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. 

🧶🐏🧶🐏🧶🐏🧶🐏🧶🐏🧶🐏🧶🐏