Category Archives: Decluttering

Inching Slowly Forward

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My recent sewing has been doing some paid alterations to 3 skirts. Now that they are finished I have turned my attention to my ongoing patchwork project.

I completed 2 more blocks this afternoon.

That leaves just 7 more blocks to do to have enough for the QS quilt. I need about 6 more squares but I have exhausted my supply of suitable colour fabrics so I will check out the op shop tomorrow when we are out and about.

I hope to be able to have the quilt assembled as pass it on to a contact who has a long arm machine to quilt it.

I have other sewing to work on as well as a germ of an idea for my next patchwork project but more about that another day.

The Hub

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The kitchen is often referred to as the hub of the home but for us in this house the hub is definitely the office.

The office space is perfectly located as it is a walk-through space between the hall and the laundry, has an internal opening through to the informal family room and kitchen as well as having a view of the back garden and being within speaking distance of the the back patio.

This space is also the last to be properly organised and is finally done 9 months after we moved in. There are a couple of reasons for the delay. There was an assortment of paperwork and brochures relating to the house and the local area which the previous owners has kindly left for us. Some are useful but others are no longer relevant so we really had to sort them all out. Secondly, we had an assortment of peripheral equipment for the computer which I was unable to neatly position due to the layout of the desk.

Last week I found that the holes in desks for managing cables are not confined to bought furniture. So, we bought a couple of what are known as desk grommets and borrowed an appropriate-sized hole saw from the neighbour.

GMan created a hole in the desk and another in the divider under the desk so that we could feed the cables through to the power point.

This meant that we could set the equipment up on the desk with the power cords neatly tucked away rather than trailing over the front edge of the desk.

This is the view behind the monitor with the cables all tucked neatly out of sight.

Under the desk.

The other side of the divider.

The power board and cables are completely hidden by the shredder and bin of paper/cardboard to be shredded. I do this on a regular basis and add it to the compost. The covered item on the shelf above is the printer which we use very occasionally so we store it here when not in use.

We also finished sorting out the random piles which had collected on the desk and the addition of a shallow basket for paperwork that is ‘in progress’ or ‘to do’ keeps everything much tidier.

On the wall opposite the desk are these IKEA cupboards. Although they are not true built-ins they are attached to the wall and were here when we bought the house. It is great to be able to have our books behind the glass doors, mostly on view and accessible without gathering dust as they do on open shelving. One of the lower shelves stores stationery items.

I am happy with the result. Despite being quite compact (2m x 1.7m) it is now a much more useable space.

One Thing and Another

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The main bedroom and the guest bedroom have been pretty well arranged since we first moved in, however, the 3rd bedroom has not been quite so lucky. It has tended to become a repository for everything that is pending a permanent home in another part of the house, partly restored furniture, pictures that are yet to be hung and various things that we are looking to sell or give away.

When we assembled the restored chest of drawers for our bedroom (see previous blog post), I could actually see what else was in the 3rd bedroom. The temporary chest of drawers which had been a fixture in our walk-in wardrobe were now surplus to requirements. For a short while it looked as though they were going to end up, at least temporarily, in the 3rd bedroom.

Thankfully, GMan decided that he could use them for storage in the shed so we spent a full day moving and rearranging things in the shed. While the overall shed storage is still a work in progress, it was good to get the drawers in position and create some more functional storage. The tall cupboard was also relocated from our walk in wardrobe and repurposed a few months ago.

Meanwhile, I could then work on the pile of assorted shopping and saved bags. I managed to quite quickly change it from this:

To this.

They are sorted into the shopping bags I regularly use, extra tote bags, saved plastic bags and saved paper bags. I can now find exactly what I want at a glance.

On the floor of the cupboard are 3 spare plastic storage tubs. I previously had another 6 empty storage tubs. I had been given some and used them for packing when we moved and the previous owners had left a couple behind. I decided that I really did not need them all and was debating who might be able to use them. It was rather fortuitous that there is a Community Pantry being set up and they put out a call for lidded plastic tubs for storing some of the donated foodstuffs so I was delighted to be able to help out by giving them the ones I did not need. A couple of the tubs had no lids and they have also been given away.

I am pleased to have sorted another small space and rehomed a few items plus been able help out someone else.

Creating Space

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You could be excused for assuming that this post is about more of my decluttering efforts. However, it is not.

We arrived home a couple of days ago after a brief road trip to Sydney to attend a family wedding. The outfit I had made worked well and we had a delightful day. It was very special to be able to spend time with all of my siblings, children, niece and nephews as our family are ‘scattered to the four winds’. In fact, it was the first time that we had ever all been together.

The wedding was a significant event and the latter half of this year has been neatly divided, at least in my mind, to ‘before the wedding’ and ‘after the wedding’. This leads back to the title of the post.

Rehoming physical stuff is not the only type of decluttering. There is also digital decluttering which I have mentioned in the past. This link will take you to several posts on the topic. Then there is mental clutter.

I have found that ‘to do’ lists seem to get a bit of a bad rap recently. They are deemed to be everything from non-productive, inhibiting mindfulness and inducing guilt and sleeplessness. I guess it depends on personal use and expectation of any list, however, I have actually found the exact opposite. By writing things down/creating a list it releases the necessity for me to remember things.

As a retired person, I do not have the time-frames, constraints and expectations of being in a paid job and answerable to an employer. Everything I do is my own decision and choice, however, I do not choose to drift aimlessly through my retirement years. I am not driven by deadlines and certainly do not beat myself up if everything on the list is not finished by a certain time.

I enjoy the knowledge that I have recorded tasks/projects and I am not wasting mental energy on recalling or prioritising them. I add items as I think of them or they come up in conversation with GMan. It is nothing fancy – just a simple list in the notes section of my phone. I add and delete items almost every day. Some are extensive and long-term, others will be completed within the next 24 hours. But most importantly, I do not stress about tasks achieved (or not) nor let the list dictate my life.

Here is a sample of some of the items currently on my list.

Tidy sewing room
Clean fridge
Make marmalade
Make new cover for dog bed
Mend socks
Update Google calendar

Some of these have been on the list for well over a week and I am not losing any sleep over them not being completed. They will happen one day. Meanwhile, we are heading out this evening to listen to some live music at a small local bar.

A Week Later

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The last week has slipped by while we have been occupied with packing.

Our primary focus has been sorting, cleaning and packing up the contents of the garage and workshop.

Most of the big items will be moved by the removalists but GMan has packed quite a bit into the ute as we will be driving both cars to our destination and it seems somewhat pointless to take an empty vehicle.

Although we will not be leaving Queensland for about 6 weeks, the packing of the ute need to be finalised before the beginning of next week as it will all be relocated to a friend’s carport when we leave this house.

An important consideration was making sure that everything was covered and secured for the impending trip. After careful consideration, we decided to buy a new waterproof tarpaulin to cover the contents. There is no risk of it flapping or blowing off as it is securely tucked under the heavy boxes at both ends as well as being tied to itself with the ropes going right underneath the entire contents of the ute. The tie-down straps over the tarpaulin then anchor everything.

Kicking Goals

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For several weeks I have felt as though we have been juggling various aspects of our house sale and relocation without making much progress on anything.

That is not entirely true but now everything is beginning to fall into place. I mentioned last week that we have an unconditional contract for the sale of our current home.

We have also made an offer, which has been accepted, to purchase a property in Maldon, Victoria. The contract should be signed within the next couple of days. This will give us a firm date for when we can move into our new home.

Meanwhile, we have done lots of jobs – large and small.

  • Packed more boxes
  • Held a garage sale
  • Bought a tarpaulin to cover the items we will be transporting in the ute
  • Booked a pre-travel service for the ute
  • Bought a lock mechanism for the toolbox
  • Researched a hands-free phone holder for the ute (no bluetooth)
  • Finalised our accommodation arrangements for the remainder of our time in Queensland
  • Planned our road trip from here to Victoria.

Even though the majority of our focus is on the house sale, purchase and relocation, we have still found time to enjoy some recreation. Tomorrow evening we are going to enjoy some live theatre as we attend a production of David Williamson’s play, Family Values. I am really looking forward to that.

Packing Priorities

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We now have a contract for the sale of our home. While the contract is still conditional for a couple more weeks, it is time to really start moving forward with preparations for our move.

I have been sourcing previously used packing boxes and today I packed up 9 boxes of books from the bookshelves in our office/library area.

With a little over 7 weeks until moving day most of my focus is going to be on preparing for the big day and blog posts will mostly reflect that over the coming weeks. I will cover various aspects of how we handle the preparation.

It is 17 years since our last move. We have spent much longer in our current home than anywhere we had lived previously. However, we have decluttered and simplified during that time and it will be interesting to see how that impacts the moving process.

When we came here both of our daughters had left the family home but only relatively recently so we still had quite a lot of possessions that related to them but that is no longer the case.

More information on our future plans will unfold over the next few weeks.

Packing Up

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It is a little over 2 months since I first mentioned that we had listed our home for sale. After almost 3 months on the market (including the Christmas and New Year period), we are close to finalising the sale.

Although we will have professional removalists who will pack all of the breakable items, there is no good reason why I cannot pack up things like linen, clothes, sewing fabrics and books. However, packing up an entire house in a few days is not my idea of fun, even if our possessions are relatively minimal.

So, I have begun to pack some non-essential and rarely used items. I have sourced various boxes as well as some plastic crates.

At the moment the packed boxes are stacked in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom.

I also used suitcases to pack some of our out-of-season clothes. This made sense since the suitcases need to be relocated so they might as well be filled with clothes.

I intend to do something towards packing each day or two so that I can spread it over a few weeks and it is not too onerous.

In the next couple of days I will be emptying all of the good crockery, glasses and serving platters out of the sideboard. This has been sold and will be picked up at the end of the week.

Clutter -Free in ’23

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The title of this post is taken from a comment I read a couple of days ago in a Facebook decluttering group.

My first task for the new year is not physical clutter but that insidious beast – digital clutter.

I have previously written on several occasions about trying to keep our emails under control. In fact, while re-reading past posts on the subject, I found mention of the ‘All Mail’ being between 1500 and 5000 emails at times. Over a number of years I have managed to consistently keep the total to less than 500, then 250 and even hovering around 150. The last few months have seen me cull them further to keep ‘All Mail’ to less than 100. Right now it is 66 which is very pleasing.

I found this post today which is a really helpful reminder of all the ways digital clutter can accumulate.

There are so many corners of your phone, computer and the internet where digital clutter may be lurking.

Every time I open WordPress to write a new blog post I am confronted by the fact that I have 73 posts in draft format. What?? But no more. Today I checked each and every one of those drafts that have accumulated over the almost 12 years of writing this blog and found that most of them were no longer even remotely relevant. The majority were not much more than a title or a few words. So, I had a great time deleting them all. I now have 3 drafts which I kept as I believe that they have the makings of posts worthy of publication in the future.

I do not keep thousands of photos on my phone as I regularly download them to the laptop and delete from the phone. However, I have not been as diligent as I could be with the next step of sorting and cataloguing them. The folder of ‘Camera Imports’ has multiple folders that have been downloaded in 2022 so I am working through organising them at the moment. Sorting a lifetime of photos is not a job for the faint-hearted so I try to break it into small blocks.

Keeping track of my ‘Contacts’ is another work in progress. I need to tidy and update them where necessary and check that the same information is on both my phone and the computer. Although it is not a digital issue, I do also have a physical hard-copy address book which I am not quite ready to let go of yet. I will cross-check the information in there with the digital contacts list.

I really think that the key to successful digital decluttering is a regular schedule of maintenance as outlined in in the post I linked above.

Do you have any particular tips to share on this topic. I would love to hear how you manage your digital resources.

Castle on the Move

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I can now reveal part of the reason for some of my extended absences from the blog. We are on the move. Our home of the past 17 years is listed for sale and we are ready to relocate.

Years of gradually decluttering and living simply are now paying off as it has been a relatively easy matter to have the house ready for prospective buyers to inspect.

Long-term readers of the blog will be familiar with glimpses of various sections of the interior of our home. The images below are some of the professional ones used in the listing of the property.

We are hoping the property sells reasonably quickly. Our plans include an interstate relocation so stay tuned for more exciting news.

Meanwhile, the regular posts will continue as we juggle the balance between keeping the house in ‘show home’ condition and continue our day-to-day lives.