Community Chat

[rockygems123]

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@LizzieInSRQ wrote:

TIP:

If you can, as you go through a section of your home (kitchen jewelry, bathroom office,) that you are organizing, lay out three towels, sheets or blankets ( depending on the size of the area you are working in)to designate separate areas for: Keep, Donate, Trash.

As you go through your stuff move the items to those areas.

This way you can see what size you need to pack up or dispose of and you also can put back keepers methodically. Then move on to the next area. 

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@LizzieInSRQ & @qualitygal 

Have heard of the separating into 3 piles and have never thought of the 3 towels, love it!  Laid out 3 different colored towels on the bed in the master bedroom as that's where I'm working and the MB closet, great suggestion @LizzieInSRQ! 

Bed is protected and easy to sort as the towels are right there.

The work has begun!

[rockygems123]

@Zoe 

Thank you for the suggestions.  As you say you don't know what you have, I'm shocked at the repeats!   

I ordered the pop-it set of 2 as I know they can be used.

[queendiva]

Sone of the best $ I ever spent was to hire a local company (not a well-known and $$$ national franchise) to customize my closets.First thing I did before even moving in at my present and previous homes. 

[qualitygal]

One other note, for any things you buy and add in those spaces once cleared out, you need to get ride of one item.  One in, one out.  Really trying to do this myself.

[rockygems123]

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@qualitygal wrote:

One other note, for any things you buy and add in those spaces once cleared out, you need to get ride of one item.  One in, one out.  Really trying to do this myself.

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@qualitygal 

I have a friend who does that and sticks to that rule and has for years.

She does this in all areas of her house, she never has clutter!

[Glittergal]

My best tip is to start in one corner of the room.  That helps me in every room because it isn't as overwhelming.  Clear/organizze everything in that one corner, then move to the next.  Once the entire room is decluttered, take inventory and purchase storage items that suit what you have, then deep clean the entire room.

[Burnsite]

Hi rockygems,

I hope I will be moving soon, and so for me, reorganizing has meant downsizing (leaving a lighter load for moving a few thousand miles). The Goodwill people have been beaming when I come in.

How I reduced bedroom storage is that I got rid of sheets of yore, still with lots of use in them.  Goodwill.  People need sheets.I doubt that anyone except large families need a huge inventory of sheets.

Clean old towels but still absorbent: Goodwill.  

Some furniture I no longer like.  I took those pieces to the curb and someone appropriated them within an hour.  I'm about to put out to the curb a desk I've written a lot of articles and several books on.  It doesn't give me joy b/c it is now so wobbly that it's going to break my kneecaps very soon. (It weighs a ton.) For my upcoming birthday, I bought a desk half the size and weight at Wayfair on a sale. What a relief.  I can only keep this desk functional by keeping the bathroom door open in order to keep it upright.  It is being held up by what the Charles Atlas ads used to call "dynamic tension."

Marie Kondo's advice:  if it doesn't give you joy, don't put it in storage, give it away to a charity or to someone who will get joy from these things. I found this helpful. I have so many storage bins (no closets, to speak of, in my house) but have downsized enough that many of these former storage units too have gone to the curb and found homes that actually need storage.

I ignored Marie Condo's advice only for my great-grandmother's quilt, which is too heavy for FL but which is a link to someone my late father really adored....she helped to bring him up, and to this day her quilt does bring me joy.  I never met her,  but I have something of her own crafting.