength and honesty to purge my wardrobe of all the clothes that are now two (or more) sizes too small for me. I wonder what would fill that gap.

I’ve just realised, I have a car now, I can do a car boot sale any time I like! Wheeee!

The man from the charity picked them up tonight. It turns out they’re in the area every Monday night, pretty much, so any time I want rid of owt, I’ve just to call and leave a message.

This weekend has seen the removal, by Freecycle people, of an absolutely enormous amount of cardboard boxes from the spare room. There is so much more space in there now. A man also took away the horrible electric fire referenced in this old goal, and I’m also in the process of trying to hook up with the charity who’ll take away all my unwanted books. As I don’t think I can be bothered selling the big box of junk on eBay, I might just give them all that stuff too, just to get it out of the way. I’m working with my life coach on starting my business up, I’m on the verge of securing a client, and the sooner I can get a real home office sorted, the better.

Yum yum, hot cakes. Still, it’s quite time consuming photographing, listing, then packing and posting them, so I think I’m going to restrict the eBaying to the most obviously saleable items and books. The rest will go to some charity or other. Apparently if I have 200 or more books, Charitybooks will come and pick them up and give them to the charity of my choice out of a list that they deal with. If it’s less than 200, they’ll go to St Oswalds – it wouldn’t be my charity of choice, but it’s local and they’ll pick up.

While I rejigged the bathroom today, I went through a bunch of toiletries and found a ton of stuff we don’t need. I mean, electric razor primer when there isn’t an electric razor in the house? Just… why? So it’s gone on Freecycle, along with the two surplus weighing scales, a million plant pots, a watering can, a broken shelf, two tins of cat food Askit won’t eat… My god, this place is full of shit. But not for long.

It didn’t actually take that long, and I reckon I can cut the time down further if I get into a routine.

The challenge now will be photographing and listing the items in the eBay box, few of which are a nice flat Jiffy-bag shape. There are hats and wooden snakes and all sorts in there, and I’m not the world’s best packer.

Last night, I went through the three small drawers in the living room and cleared them out. Some stuff was binned, and some went in a charity bag which was put out this morning to be collected. In the bag also went about 20-30 books that have been living in the spare room awaiting eBaying. It kind of hurt to give them away, as I know they’re pretty easily saleable, but I just can’t be arsed with it. I’d rather have the space.

I keep finding photos everywhere, packets and packets of them stashed in drawers, and they’re taking up lots of space. I don’t ever look at them, so the memories can’t be that fond to me. I’m considering going through them, extracting a few that really speak to me, and ditching the rest. Is that overkill? Will I regret that in years to come? I suppose I could scan them all in, but I’m not sure if I can be bothered.

I do feel, though, as though I’m hitting the point where all obvious clutter is gone, and I’m reaching the stuff that I want and need. Which should be good, but my house is still full. I think the only thing that will really sort the problem is finding better storage solutions.

I know I “should” be doing other stuff, but the mood took me. I’ve just spent an hour stuffing junk from the spare room into binbags, and tomorrow morning three huge bags will be put out for the charity people to collect.

Oh my GOD it feels good. I swear it’s like Class A drugs. I’ve not had a rush like that since 1998, or possibly the last time I went to Alton Towers.

I salvaged a few items that are decent enough to be eBayable, but was brutally ruthless with the rest. I even – and it really really fucking hurt to accept and do this – got rid of five or six pairs of jeans that I haven’t fit into for about a year and a half.

Now there is clear floor-space in the spare room! I could probably even hoover in there, should the mood take me! There are still a few cases of books (which could be added to easily upon further purging) and I’m not sure where I’m going to get rid of those as the online shop I was going to sell them to has closed down. I may just call the Oxfam bookshop and get them to take them away. Other than that, all that’s left to get rid of in there now is a pair of curtains and a couple of mirrors that need hanging, a couple of DIY-related bits and bobs, and then the rest of the stuff in there is not mine and unfortunately out of my jurisdiction.

However, if I take advantage of how good it feels to declutter, and continue in this vein, I could easily create a fair amount of space in the rest of the house my being equally vicious, then HA could move some of that stuff into other areas of the house, freeing up the spare room to actually be used for something. Though personally I think that if you haven’t used it something for a year, unless it’s important legal or financial documents or stuff like camping equipment that gets only occasional use, you can do without it.

WOW it feels so good to know that as of tomorrow morning (assuming the charity people come, please god make them come) all that stuff will be out of my sight and out of my mind. No more fretting about when I’m gonna get time to list it on eBay. No more keeping the spare room door closed to avoid getting stressed out about it. My mind feels so much freer, and I can start to see a real use for that room emerging out of the piles of useless shit.

Edit: Edited the goal name again. I doubt the boot sale will happen, so now it’s “Purge my house of anything that isn’t necessary, beloved or beautiful, and get rid of it any way I can”. I honestly think the mental aceness of space and un-stuffed-upness is worth ten times more the few quid I could make selling that rubbish.