Although it is some way off yet, one of my goals is to create a household index which will list every item in the house and its location. Before I achieve this exalted state I need to declutter, sort and re-arrange all of the cupboards and storage spaces. As you can imagine it is a huge project so I don’t think too much about it but just concentrate on little steps.

My end goal was brought sharply into focus last weekend when The Duke was looking in the wardrobe in the sewing room and I discovered he wanted a gift bag. This was for the bottle of wine we had bought for a 60th birthday gift. I quickly re-directed our search to the shelf above the filing cabinet in the study but soon realised that I had moved all of the Christmas/gift stuff to the wardrobe in the guest bedroom. – OOPS!! Its is great to re-organise things but you do have to remember where things are. This is where the list would be very useful.

I have planned how the list will work, now I just need to get it started. I actually intend to have 2 lists – one listing items alphabetically and then their location and the other listing every item located in a particular space eg: “Sewing room cupboard – 3rd shelf” and then a list of everything which is stored there. This will mean that we can find something when we know what it is or if something happened to a particular cupboard; such as water damage, we could know what was in there that might need replacing.

I am interested to know if anyone has done a similar thing. How detailed was your list? Did you remember to update the list as required?

Meanwhile , I will keep dreaming about the list, continue decluttering and sorting and try my best to remember where I have put things.