My Decluttering Journey #4 :: Finishing off the Kitchen

Hi there everyone 😀

We’ve been dipping in and out of decluttering over the past few weeks and I’m more than delighted to say that we’ve finished a room. It’s definitely been a ‘we’ achievement, rather than an I, as I’m not sure I would have had the motivation to do quite so much without Martin’s help.

First off we defrosted the freezer, a job which was well overdue …

We did it just before we went away at the end of April. We managed to squeeze all of the contents into our selection of freezer boxes whilst the great defrost commenced …

I know it’s probably not the advertised way of defrosting a freezer but we were going for speed and Martin sat with the hair dryer and a complicated arrangement of tins and towels for catching and soaking up the water.

Considering we’d left it so long it didn’t actually take that long and we soon had a frost free, clean and organised freezer …with almost a full empty shelf …

With our holiday unceremoniously cut short by car trouble we actually made the tiniest of starts on the shed … on what just happened to be our 15th wedding anniversary.

This was quite a productive one as a couple of the drawers were full of what I would call random tat … but what Martin would call Geocaching supplies. Well … we decided that our days of setting our own caches was pretty much over and managed to empty two full drawers …

There were a few bits that we thought Bobby might like …

… plenty for the recycling bin …

… some bits we decided to hang on to but rehome …

… a bag of bits for the scrap man …

… and a bag of general waste …

We had a good sort through another couple of drawers and just have two more left … one full of glass jars for jam making and one full of random garden bits and pieces …

This weekend we decided to finish off the kitchen and emptied, cleaned out and sort through the contents of the rest of the kitchen cupboards and drawers.

There were a few bits and pieces that we decided to put in the charity pile but everything is now put back away, nice and tidily with the things we use the most in the most accessible spots …

We even sorted through and tidied up the cupboard in the back porch … which just leaves the coat rack and the seed box to finish that space off completely too .

It certainly feels good to know that we have one whole room fully cluttered 😀

*****************************************

My Decluttering Journey #3 :: The TV Cabinet

Hi there everyone 😀

I’ve completed another step on my decluttering journey and … to be honest … I thought it was going to be harder than it was.

We tend to pull out the furniture in the lounge a couple of times a year just to generally dust and vacuum behind but we worked out today that the TV cabinet hasn’t been pulled out for about four years 🙈

There are reasons for this … feeble as they may seem. The bottom cupboard is full of a lifetime of photos … so it’s pretty heavy. There is also a rats’ nest of cables behind … all dusty and tangled, so it really isn’t a quick and easy job.

With the good weather we’d had at the weekend we’d kept putting off doing any housework at all, in favour of working in the garden. We decided that today would finally be the day for cleaning and we’d start with a good deep clean in the lounge, including tackling the TV cabinet.

I have to say I surprised myself. I’ve always taken lots of photos and back in the 80s I used to put them all in albums … nicely labelled.

I decided I would empty the albums … as they take up so much space … and also have a serious slim down of the photos that I would actually keep … some were very faded, lots were pretty much duplicated and some were just rubbish photos. 

Once I got started it was actually really easy and, whilst it was nice to look back through the memories, I didn’t feel sad dumping two bin fulls at all … in fact it felt quite liberating …

What I decided to keep fit easily into the three boxes that I have and I tried to make sure to write on the back the dates that they were taken.

All the albums were totally emptied and all of those are definitely going in the bin …

We then had a good sort out of the cables at the back of the TV … just keeping those that are currently in use … and gave the corner of the room a good dust and de-cobweb …

Once the cabinet was back in place Martin insisted he wanted to keep his PS3 and all the accompanying paraphernalia … even though he has not used it for goodness knows how long. That fits nicely on the middle shelf and the photos all fit easily in the bottom. There is even plenty of room for other bits if we feel the need …

One other thing that used to be in the cupboard is an old notebook computer, which we no longer use and was never much good anyway … I think we’ve agreed that can definitely go too.

So quite a successful decluttering session this time … with lots of stuff let go and a bit more space created.

Can I say the lounge is completely clutter free? Probably not quite. The bookcase is ok and I did go through the candle and vase cupboard not too long ago … but there is a big basket and bag full of wool … I think that will be harder to let go of than the photos … it’s just so pretty 🙈🙈🙈

I could always just move it out of the lounge and say have a room that is fully completed … though I guess that is kind of cheating 😜

Time for a break now before we crack on with finishing cleaning the rest of the room. 

🧶🐏🧶🐏🧶🐏🧶🐏🧶🐏🧶🐏🧶🐏