Decluttering – continued

Early January I decluttered twelve items from my house. (You can join the challenge too!)

I decided to continue the challenge by beginning to tackle the embarrasing sunroom I showed you in my last post about decluttering, while slowly moving, organizing and decorating my new bedroom. I’m surprised at how much junk I still have!

I moved the bookcase that was burried underneath everything in the sunroom to the new bedroom and in the process I decluttered the following:

I so wished I could have used them!

1. A whole set of 70-something supercute spanish red wall-tiles that I probably won’t use after them sitting there for three years – They went back to my father who will use them for another project
2. Threw out 5 old pieces of clothing
3. Donated 8 pieces of clothing
4. Recycled a bag full of chords and cables for electronics I no longer own
5. Sorted through my file of unfiled paperwork. I do all my banking and billpaying digitally so when I get something in the mail, I open it, unfold it and add to a big pile that I organize into binders about once a year. (since I keep tabs of my info digitally I merely glance at the paper stuff they insist on sending me) Enough of that. I set up a simple file system with a ‘to be filed folder’ and everything else neatly sorted. No more pile of paper! In the process I recycled a huge pile of old school work, notes and receipts. Another little bit of clutter gone!
6. A bedsheet that had a small hole in it…why do I keep this stuff? In the garbage it goes, I already have enough dropcloths!
7. I gave away unused Umbra walflowers to my sister, I already have them in three spots and still didn’t use the pack so she will enjoy them.

Total items decluttered: 18, bringing me to a total of 30 items so far in the challenge!

I also decided to finally do something about my kitchen table situation. My livingroom/dining room is smackdab in the middle of the house and with the woodstove in one corner and doors to the kitchen, both bedrooms, sunroom, the basement and the bathroom all leading from that room there are only a few ways to make the space work. I used to have an old table from my parents as my dining room table, the top was cracked and it had three mismatched chairs:

before

Walking around it was a PAIN! Right in between the doors to the kitchen (right) and the bathroom (left) I can’t remember the amount of times I ran into the darn thing, adding the cracked top to it finally put me over the edge. I found a small dinette set on kijiji for $90 and reworked the space: (please ignore the ugly green couch, that will be dealt with in due time)

after

With the smaller table there is much more space to get where you’re going, I admit it’s not perfect… but with this little house you have to work with what you’ve got! I dumped the old table and one of the chairs, and kept two of the chairs in the barn for extra seating. Another two items gone!

I also sold the following in January:

- an old ps3 – $30 for something broken, chaching!
- digital picture frame – $20 (you know those gifts you never use? this was one of them)

Total earned from decluttering:

$50 so far!

I still have a pile of schoolbooks and a hallstand to sell and the mess in the sunroom is far from done so I suspect there will be more donating/recycling in the coming month. With 34 items decluttered from my house so far in 2012, it’s going pretty well!

With all this decluttering it feels like spring cleaning….. ohhh sunshine, how I miss you, have you decluttered anything lately?

Related posts:

1. Decluttering and perhaps a little minimalism never hurt anyone.