On the decluttering bandwagon again, kind of
The first of the year brings about lots of resolutions and goals for many people…often about health and fitness, or organization. I’ve never been one to make resolutions – I just try to make changes that I want to make throughout the year, instead of waiting until some “magical” day (New Year’s Day) for it to be the “right” time to make changes. I’m not technically on the bandwagon, because I’ve been working on decluttering since November. With the busyness of the holiday season, I backed off a bit, but now I have Lo on board to help out. (not that he was unwilling, but he does better if given specific tasks)
Since we are hoping to move within the next year if we can find a house that we love, we are really trying to get things fixed/cleaned up/decluttered for when we try to sell our house. Over the last few years, Lo has completed almost all, if not all, of the home repairs that the inspector suggested when we bought the house. We bought it as a short sale, so we couldn’t ask the sellers to make any repairs. While our hot water heater is still functioning, the inspector said he’s never seen on that old that still works, so we recently elected to replace it before it broke and left us without water and/or a flooded basement. We replaced the above-the-range microwave that developed a crack in the door casing. We (well, Lo), replaced all of the downstairs flooring with wood laminate floors that look awesome. We used a countertop painting kit that looks SOOOO much better than our crappy maple laminate counters (you know, the ones that every house had in the 80’s). We made some landscaping changes that made more sense for the backyard. We intend to replace the upstairs carpeting, but just haven’t gotten to a store to pick out new stuff – and will repaint the only bedroom that needs it once we’ve picked the carpet. So we’ve done, and will do, a lot of changes to the actual house that should help us sell.
But we still need to deal with our stuff. There’s a fair chance that our next house will be slightly smaller (at least in storage space), than our current house. That could be a problem, because our current house is pretty full (as are our storage areas). Somehow we moved from a 1000ish square foot two bedroom apartment with a small outdoor storage space and no garage, and within 2 years, we filled an 1800 sq ft house with 4 bedrooms (which has a lot more sq. footage when you count the finished basement and utility room/crawl space down there), a 2 car garage, and a storage shed. Sure, we had a baby and he does have a lot of gear and toys, but he certainly doesn’t account for the additional 1000+ sq. footage of stuff.
I’m looking at some decluttering and cleaning calendars/checklists that we can check off as we go. I’ve printed off a few and am trying to decide if one is better than another, or if I want to do a combination of them. I gave Lo a list that I found of spring cleaning tasks, so he’s working on those as I work on organizing and decluttering for now. We’ve agreed to try to do at least 15 minutes of something each night after Jenson goes to bed before we relax for the night. The lists are broken down into short tasks, so 15 minutes will often be plenty. When we have more time or energy to spend, we can tackle several in a day/night…since some of the lists are broken up over an entire year, and we hope to move before then.
As I’ve come upon things that I want to keep, but don’t expect to need in the next few months, I’ve been packing them away in boxes in the basement. I’m not sealing the boxes, so the stuff is still accessible, but it will make it easier to move when that time comes. Each month when either the Kidney Foundation or Volunteers of America are going to come through the neighborhood, I plan to set out a box for them. I have a box and big bag of stuff all ready to go from things I gathered up in December. Since the donations are tax-deductible, I jot down the value (according to a donation value guide) to keep with the receipts they give so that we can write them off on our taxes. The box I donated in November had a value of about $240…not too shabby for things that we didn’t want. I also keep a box of things that I want to sell on the buy/sell facebook pages, but much anymore, these don’t seem worth my effort. There are so many local buy/sell pages that the whole concept is devalued and people have become less reliable for pickups and stuff. It’s not worth the effort to photograph and post an item, and then spend 2 days messaging someone who claims they want it, another 2 days waiting for them to pickup, and then they decide they don’t want it anymore. By that time, backups sometimes aren’t interested anymore, and if they are, it starts the whole process of trying to arrange pickups. It’s rude and annoying. I sell things so cheaply on there anyway, that donating is probably a better value – and better time spent.
Once I settle on one of the calendars to use, or come up with a real plan of attack, I’ll share.