Tag: Declutter

The aftermath

I have a friend visiting from US, and yesterday while watching the latest Star Trek movie on blue-ray, we killed off a bottle of our favourite port (Warren’s Optima 10 year).

I’m not sure it this count as one thing out-the-door, but the reality is that my liquor cabinet now holds one less bottle, and take up a little less space. So in my book, it kinda counts 😉

Now if I could just shake this tiny hangover, that would be two things “out-the-door”!

Remind me, not to do any more decluttering of the bar, any time soon, even though it was a fun night 😉

2014-04-13 11.26.06

Another pile of books

I don’t know if you remember – but early this year in Taking a stab at by bookshelves, I wrote about my Read a book program. How I’m planning on reading my way through my books, to decrease the collection I keep.

I read in spurts, either not reading at all, or can’t seem to get my nose out of the books, kinda spurts 🙂

The year started off slow, but the last 6-7 weeks I’ve really gotten into my paperbacks. I have read a bunch of books and so far only one is a keeper 😉

That means that today, 18 books are going out of the house.

Well.. that is not strictly true actually, I know my mum reads some of these authors, so I’ve shot her an email to check which ones she wants, before I get rid of the rest. Hopefully in a day or two, some will be on their way to my mum in England and some will be on their way to the paper recycle bin 🙂

As soon as the weather is good enough to start my garden projects, I won’t get much reading done..  but for right now at least, I’m on a roll, so I’m hoping for one more pile of books this spring.

I have to admit, it’s hard to let them go, I like my books. But I have checked, and they can all be bought, as kindle e-books, should I want to read them again 😉

What about you, how do you handle your book collections?

2014-04-07 15.04.33

A bundle of sticks

It’s amazing what comes into the house, under the name of decoration 🙂

I’ve had these bundles of sticks for a while. They looked cool there for a second, but boy, are they dust collectors 😉

They can be great for warming (or filling) up a corner or a nook, but right now, I want my space to be clean and uncluttered. And a couple of “dust collecting bundles of sticks” just aren’t cutting it.

So I’m sorry my dears, but I think it’s time you leave the premisses.

2014-04-01 18.32.58 Bundle of sticks

 

PC nicknack’s

I have this “box” full of chargers, hard drives, computer cables, network cables, converters and a whole lot of other computer related nicknack’s. You name it, I’ve got it 😉

I just installed a couple of drawers in a Ikea unit – the drawers are going out of production so they put them up on 50% sale! I’ve been thinking about installing some drawers in the unit for the last couple of years, and I realized, that if I was ever going to do this, it was now or never!

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the drawers can not hold as much stuff as the boxes I used before… So a clean up was unavoidable (and desperately needed if you ask me) 😉

I pulled all the data related “junk” out of one of the boxes, and went about decluttering… All the stuff in the pile of mess picture came out of that red box, I can not believe how much it held.

I’m sad to say I did not manage to get rid of, as much as I’d like. I always keep all the belonging part to a item, that I own (if I ever give the item away, I like giving it as a complete set), even if I might not strictly need all the parts belonging to the item.

There is still a lot of computer stuff left in the house. But for now at least, there is a small pile of stuff, that is going out-the-door 🙂

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March tally!

Month three! My gosh I thought I had spent February focusing on my digital clutter, but February don’t even hold a candle to the month of March.

Unfortunately, getting that focused on digital clutter, have taken away some of the focus on tangible decluttering, and it’s time I step it back up in the month of April!

Looking at my monthly tally this month, you’d think I’ve done nothing. I might not have been decluttering to much, but I have still been up to a couple of things 🙂

MARCH TALLY of things “out-the-door” =  12 items and 7535 emails

  • 1 ice cream spoon
  • 1 leather vest
  • 10 bottles of hotel “candy“
  • 7535 emails at my work mailbox

So what else have I’ve been up to? Well let’s see, there is:

 

2014-04-02 15.36.19  2014-04-02 15.57.30

Out with the old – in with the new!

Ice cream with silver specks? Nope, no more, absolutely not!! I’m done, my dear old ice cream scoop, I’m done picking silver paint out of my ice cream.

You have worked really hard over the years, spooned tons of ice cream, to me and my friends, and I really appreciate it, but it’s time to let you go.

I’m sure you don’t mind, me swapping your worn body out, for a new green shiny ice cream scooper thingy 😉

2014-03-14 20.13.11

Hotel candy!

For some reason, every time a stay at a “fancy” hotel, I always end up with some of their shampoo/shower gel/body cream bottles in my luggage. It’s a curse! But they look pretty and I can’t seem to contain myself 😉 They are just sooooooo cute.

I don’t have a lot of them, but I’ve been saving the pretty ones for my guests. And I always lay out a nice towel and some “hotel” shampoo/shower gel for them to use, when I have people staying over.

So why haven’t they gotten used up long time ago? Well it turns out, my guest tends to bring their own stuff! And not only do they bring their own stuff, they even leave some stuff at my place if it’s almost used up. So what happens? Well, I get an even more excess of shampoos and shower gels.

Enough is enough! I’m sick of all these small bottles/tubes “hanging around” taking up space. So this year, I decided to use them all up myself 😉

So here they are – all used up 🙂
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NB! A little note for the thrifty out there 😉 Since the hotels tend to toss what’s left of the soaps, shampoos when you leave the hotel, you might as well bring it with you, and use it up at home. It’s what I do!

It can happen!

I’m the proud owner of a spotless kitchen 🙂

Now if it would just stay that way. Unfortunately it normally last about 10 minutes, and then it looks like a bomb went off 😉

Having a smallish place, I’ve found that it doesn’t take much before the house suddenly starts to look messy. You know what I’m talking about! A glass here, a pot there, a few magazines thrown around, a bowl, a cup, a piece of clothing, some shoes and WHAM, what the heck happened to my spotless place?

The key to keeping it “kinda” under control, is to have space to put things away, preferable behind “closed doors” 😉

And no, I’m not talking about the, throw everything into a room, close the door, and hope (seriously hope), nobody ever opens it, because they will surely loose their life, by all the things falling on top of them, kinda “closed door” 😉

I’m talking about the being able to open a drawer, cabinet, closet and nicely put things away, kinda “closed door”!

I wish I had a few more of those spaces available, and that is why I’m decluttering. To give myself some free space to tuck things away, for the everyday clean look, that I love.

And to show you, that I – for at least a minute – succeeded with the clean look. I’ve attached a couple of pictures of my kitchen (which, by the way, I am really proud of – you see – my dad and I installed the kitchen ourselves, when the house was built 🙂 ).

2014-03-01 11.43.32 2014-03-01 11.44.00

February tally!

I’m two months into my declutter challenge! It seems like I have focused mostly on digital clutter during February, but even so, there are a few other items that went out-the-door!

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Below is an overview. You will see that some I count as one item, and some I count as individual items.

FEBRUARY’s TALLY of things “out-the-door” =  45 items + 2200 bookmarks and 2450 emails

  • 1 laptop
  • 5 outdoor jackets
  • 1 picture frame
  • 2 picture mat’s (count as 1)
  • 16 sheets of paper cut outs (count as 1)
  • 2 manuals (count as 1)
  • 7 magazines
  • 27 catalogues
  • 1 bottle of floor wax

And then there are the non tangible items – the digital deletes:

  • 1900 web bookmarks
  • 1500 emails at my work mailbox
  • 950+ emails at my personal mailbox
  • and another 300+ web bookmarks (Feb 28)

No more waxing…

Actually I never got started 😉

When I moved into my house I bought a bottle of floor treatment, for future maintenance.

Last week when I went through my china cabinet to get rid of manuals, catalogues and so on. I also came across the manual for how to treat my wooden floor. Looking through it, I decided to have a look at the bottle I got, since I’m thinking about maybe giving my floor a “spruce” sometime this year.

Turns out the guy at the store have given me the wrong thing. In my kitchen cabinet a maintenance WAX, an not a OIL refresher is gleaming back at me 😦 So what can I do? Well the bottle of wax is 6 years old, so it’s not like I can go back and complain! 

So guess what? Out the house it goes 😉

At least now I know what to get, when I finally get around to needing a floor refresh 😉

Wax bottle