Decluttering update #19

This week, I listed these books on Freecyle, and they were picked up and within 24 hours of listing.

I like Freecycle. Most of my donations have gone to charity, but I thought that I wanted to give somethings away to other Freecyclers as I want to support such a great organisation.

And I have a little less clutter in my home.

Decluttering Update #17 Shoe decluttering

My daughter grew out of these shoes, before she had worn them more than once. She was this size for only a couple of months. So I dusted off my ebay account this week, and posted off to a little girl for some real wear.

And added $20 to my “Clutter to Cash” total.

There are also 3 pair of shoes that still have lots of wear in them.

These boots are great and I am giving them to my new neighbour for her little girl who is a year younger than my daughter.

The pink boots and sparkly silver gym boots are heading off to my local charity shop.

 

Making laundry powder

Every few weeks I spend 15 minutes or so making my own laundry detergent.

Here is how I do it.

1 bar (125g) grated laundry soap ( I use Sunlight and an old grater kept just for this purpose)
250g of borax
250g of washing soda

Mix all of the ingredients thoroughly.

Store in a plastic container with a lid. I use an old ice-cream container with a flip lid.

I use 2 tablespoons of the laundry powder for each wash. You will notice that there are no suds during washing, but this is perfectly fine.

I have noticed since using this that my clothes are cleaned just as well as with commercial bought laundry detergent powders. In fact I love this powder more because it doesn’t seem to fade my clothing.

Decluttering this week #12 Decluttering child’s bedroom

Our local charity shop is now looking very well stocked!

We are focussing on my 8 year old daughters bedroom at the moment.

Here is this weeks decluttering.

I also did a change over of her winter wardrobe to spring. I used my labeller to label the drawers so that my daughter can put her clothes away where they belong, and also find them again easily.

Top drawer

undercrackers on left, socks on the right

2nd drawer

vests on the left, Jim Jams on the right.

3rd drawer

long sleeved tops on the left, short sleeved tops on the right

Skirts on the left, short pants in middle, long pants on the left.

Chest of drawers is now sorted!

Yesterday I delivered to 3 boxes of clutter from my daughters bedroom to my local charity shop. There were toys and books that she had grown out of, as well as a barely used blow up Disney princess bed that some little girl is going to LOVE!.

Declutter update #10 Decluttering the Kitchen, Part 1

I had a burst of enthusiasm for decluttering on the weekend.

This is the stuff that I decluttered from my kitchen. I am writing this post, and then I am taking these goodies straigth to the charity shop.

I broke it down into sections, one at a time.

I started with the 4 kitchen drawers.

I started with the kitchen cutlery drawer.

Before

After.

Then moved onto the utensil drawer.
Before

After.

I put the small items like measuring spoons and vegetable peelers in smaller containers so they are easier to find.The drawer now closes easily and I can find utensils in a matter of seconds.

Drawer 3 the wraps, sandwich bags, freezer bags etc. I discovered 2 almost full packages of freezer bags that had fallen down behind the back of the drawers.

Before

After
Oops! Forgot to take an after photo.

Drawer 4
Teatowels, dishcloths, oven mitts. I reviewed my collection of teatowels, some were holey! Mind you, I have had these teatowels for more than 10 years, as they were very good quality linen ones. These have been cut into 2 pieces and will be used as rags. I purchased 3 new good quality linen ones in a navy and white stripe to replace the old ones.

Before

After

Sorry about the blurry photo.

So that was 4 drawers sorted.

More declutter posts on the kitchen decluttering to follow.

Now I’m off to the charity shop with my donations before it closes for the day.

And before I can change my mind!

Decluttering Update #6-Decluttering the “School Shelf”

Decluttering the “School Shelf”. The school shelf’s purpose in life is to hold my daughter’s school bag, some stationery for homework and her homework books. It had recently become so much more….

This was a decluttering job that I have been procrastinating over for a few weeks now.

It’s just a shelf, I tell myself . One shelf. So why the procrastination?

Here’s why…..take a look at the BEFORE photo….

So I needed a strategy so that I didn’t get bogged down too much. I seemed to get overwhelmed if the decluttering session is too big.  So I decided to set a time limit.

I set the oven timer for 20 minutes.

I took everything out from the shelf and put  it on the dining table.

I sorted each piece into these groupings:

1. School shelf
2. Toss ( straight into garbage bag)

3. Put away ( items that belong somewhere else in the house)

4. Donate  (only one item- a recorder)

Then I put all of the items that belonged on the School Shelf. These are only the school bag, box of stationery items for homework tasks ( pens, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, rulers glue etc.) and a tray for homework books.

“AFTER” PHOTO

It took a little longer than 20 minutes, and I need to put the “Put Away” things away tomorrow morning during some decluttering time. But the results are so encouraging.

Now all we* have to do is to keep it like this!

* meaning my daughter!

Decluttering Update #5

The treadmill has left the building.

Yes, after what seems an age, Mr Man just called and collected the treadmill that we didn’t use any more and was taking up our precious space in our compact home.

Mr Techno and Mr Man are now carrying it down to the trailer. This is no mean feat as the treadmill is very heavy and there are about 50 stairs down to the garage!

I now have a little more space in my creative studio. Yay!

And $50 towards my Clutter to Cash project.

Glass jars for food storage

I have been intending to change my food storage in my pantry from plastic to glass.

It is amazing how the “universe” provides what I am searching for. Or maybe my eyes are just open.

I was out running on the weekend, and saw a huge garage sale being held by my local Scout group.

I found a box of large glass jars with lids for $10. These are jars that formerly held instant coffee.

They are now washed, labelled and now they store my flour, sugar, and other baking ingredients, as well as a variety of dried beans.

I am intending to resuse the plastic containers for my sewing and craft supplies.

Making the most of space in your home……

Mr Techno happy with his work bringing the bookcases downstairs!

We live in a townhome. This was a concious decision about 3 and a half years ago to move from a large McMansion in the ‘burbs a long way from facilities, to living in a towhome in more vibrant community, close to all facilities and great public transport.

One of the things that I am focussing on is making better use of the space we have in our smaller home. I have found as we are changing our lifestyle, our needs have change in how we use our space.

And so to the “study” space.

Until recently we used one of the bedrooms as our study and had our books and computers in that room. However, we also had an alcove dowstairs, just off the lounge room, which never really had an identity and was basically unused space.

So after feeling energised after a decluttering spell, I enlisted the help of my husband and we moved the bookcases, desk and computer down to the alcove.

I love this new space! Now we can all be together downstairs in the evening. We have headphones for the computer, so that my daughter can watch a DVD downstairs while we are watching a movie in the lounge room, and yet we are all in the same space. Or I can blog on the weekend, and still be part of the rest of the family life happening downstairs.

This has also freed up the room upstairs ( formerly the study) to reflect our changing lifestyle, as I have set it up as my sewing and creative space. I will blog about this in a later post.

It also has a sofa bed in it for the occasions that we have guests.

This makeover has made a lot of difference. And it was a no cost endeavour, it was only our time. We used all the things we already had but in a different way, after considering how we wanted our home to reflect our lifestyle.

I will be sorting through our books over time, and putting the books that we love and use on our bookcase, and moving the ones we no longer need to new homes.