Category Archives: Organising

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.

Discovered in the Dumpster

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A few days ago I went to the large communal rubbish bin when I was visiting a unit complex. I intended to deposit a couple of items into the bin, however, when I opened the lid I found that the last item which had been added was a large plastic storage tub. I expected that it had probably been discarded due to it being broken.

After a quick inspection it was obvious that the container was perfectly intact and there was even a lid to go with it. A quick wash and it was as good as new.

This will be perfect for packing/storing some of my stash of fabric.

A Cover-Up

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In my last post I mentioned sorting photos on my computer. The added bonus is locating photos which I had taken with plans to use them in blog posts which were not written. These are still relevant and will appear intermittently.

Today I want to share a sewing project from April last year.

Although we both use laptops for our computing requirements, we do still have a large monitor on our desk. As its use is occasional at best I decided to make a dust cover for it.

In order to make a discreet cover for black screen on a black desk I naturally chose black fabric. A remnant of strong black cotton in my stash was perfect. I found a piece of soft white wadding from the backing of an old bed valance which had seen been better days and been unpicked for use in future projects. I used the wadding to line one side of the cover. This provides additional protection for the screen.

I mitred the corners using the same method as the bottom of the Boomerang bags that I make.

It is a simple and useful item made entirely from from salvaged materials.

The covered monitor is barely noticeable when sitting on the desk and not in use.

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.

A Simple Solution

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Yesterday I was tidying up the top of the shelves in my sewing room. I found a box covered with contact that contained knitting needles. I am not a great knitter but I have reasonable selection of needles. The collection is considerably less than in the past as I rationalised what I had a year or so ago.

I decided that the box was excessive and not the best way to store the needles I had kept. So, I dived into my stash of fabric and found a scrap of corduroy and a suitable salvaged zip. Here is the result of about 30 minutes work.

All packed up and easy to store on the shelves.

Preserves in the Pantry

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Apologies for my absence but more about that in another blog post.

I generally make all of our own jam and today GMan and I were discussing what we had on hand.

The inevitable consequence of our discussion was that he pulled out all of my unlabelled jars from their storage spot in the back corner of the pantry.

There was tomato sauce, sweet chilli sauce, lime marmalade, jaboticaba jam and Davidson plum jam as well as a gifted jar of marmalade. It was a timely review as I noted that there was no spare bottles of Worcestershire sauce. Time to make some more. The recipe is here if you are interested.

I decided that there could be an easier way to store and access these homemade goodies. I remembered an wooden serving tray that was not being used so I placed all of the jars on the tray. This will make it much easier to get them in and out of the pantry.

Love My Laundry

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The title of this post may sound ridiculous but I am truly very happy with my laundry and the functionality of it.

Here is a photo I took the other day.

The hanging rail is perfect for hanging shirts both before and after ironing. I also use it to hang wet washing during rainy weather when I use the dehumidifier in this room to dry the washing.

The bench is used for folding clothes as well as sorting washing to go in the machine. It is also where we polish our shoes.

The metal multi-peg hanger is handy for drying rewashed plastic bags, cleaning cloths and other small items.

The grey corrugated hose is an extension which we can add to the outlet hose of the washing machine to direct grey water onto the garden. We live in a high rainfall area so this is not often required, however, we do have periods of dry weather. Rainwater tanks are our only source of water so we do watch our consumption.

As well the cupboards below the bench there is a tall cupboard on the left-hand side of the photo. These contain the dehumidifier, vacuum cleaner, brooms, cleaning supplies and laundry hampers. All are within easy reach.

A Refresh

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I have not forgotten you even though it has been nearly 4 weeks since my last post.

After a very wet autumn our weather suddenly turned dry and cold as winter officially began here at the beginning of June. It somehow made our planned holiday very appealing. We had 9 days in north Queensland where the daytime temperatures ranged from about 26C up to 32C. It was a great opportunity to thaw out. I am still adding to the posts on my holiday blog but you can pop over here to read all about it.

We came back with renewed enthusiasm to tackle some jobs around the house. It is really a bit like spring-cleaning in winter. GMan has scrubbed all of the skirting boards, architraves and doors in the lounge/dining area and the office/library.

A bit of decluttering and rearranging of furniture ensued. One thing certainly leads to another.

Bookshelf from the lounge to the office.

Sideboard from the front lobby to the lounge.

A ‘new’ glass fronted cabinet for the lobby. I picked this bargain up on Marketplace.

Scrubbing was not enough for the front lobby so it received a fresh coat of paint.

There is more painting and rearranging in progress. More photos to come.

Breakfast Bar

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Almost every day I eat cereal for breakfast. It is always the same. 3 spoonsful of home-made gluten-free muesli and one spoonful each of chia seeds and psyllium husk. This is topped with sliced banana and orange juice.

Yesterday I realised that it was a lot of double-handling to remove the containers from the pantry, place them on the bench, spoon out what I needed and return them to the pantry. Could there be a better way?

It is quite a while since I tidied the pantry and the shelves definitely need wiping down.

Tonight I tackled just these two sections.

I swapped the various jars of flours to the higher shelf and relocated the cereal ingredients to the one at waist height. I also altered a couple of the containers. This now leaves enough room to have a workspace in front of the containers where I can access the cereal directly. The bowl and spoon are indicative of how it will be used.

It is a small change but one that I think will make the process of preparing breakfast simpler and easier.