birdwatching okay: The case for helping a friend ~ By Deb J

Thursday, December 20, 2012

The case for helping a friend ~ By Deb J

On September 26^th I began helping my friend, S, declutter her home. Her first goal was to get everything out of the room she wanted to turn into her craft room. When we started the room was so full of bags and boxes and drawers of STUFF that you couldn?t get into the room and she had no idea what it contained. The first picture below shows the room after half of the mess had been cleaned out. The second picture is of the bed before it was uncovered. I didn?t even know there was a bed in there until we began to unload.

The Spare Room

As we began to carry out the bags and boxes we uncovered 6000 books, 40 bags of scrapbook supplies bought over the last 4 years and never taken out of the bags, Christmas decorations she forgot she had, 125 items of clothing, 20 throw pillows, 3 bedspreads/quilts, 4 old lamps (2 broken), a puffed valance, 2 pair of drapes, 3 baskets, 2 wreaths, and hoards of other items too numerous to count and describe. There were 7 plastic, wheeled storage units and over 100 containers collected over time to use to store scrapbook supplies in. There were also about 10,000 photos and 15 years worth of memorabilia all in grocery bags. Not included in this room was all of the paper and other scrapbook items that filled her dining room.

The first thing we did was move everything but the bed and dresser out of the new craft room. All scrapbook/craft supplies and storage containers were taken out into the family room to be sorted and placed into storage. Everything else was divided up into the two guest rooms. All the books went into one and all the other items into the other. Gradually S is going through all of these items in the two guest?rooms to get them prepared for taking to the Women?s Shelter thrift store or Goodwill.

A picture of the dining room before we cleaned it up and the family room with all of the containers.

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It took many days of working on all of this to be able to get it to where it all looks good and is organized and decluttered. We have taken 300 items of clothing, 2000 books, and numerous decorative items to the shelter thrift store and Goodwill. She gave 54 boxes to a friend who was moving. We put 200 bags in the recycle bin along with 25 plastic containers. What containers she has kept are for her to possibly use as we continue to declutter and organize the house.

Here are pictures of the new craft room?1. Shelving unit with albums and tools, 2. Closet with storage units, (18 of the ?drawers? contain stickers) 3. Memorabilia in plastic envelope bags, 4. Some of the photos in photo boxes by year.

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I will tell you that we are not completely done. Once we have been able to declutter more of the house there will be things that will be moved out of the closet and a few things reorganized to make finding items easier. There will be 3 shelves built to reduce piling some items.

While it has been a challenge, we are both pleased with what we have accomplished. We will move on to other areas of the house after the first of the year.

Today?s Mini Mission

Declutter some items of clothing that no longer suit the climate you live in or just don?t fit anymore.

Today?s Declutter Item

There was a case of some natural progression decluttering that went on in my house this week. When I was about to take one of queen bed fitted sheets of the clothesline I discovered a big hole in it. Being as I already have one set too many I decided to use the damaged sheet as a weed mat in my garden and sent the remainder of the set to the thrift store. I could have keep these for spares but I had enough spares already.