Destash 2017 The Year to Clear

[BernardandMissBianca]

Took a broken table, torn up RV cover, 2 AC units, some small electronics and 10 large containers of oil to the dump.

Was nice to get some of the random stuff out of the buildings.

 

[dreamin_disney]

I re did my spare room/craft room. I stored all the unwanted stuff in my garage. I will be on vacation for two weeks so I'm hoping to sell a bunch of items like desk, clothes, shoes, pictures in frames, kids art desk, skates, file cabinet, toys etc. The area where I park my car in my garage is full of stuff I need to list for sell. I'm ready to get rid of all this clutter

 

[disneyfanatic25]

I have been reading this post for awhile for some inspiration...I took 200 items to a local consignment sale and sold 53 items in a 4 hour time period. More sale hours today and tomorrow. Happy about that!! It was time to let go of baby stuff...mine are 4 & 6 now...no more babies for this family. I also took 6 huge boxes of things to Goodwill. Feels good to get those items out.....Now if I could only convince my children to get rid of some toys!!!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

bumping.
How is everyone doing? already 1/4 of the way through the year!!!

Spring cleaning should be kicking in soon. I can't wait for it to be warm enough to open the house and air it out.

 

[dreamin_disney]

I've been on vacation for two week and have accomplished nothing!!! My garage is a mess. I have big pieces of stuff that I need to clear out and sell. I have several old Home interior pictures. I wish I could get rid of hubby foosball table that has only been used a handful of times in the last 15 years

My goal of the week is to fill up a bag of crap to throw away, a bag to donate and organize some clothes to sell. I will have time in the summer to list and sell the clothes

 

[Ephany]

Haven't posted this year, but we're still slowly coming along. DD needed new clothes, she grew 3 inches since last summer, but I told her total closet purge before we brought anything else home. 2 HUGE bags later, (seriously I looked like Santa hauling those out to my car), I have one very happy friend whose DD went through her own growth spurt. Otherwise, DH has finally agreed to start talking about remodeling our bathroom which means a total purge of the garage since they share the same wall. It'll be a battle, but I think it'll be worth it in the end.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Hi Everyone! - I really enjoyed the 2016 thread last summer, so I'm jumping into this year's a little earlier.

I didn't start out to declutter today, but a cat hiding from the vet led to pulling things out from under the bed, and I ended up finding two boxes of old VCR tapes....soooo, a whole trash bag of those gone (and the cardboard recycled, to boot)!!

 

[FairestOfThemAll37]

I feel like decluttering gets addicting lol. Most people think there's nothing in my place to declutter, but I still manage to haul bags and bags off to the donation bin.

So far this year I've taken probably 20 bags-clothes, shoes, purses mostly.

I tried have an in-out policy with clothes but that didn't work so well. I tend to buy a bunch of clothes at one when things are on sale. So whenever I bring in a new batch of clothes, I flip all my hangers and then flip them back when I wear something. Anything not flipped in 2-3 months goes. It helps that I don't have seasonal clothes.

I'm not really methodical about it. I tend to just get a new in my bonnet about a space and dive in.

 

[dreamin_disney]

I need to get back into decluttering. Life has gotten so busy that my clutter is just piling in the garage. DD will start college in August and my plan is to empty out the garage and start the next chapter... clutter free life

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

at our house we have declared April/ May to be clean out the garage months (was just going to be May but I'm ready to go now) hoping to get it down to basically the lawn mower but we'll see

 

[OhMari]

I have 4 crotchet blankets. One I made in high school. A great aunt crotchet me one, my mother-in-law made 2. All of them are almost 40 years old. I do not get rid of them, because of sentimental reasons. But I never use them, because they are scratchy. I used to have one over an old rocking chair, but the rocking chair went out to the curb for free. I guess I wonder if I should donate them to Goodwill or throw them away, do others feel the way I do about crouched blankets-itchy?

 

[PollyannaMom]

16 pairs of shoes and sandals bagged up yesterday, and labeled to donate if I haven't missed them in 6 months. I can see the floor of my closet!

 

[LilTinkFan]

Thinking about one of those bagster deals. I'm not selling anything and I'm not going to have a yard sale. While there is maybe a trunk load of donation stuff, dh thinks it's just easier to bump it all in one big clean sweep.
Anyone have success this way?

 

[comicguy]

I have been majorly remiss in my decluttering efforts this year. Things have been super busy with the robotics teams and related events (outreach, fundraising, etc..)

But this weekend I was able to get rid of 3 pair of sneakers, 2 books, a pair of pants, and a pair of socks (not a lot but at least it is something!!)

 

[Eastern]

I have 4 crotchet blankets. One I made in high school. A great aunt crotchet me one, my mother-in-law made 2. All of them are almost 40 years old. I do not get rid of them, because of sentimental reasons. But I never use them, because they are scratchy. I used to have one over an old rocking chair, but the rocking chair went out to the curb for free. I guess I wonder if I should donate them to Goodwill or throw them away, do others feel the way I do about crouched blankets-itchy?

I would donate them to Goodwill, or an animal shelter. The dogs would love them as they are softer than a concrete floor.

 

[OhMari]

I would donate them to Goodwill, or an animal shelter. The dogs would love them as they are softer than a concrete floor.

Thanks, I will try an animal shelter.

 

[lorac4disney]

So far this year, I have blown this goal out of the water. I have gotten rid of way more than 2017 items. My DH is/was a hoarder and I have gotten fed up with it and cleaned house. I can not tell you the number of trailer loads of crap that we have hauled off. I know that we've hauled off about a dozen trailer loads of scrap metal in and of itself.

DH's old philosophy use to be to keep everything he can possibly keep (including garbage) because he never knew when he might have a use for it someday. My philosophy is to toss it if it hasn't been used within the last 12 months with the only exception being things of legal or sentimental importance (legal documents and family pictures). We were at two complete ends of the spectrum on this.

For many years, I was able to reign in DH's hoarding, but he finally overwhelmed me with all of his crap. At the end of last year and beginning of this year, it truly came down to us divorcing over his hoarding. I simply could not take it anymore and was ready to file. I really hated that it came down to all of that, but I absolutely could not live with being buried alive by him any longer.

It is so nice to be able to walk around our property without tripping on something or having to walk around this pile or that pile. It is so nice to sit in my house and be able to see tables being used for eating and knick knacks instead of being piled up with this box of crap or that stack of papers. It was crazy the way it was before. It's nice having people stop by and ask me if we cleaned up the place in order to sell it. We aren't selling, but it's nice that they notice the huge difference.

It is a constant battle to keep DH from starting over on his hoarding. I have already caught him trying to sneak junk back into the house from his workplace (truly garbage). We had a massive blow up where I put it to him that he needed to make a choice between his garbage or our 21 year marriage because he wasn't going to get to have it both ways any longer. We are still married for the time being so we'll see how it goes from here.

 

[Eastern]

It is a constant battle to keep DH from starting over on his hoarding. I have already caught him trying to sneak junk back into the house from his workplace (truly garbage). We had a massive blow up where I put it to him that he needed to make a choice between his garbage or our 21 year marriage because he wasn't going to get to have it both ways any longer. We are still married for the time being so we'll see how it goes from here.

I just wanted to wish you luck, that is a hard battle.

 

[superme80]

We have been decluttering since the beginning of the year. I don't have a count, but it is a lot. A month ago we donated about 6 diaper boxes full of clothes or toys to the Goodwill along with random household items taken to the dump. Yesterday I cleared out a bunch of the boy's destroyed books, gotta love 3 year olds, and I think I tossed about 20 ruined books. Made some nice space on their bookshelf.

 

[LilTinkFan]

lorac -good luck. That is certainly a fight worth having, and please try to get him to see someone about anxiety and the disorder if he is at all willing.