Deep freezer is currently sitting completely empty with the lid open to dry out (it’s already defrosted).
Hmmm. You should wait til the clothes you grew up with are now not just “vintage” but “antique”… I grew up with puffy dresses/petticoats/mary janes and gloves when you went out as a little girl. Then the '60s happened, and, then…!
It is always a bit of a shock.
We went to the state capital to do an errand or two and stopped by the art supply thrift shop. I bought 2 hanks of acrylic yarn (red & green) for Christmas wrapping, and a spool of elastic.
But, but… I also remembered… to take a bag of donations with me. The technical pen set we hadn’t been able to sell went into the bag along with beads, stone markers, buttons, etc. I spent $3, got rid of a bag o’ misc. craft stuff, and bought 3 things, 2 of which I intend to use up in December or toss.
I have a pair of sandals that I really liked, but that wore out a lot faster than I thought they should, given the price. I could send them to be resoled, but in the 2 years I’ve been procrastinating about this, the footbed has gotten kind of gross, so if I send them for repair I think I want to replace the sole and the footbed… which costs more than just buying a new pair of shoes. And from an environmental standpoint, reusing the upper is nice, but I’m replacing 80% of the shoe as well as mailing it from Boston to Virginia and back again.
I think I need someone else to give me permission to throw them out. Or tell me if repairing them is worth it (if indeed it is).
Toss them away without a care. They are worn out. You can check for any shoe recycling in your area to see if that’s an option.
Throw them out. Unless the upper is very unique or extremely high-quality/in great condition, it is not worth replacing the whole bottom of that shoe in order to save the upper.
Bye bye pretty shiny sandals!
Not sure if this counts as decluttering, but I returned every piece of clothing I had bought if I didn’t LOVE it on me.
One slightly different answer: I recently signed up for Ridwell and they take old worn out shoes and clothing (in addition to a lot of plastics that aren’t usually recycled. If it’s in your budget (<$20/month) that’s something to consider. It’s been nice having a home for very old shoes.
I was looking at a garage organization article for inspiration, and realized my Dad’s idea of improving his garage organization was to have a loft built. Everything else was piled around the edges of the garage or on the pegboard he’d put in when we moved into the house. It was ALWAYS a mess!
Maybe part of my problem isn’t the hoarding/PTSD, but that I have that AND was trained badly? Dunno, but I’d never connected these dots before…
The loft was a mess too btw. No concealed storage anywhere.
We have a free service that takes cloth recycling, and also shoes. These were on the verge of moldy though so I didn’t want to put them in just in case it ruined the rest of the box.
I’m finally, finally clearing out our laundry room/mud room type area. It’s … taking longer than I thought it would.
I took all the shoes out. Four of the six sets of kid shoes don’t fit him any more and are going on Buy Nothing. One set of my sneakers are going to my closet because I have my good sneakers and my yard shoes, so this other pair of sneakers never get worn any more.
I got the top of the dryer done and then opened the cabinet above it to put some stuff away. Why did I open the cabinet. Why do we have so much stuff in there. There’s a second cabinet that’s just as bad. And open shelving behind me I didn’t take a picture of, and a ton of hanging hooks. I did throw out a ton of cloth masks leftover from a few years ago, I’ve got a stash of proper N95s so the cloth ones were just taking up space.
Think of it this way: if you didn’t know it’s there, it’s probably not that important to keep. Right?
A lot of stuff went into the trash. The donate pile being right behind me was helpful a couple times. I also consolidated the light bulbs so they actually fit in the little cardboard boxes I have as very cheap drawers on the top shelf.
I need to see if there’s a local charity or family that needs kids size N95s (there’s a major pediatrics hospital in town so maybe?). Due to me ordering in bulk when Kiddo wore masks daily to school and then not masking the following year, we have … a lot. That’s what the bag of blue and red masks on the middle shelf is. Oh and so many cloth masks got thrown out. So many. There was a phase when organizations seemed to be giving them away in lieu of other tchotchkes like branded pens or whatever.
No before picture but I moved the bottom shelf up so the detergent is on the bottom instead of the middle. We have more than usual detergent thanks to a sale recently.
How many thin merino Gap/banana republic cardigans does a semi retired person keep in their dresser?
I believe 4 of these (orange, green, red, black) hit at the hip, and the other two (purple, green) are longer.
Do any Ontarians want a cardigan or two? the colour is a bit less saturated, especially for the orange.
ETA: I think 2, because that is in case I need to go into an office. the orange for sure, because it is difficult to find orange. burgundy is a good colour, but green is more noticable if I repeat it many times.
I’m admiring your color palette a lot. It’s so pleasing.
This seems like an ill timed pre winter decluttering. The number seems fine!
I did not wear any of them last winter
This is my hand knit drawer and is missing the cardigan I am wearing atm, and two sweaters in the 95% finished basket, or the sweater waiting for hand washing
eta: I waited until now because I figured more likely to find homes at this time of year than in May
We went through 1 bin of old baby clothes in advance of the new baby! Got it all sorted and some to donate we don’t want to use again. We also went through our summer clothes to purge things we don’t want anymore! 1 bag down!
We have many spaces to declutter, hopefully we can do one area per weekend.
I regret not being an Ontarian. Those look lovely