Junk Selling for Fundraiser Update

This is a picture of a meal that my friend Hritika and her mother prepared for us in their little rented room in the village of Aaru Bari just outside of Kathmandu, Nepal.

For a few years now, I've been doing some fund-raising for my friend's education fund. She is now seventeen years old and graduating in a few months from high school. She will be going on to a public health/nursing program most likely.

All the funds raised have come from selling accumulated clutter and junk--some from my own home but the bulk of it from other people's donated cast-offs that have been stored in my basement and then sold on Craigslist. Thanks to everybody who cleaned out their closets and donated.

From May 2008 until the end of January 2011, the amount raised comes to $3781, including one garage sale which earned just over three hundred dollars.

With my mother's cash donations, the total in this fund is now $4436.

This is clutter put to good use!

The Bedroom Closet was Next...

BEFORE PHOTOS




Although the closet in the hallway drove me to tackle it first, its clean-out inspired a chain-reaction and the bedroom closet became more organized at the same time.












































AFTER PHOTOS






This was mainly due to the bedroom closet becoming a spill-over place for things which truly belonged in the hallway storage but wouldn't currently.


It's unfortunate that once a closet is overcrowded, there is very little incentive to keep it tidy and I found myself ignoring the general higgledy-piggeldyness that resulted over time. Some clothing item would slide out of a basket or be left piled on the chest of drawers at the back and there it would remain.

But when something is uncluttered, there is a sense of how nice it looks and you want it to STAY that way.

As in, "MMMMMMM, flat, clean surfaces....."

I have to call this just PHASE ONE as the closet is still too cluttered. Too many clothes! (And this after actually removing twenty-five hangers worth of clothing and taking them to a clothes trade. I came back from the clothes trade with five items but it was still an improvement. I'm very glad I sold the extra hangers on Craigslist as I certainly didn't want to fill them up again.)

Also, there are some boxes on the floor with contents that I can only describe as "Miscellaneous". I'd like to see them disappear soon.

Still, I now have two relatively organized closets.

Hall Closet of Doom Clean-Out

BEFORE PHOTOS

















It was time for a major closet clean-out. An overhaul. A crap intervention, if you will. I was having trouble reaching the laundry chute. You know there's a problem when you are leaning into your closet space because there is NO floor, and using a long stick to poke mis-aimed stray socks down the chute.



This is the main storage closet upstairs, just outside of the bedrooms and across from the bathroom. Every time I went to get a towel and saw the mess, it made me twitch. But the thought of pulling everything out and spreading it around my tidy bedroom made me want to take a nap.

It most recently became a way-station for the holiday chaos of unwrapped presents and tissue paper and miscellaneous things pulled from my flea market boxes that were potentially presents. There were a bunch of empty toilet paper rolls awaitng their destiny as home-made Christmas crackers. There were souvenirs from our recent trip to Greece and Egypt waiting to be distributed.



But here it was the end of January, and the mess was no longer so Christmas-y. The underlying clutter of old school binders, fraying towels, unused bed linen, Halloween decorations, gift bags, board-games, and old D&D manuals remained.

I could close the door and go have my nap...or I could do something about it..

Once I got started, I realized the bedroom closet had many of the things that belonged in this closet and if I could somehow clean out the hall closet space, it could start a chain reaction and make space in my bedroom closet too.

First I pulled everything off the top shelves and wiped them down. I spread all the mess out in my bedroom (a cringe-worthy action as I have a really tidy bedroom, er, aside from the inside of the closet). But it was easier to with empty shelves.

I got Jeff to come and decide whether he wanted any of his school binders or books. An enormous stack of paper was relegated to the recycling bin, and the remaining books moved into the library.

The board games were organized and put in a small pile.

AFTER PHOTO


The gift boxes and gift bags were corralled onto one shelf.

Unworthy towels were placed in the trunk of our car to be delivered to the SPCA.

I had been keeping one sad-looking sheet because I JUST bought it, but it pilled up in its first wash. That got chucked. An old pillow followed suit.


A lot of items were relegated to the garage sale pile in the basement, which made room for some of the duvets and blankets to be brought out from the bedroom closet.

Sea-grass baskets that used to hold, um, stuff now hold extra towels, table-cloths, and pillow-cases.

There was now room for all three of our suitcases!

But best of all, we can SEE the laundry chute. :)

Craigslist Lately

So what do all these things have in common?

Well, I sold them on Craigslist. :)

Since I wrote on this blog last, I've changed my focus on clutter once again. Now, instead of keeping track of what I'm getting rid of, i'm actively collecting more, er stuff.

What? Why?

Yes, I still struggle with the fact that sometimes my basement (and computer room too) have various boxes and bags of stuff that I neither want nor need for myself.

But the fact is, I'm making as much money this way as I ever did from the Flea Market, and the money is being saved for Hritika's education fund. My goal is $100 a month raised through Craigslist. And this year, I've raised that much and more! (well some months I only make ten bucks but other times I make two hundred so it's averaging out).

It seems for the time being I'm welcoming junk---as long as I can sell it!

Posting Long Overdue

There are only so many hats and mits one girl needs. Also, recycling bags are a good thing but I don't need a bazillion.

My friend got a lot of use out of these befor winter ended....

So much junk in one kitchen drawer...

So much unnecessary miscellany...

These all came out of the Kitchen Cupboard of Doom ...

These things went bye-bye a while back, but I forgot about them. Might as well include them in the count.

Another 139 things gone. 3522 things gone.

Unbirthday Declutter

I had a wonderful time visiting two dear friends on our sleepover Unbirthday weekend--- a celebration about seeing one another instead of getting presents.

I also had an opportunity late that Saturday night (between fabulous dinner at the Cafe Brio and a Lara Croft action film) to put some seldom-used items up for grabs. If my friends wanted anything, they were welcome to it.

I brought hair clips, bath oils, herbal teas, a stainless steel soap dispender still in its packaging, kerchiefs, hairbands, necklaces, bracelets, earrings and silky little bags which are lovely but I never use them.

There was one bracelet which was a bit of an internal struggle to part with. It was made of beautiful luminous green beads and I bought it at a craft fair only a year ago as part of a set. I wear the earrings almost daily. But the bracelet? Gorgeous, but I think I wore it twice.

I was glad of my decision when I saw how pretty it looked on my friend Pol...

I also gave Pol my old glass coffee bodum as promised. I love the metal one I have and I'm quite sure it will be enough. :)

Hurray for friends to pass things on to!

(I must say that my dear friends often pass things the other way too---trading among ourselves has become a time-honoured tradition. I've received many clothes, shoes, and fabulous books over the years. It's like shopping for FREE!)

42 more things passed on. A tootal of 3383 things gone.

To the Restore! (and More)

So, luckily for us, Jeff's mom will lend us the truck now and then. About a month ago we made one trip to the Restore, that blessed Habitat for Humanity place that accepts old household building cast-offs instead of letting them go into the landfill. It doesn't matter if the items are dated, as long as they are in good condition.

To the Restore there went: two folding closet doors, two interior wooden doors within frames, an old bedroom light fixture from before renovations, and 14 green cupboard knobs. (19 items)

Alas, the old broom, a big broken tile, and a broom far past functioning were just garbage and have been languishing in a dark corner of the garage. No more.

Three sets of broken Christmas lights went too, and a clunky old television antenna from where-I-don't-know.

I also turfed two rotten garden hoses (I was storing them for a friend who has to live in an apartment but there are limits to the time I'm keeping them when they are useless to anyone--that's two years apparently.) (8 items)

To the Friends of the Library Donation bin travelled sixty (!) more magazines and a few children's books.

So sixty plus nineteen plus eight.....

Hmmm...this brings the new Decluttering total to: 3342 .

Happy New Year!

Well, fortunately we didn't really get cluttered up over Christmas, or at least only minimally so.

This is the first year we've decided not to buy Christmas presents for each other because we simply couldn't thing of anything we wanted or needed. And that's hardly a bad thing.

A trip to India and Nepal is possibly on the horizon for next fall, but only if we can manage it financially, and we have to consider the possibility of spending a significant amount of money to repair our leaking roof.

So, now is not the time to let money dribble through our fingers buying unnecessary stuff.

In fact, this January is the time I've decided to start decluttering in earnest again.

This is the picture of the next 25 things: excess Christmas ornaments, a secondary phone we will never use because we already have three of them, and a whole assortment of unused games and software for the computer.

3255 things gone total since I started this blog. Time to start the New Year with some more things gone.

Tackling the Office

The shoe rack above was one of two I gave to my mother, who asked right out if she could have them. She mistakenly thought I was planning on giving them away because I'd set them down unused near a pile of things I was getting rid of.

Before I knew it, my mouth had opened and I'd said "sure". Why not? They might technically be a useful item, but if I'm not using them they are not. And do I really want to fill them up with more shoes? Ahem, no.

So they are both gone.

I've slowed down for a while getting rid of my own clutter, but part of the reason for that is I've been busy ferrying clutter from my workplace to the Goodwill. Terri and I spent part of our weekend recently tackling the Swirling Vortex of Doom that is our office/toy-storage area at the daycare.

It was not a pretty sight. After three hours, I could not fit any more old toys/yucky books/old couch covers/who knows what else into my trunk. We didn't even try to attack the clutter on the desk that day, but we've been steadily throwing away and sorting out a little bit each day since then.

It's amazing how much better it looks right now and I notice that other staff members are trying to put things back where they belong now instead of just chucking stuff on a random shelf or piece of floorspace. Heh, now that there's an obvious space to put things back, it's a lot easier to do that.
Other than that, I've been sorting out more old magazines and I managed to cull a bag of clothes from the closet in time for a charity pick-up.

3230 things gone.

Free Box

"Can I really have this?", said my friend Kim, her eyes lighting up. "I've been looking for one of these!"

It was an old green ginger jar, an antique Kim said knowledgably. She'd seen one for fifteen dollars recently and had regretted not buying it.

I admitted I had no idea what it was, only that it had ended up in my flea market box somewhere along the way.

She asked me if I still wanted to give it away, knowing it had some value.

Oh yes. Happily.

I had brought a random Free Box up from the basement and placed it on the kitchen floor for my friend to go through. Out of it she chose:

A camera lens, a pomander, a gargoye for her garden, a baby shawl, a small blue and white cream and sugar set from Holland (I think it used to belong to my friend Pol), a set of Phonics flash cards, a brass bottle-opener shaped like a seahorse, and the ginger jar of course.

Some of the stuff from my flea market stuff feels just too nice to give away to the thrift store, without at least trying to inflict it (in a nice way)on my friends first. :)

3178 things begone!

Baskets and Magazines Galore

Ironically, a magazine called Real Simple , a household magazine whose ideals are simplicity and organization , were in a pile cluttering up my Library.

Yes, I'm starting to tackle that room. So far I've gotten rid of a pile of ten-year-old gardening magazines, some seed catalogues and most of the back issues of the Atlantic monthly . Some good articles in some of them, but very doubtful I'll plow my way through them again.

Also gone are a handful of paperbacks to the Friends of the Library book sale, and one book given to my mom, The Wicked Day (not pictured)which she would like to add to her book collection. If she discovers she has a copy already, she'll pass it on to the sale for me.

Now above are some baskets that were divvied up by a few crafting co-workers of mine, whereas the baskets below were utterly transformed in the preschool art class. Nicely took care of my Wednesday morning Art Project idea with the children.

Another 62 items banished. New total of 3218.

A Whole Tin and a Bag 'O Junk Gone...

Gee, but I used to really think that wreath was pretty. I made it myself years ago and it hung in the bathroom in our previous house. There's just no place for it here, and it's gotten rather dusty and bedraggled to boot.

Somewhere along the way I stopped being fond of dried floral wreaths. Aren't they bad feng shui anyway? :)

I also found a decorative tin that was just chock full of little gew-gaws: buttons, pendants, perfume samples, and an assortment of junk jewellery.

And this lot above, well, I just have to face it---I'm not about to sew anything with these cloth scraps now, am I ?

3156 less things to dust.

Starting to Run Out of Flea Market Things...

I culled these old gardening/decorating magazines from one of the big bookshelves in The Library. You know what that means?

Yes...I'm starting to run out of flea market things and I'm starting to consider the process of Decluttering the rest of my house. My stuff.

And I keep coming across things I'm just not sure what to do with. Which fortunately for this project usually means they need to go.

For instance, this papier-mache woman that somebody (maybe Amber) once made. It was yellowed and crackling, but I toyed for quite some time with making some sort of Goddess figure from it.... No, I told myself, if you're going to make potentially Sacred Art, you don't really want to construct it from something that's been slowly decaying in a corner of the garage!

And, pictured on the right beside it, is a cardboard box covered with wallpaper--a somewhat dilapidated Touchy-Feely Box that could be used at the daycare.

Why has it not been used then? Because the RAT that lived in my garage at one point made it unuseable with the residue of droppings. Awful!

Then why, you may ask, why did I simply not toss it long ago? Well, it's because my friend Carol made it and now she has passed away. Four years ago this month actually. And I have to pause before I throw out something my dead friend made.

But really! I have better things to remember our friendship by. So out it went finally this week.

And lastly, here are a few of the dregs that were cluttering up the dark corners of the garage still. No more.

3056 less things to trip over.

Out of My House and Into the Daycare

A lot of the stuff boxed in my basement is great stuff to pass on to the dressup box/toy collection at the daycare.

And there's always the fifty or so art projects per year that I'm responsible for coming up with to consider when I peruse my clutter.

Alas, half of the art supplies pictured above however were too dried-up/empty to be of any use to anyone, so they went straight to the trash.

But these baskets, for instance, were perfectly useable--perfect for the children to paint!

These items gone brought my total Declutter Count to just over the Three Thousand mark: 3019!