October Clutter Challenge, 2015

[Harriet]

Welcome! We strive to give the equivalent of 15 minutes a day to the decluttering of our lovely homes! Sometimes you may go for a marathon session, or, sometimes you might like to measure efforts by space (in sq ft cleared or bags leaving) rather than time, and please post about that, too. But that 15-minute minimum does wonders!

Today begins The Every-Day-Is-Different CoMpLeTeLy RaNdOm 31-day Clutter Challenge for October! This time our suggestions came from within our midst! One suggestion has been to take a DAY OFF each week. On this calendar we have it as Sundays, but fit this in as it benefits your household.

Find us decluttering these random spots/items on these October dates:

1st - China cabinet & buffet
2nd - Bulletin board
3rd - Extra closet
4th - DAY OFF
5th - Crawl spaces
6th - Storage shed or outdoor space
7th - Clothing - in drawers and storage
8th - Even more clothing - the closet!
9th - Car
10th - Paperwork
11th - DAY OFF
12th - Purging files (physical or computer)
13th - Hobby and craft
14th - Even more hobby and craft!
15th - Book cases
16th - Stationery stash
17th - Mending basket
18th - DAY OFF
19th - Entertainment centers (open or closed shelves)
20th - Linen closet
21st - Office supplies
22nd - Laundry room cupboards and/or shelves
23rd - Gift wrap supplies, greeting cards
24th - Weather Gear
25th - DAY OFF
26th - Bedside tables
27th - Books
28th - A junk drawer
29th - Halloween's coming up Deal with an oooold Stash and Dash!
30th - Halloween's coming up. What's Under the Bed??

31st - You Did It! Catch up on the day/area you think needed more attention,
and have Halloween candy to celebrate! (Just a little candy, okay? )

[BookSaver]

I like this random list, it looks fun.

Today's item: china cabinet & buffet. I don't have either of those. I want to buy a buffet soon, as I think it will solve a major problem of having to store large or special dishes in weird locations. I've already pared down the list to what we actually use and enjoy, now I need a better place to put them.

DMIL had a piece of furniture that was the right size for us, but it was a corner piece (which won't work in our dining room) and not a style DH and I cared for nor a color of wood that goes with anything else in our house. We were glad when someone else in the family really wanted it.

So ... can I count that as decluttering in advance, that we didn't bring home a big item that was ok but not perfect?

I don't have that piece of furniture, but I can work on decluttering the space where it will go when we buy one. I'm going to spend 15 minutes there right now. (done)

[Harmony]

Thanks for pulling the list together, Harriet. I printed it out.

I tackled my china cabinet. Drawers were about ok. One plastic table cloth tossed. Upper shelves behind the glass doors are exactly how I want everything. I often stand there and look at everything, it all gives me joy.

Lower section (2 big doors), each section has 2 shelves and was full of plastic and tin containers. Big sizes I stockpiled when I took so many meals to people and big platters for luncheons, individual heat-them-up meal containers with lids. Matched up all containers and lids, looked at what was left. Odd lids tossed. Several storage containers I put in the kitchen to use. Bunch of odds and ends and not so nice ones in garbage. One really nice round lid in recycle, have no idea where that even came from! Much much nicer now. Easier to find things.

[Harriet]

Considering BookSaver's and Harmony's "takes" on china cabinets. I would like to look through the windows of my dmother's and find joy, yes. (One of the reasons I took a photo before I started taking things out.) I would like to feel free to discard what is unnecessary, as well. Another thought is that I would like to avoid having an extraordinarily heavy piece at just one place in DR, so that gives me pause on saving all this. I never knew how heavy the cabinet itself was until we moved it.

Don't want to make ya'll feel sorry for me or anything (it's okay ), but might as well be honest here.

My contribution to the challenge of china cabinet is that I decluttered one cardboard box 1.5 x 1.5, and decluttered my parents' house's laundry basket we'd used for the last stash and dash there (basket definitely has a use here - I cleaned it, too - and box to recycle). These were in front of my dmother's empty china cabinet in my dining room.

I have now gotten down to the floor level there in front of it, to one of the Rubbermaid containers. I can see on the container where I labeled on tape the words: "china plates". So I have reached the china cabinet work area in my jungle trek. That is progress as we are defining it here right now.

HRH has been measuring walls and contemplating placing the china cabinet somewhere else in the room, anyway, so it's not as if I am way behind in DR. And I'm not necessarily behind here in comparison to other areas, sorry to say.
.

[Sunny]

Yesterday afternoon my declutter challenge efforts went to the buffet. It has three drawers on one side, about 2/3rds of the total space. The other third is two shelves behind a door. I had gone through the lower two drawers the end of Aug. and rearranged and refolded the tablecloths so they fit better. I pulled the top drawer out to set on the table to better work as I emptied the drawer. It is divided in half and one side is plain, the other side has built in slots for silverware. There was a lot of odds 'n ends that had been stuffed in the drawer over time and I got rid of a plastic grocery bag full of stuff. The drawer is nice a neat now.

The shelf section and the china closet will have to be done at another time. I will be able to work that in on one of the other declutter days.

Day 2 - bulletin board. We have only one and it is located in our smallest bedroom on the wall behind the door; it cannot be seen from the hallway or even in the room unless the door is closed. The were a few papers on it painted/colored by a couple of our dgdaughters when they were much younger. I took them off and put the with a few other of their drawings we have. The only thing on the board now is a page with instructions for exercises for strengthening the back and legs - left over from dh's p.t.

[Dove]

Peeking in here for inspiration . Great list, fellow SHEs!

[BookSaver]

Declutter progress yesterday: No bulletin board, so I went through a pile of mail & other papers. Put most in the recycle bin.

Additional misc. = Tossed 2 plastic storage containers in the trash because the lids were cracked.
2 large bags full of plastic shopping bags delivered to wm's recycle bin.

Decided to get rid of a large bag containing 3 wedding dresses plus a train that didn't match any of the dresses. They were floor samples from a wedding shop. They had been donated to the theatre where I used to work some years ago. They didn't work for costumes there and the bosses told me to throw them in the dumpster. At the time I had an idea for some art projects that needed that type of fabric & beads, but no time to do the projects. By now I've accumulated much more fabric than I'll ever use, so I asked a friend who is building a haunted house for Halloween if he wanted to add a corpse/zombie bride. He said that would be awesome, so I dropped the bag on his front porch yesterday.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Joining in late here!

Reworked the areas so that it covers off my being away for 3 days, and the Monday I host 14 for dinner and then another party starting at 10 p.m.!

Shifted some of the days so the focus will help with what I have on at that time. And added a note of significant things on certain days so I know I have to start the focus at a specific time and can't count on evenings.

Just printed it off so I can put it on my fridge.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Quick catch up:

1 - crawl space - don't have one!
2 - Bedside Tables - done! (except I didn't touch dh's.)
3 - Mending & Bulletin Board - done! These went together for me since my bulletin board was covered in blue cloth and hangs in my now black and white kitchen. For 16 months I've been waiting to recover it. Because my wrist is too sore to use the staple gun, dh helped with this project. I found the black material in my sewing stuff, ironed it, dh took off the old material and helped me put on the new. I rearranged the contents (sayings I've printed off from the internet over the years, plus assorted other clippings) and put it back up in the kitchen. I also did the three small mending tasks that had accumulated since July.

Tomorrow is off. Yay! I like having Sunday's off.

[lucylee]

Woo hoo!
Amazing how one thing leads to another.
I was doing the bulletin board challenge, and I found a phone # written on a tiny scrap of paper. Phone # for a guy dh worked with almost 40 years ago! I went and asked dh where he would look for L's phone # if he needed. He started saying the names of cities nearby... and I said, "You would not be looking on the bulletin board, would you? You would look in the address card file." He agreed yes, that would be the logical place to look... so I went and put the number on a card, and found out I already HAD a card there with the info on it.
BUT -- that led to cleaning out the address card file, which had accumulated a TON of non-address stuff and was just a big junk bin.
Threw out a lot of stuff, and still need to sort through the rest, but it gave me a big headstart on that "bedside table" challenge.

Since I took yesterday off, I should try to something else to do today.