Declutter Report #1

1/6/11 Very dusty, slightly blunt & rickety, but
trusted kitchen foil/paper towel holder

Oops - I meant to post this on June 8th to give you my first week's de-cluttering progress as promised here.  But as you know life gets in the way of blogging sometimes :P

Now with the start of any project you have a choice - begin with baby steps that build up to a grand finale - or - start with a big blitz & risk peaking too soon.  I chose a baby step for Day 1 (as it was also a family celebration day and I had other things to do).  I was saving our tried and trusted kitchen foil/paper towel dispenser just in case I couldn't get on with the new ones hidden inside cupboards in our new kitchen.  I can, so it can go ... 18 months after it was "saved".

Normally I just shut the door and ignore the state of my kids' bedrooms, but as No.2 Son was about to return from Uni I decided to tackle his room before he could stop me!  Envelopes (empty), Christmas cards, bank flyers, Easter egg boxes, pop bottles all went out without a second thought!

2/6/11 Worst culprits = permanently bent flexible ruler, cracked & dusty plastic glasses,
crumbling headphones and sweets that expired in 2008!

Unfortunately I couldn't de-clutter without doing a major clean so that took care of my afternoon - shame that his room has reverted to its former state of midden after a week of occupation!

The next day, I made a very small dent in some craft magazines, saving just a few articles for future reference.

3/6/11 Another baby step - discarding some magazines from 2002!

"Rescued" from the attic. It may take
some time to go through them all!

Day 4 was another baby step - chucking the pile of charity collection bags into the recycling - I know I should be filling them up with donations, but there will be more through the letter box in no time!

4/6/11

Guilt began to set in after day 4 so I decided to tackle another decent project - the space above one of the cupboards in the dining room - a dumping ground for all sorts of things:

5/6/11  Before      &       After              

I consolidated various tins of sewing notions, packaged up some fabrics and threw out broken glass ornaments, a "How to Tell the Time" poster, scraps of fabric, some old biscuit tins and most of the rucksack clips and elastic straps that I keep saving every time a bag wears out - "just in case" I ever need a rucksack clip or an elastic strap.  I haven't ever needed one ... so I certainly don't need a dozen of them!

5/6/11 Out, out, out!!

That was another good hour's work - so I had a day off, but having read Stacey's post about her medicine cabinet clear-out I went to tackle ours.  I smugly thought there wouldn't be too much to chuck as I do remember clearing the cupboard out a year (or possibly two) ago ... whoops!

7/6/11 - Medicine Cabinet clutter

It would seem nobody bothers to remove empty packets of pills as there were a stack of those.  There wasn't a date on the mosquito repellant, but as it is named from No.1 Son's days in the Boy Scouts I think it may well be a bit past it!  I also didn't realise plasters had a use-by date (although the Jurassic Park themed ones were so old that they no longer had airtight packets - the glue having perished around a decade ago).  No.3 Child looked at me with a withering expression and muttered something about silver and disinfectants and parents today!  The worst offenders?  These two from the beginning of 2003 - so maybe it has been a while since I cleared out that cupboard!

So there it is - my first week of de-cluttering - nothing remarkable, but a few baby steps in the right direction.  Off to buy new plasters now!!!