Cleaning Out A Little At A Time

I haven't been here for a few weeks, I know. And I must apologise for this. I have been working on the house, looking through things bit by bit and tossing out things in the bin, and putting things in my Donation Box by the door. 

The place is looking better by the week - I've just forgotten to tell you all about it.

Yesterday, I collected two large boxes from Bunnings and today I'm cleaning out the Home Library. Now, being a big reader, normally, I'd say don't touch it, but my collection is getting that way where I really need to look at what I'm going to read, what I have just look good, and what I'm definitely not going to read at all - and I have to be brutal about this too.

I'm going to try to sell some of the books on gumtree - seeing I look after them so well - and any Bookcrossing books I have are going to be given away in a Big Book Giveaway. Yep, this is going to be fun! 

This will mean I'll be making a right mess in the library and moving things around, and moving things out of here. I'm also going to look at replacing the large brown bookcase with a new one, which can hold all the books - as it's really saggy, and has been like that for a long time (and everyone notices it!). 

Well, how has your place been going? All good, please do comment below and tell us all what you're up to in your cleaning out. 

A Little and A Lot

In the past two weeks, I've been working on a lot of things in the townhouse. And this is why I haven't been here for a while.

But there's been parts of the kitchen worked on, and parts of the bedroom as well. In the kitchen I've packed up some cups and saucers which I inherited from my late-Uncle and given back to my Mum. I really needed the space in my cupboard and wanted to use my own cups and saucers which I've scored from op-shops instead of being scared of breaking the delicate ones I inherited.
So, once they were out the door and at my parents' house safely, I cleaned up the cupboard and moved all my Keep-Cups into the space in cupboard, and made more room on the counter! Woah, that was really cool to see that, and now I have more counter space I can  get more done around the kitchen instead of feeling as though I'm being squashed into the corner of my sink.

The bedroom has been changed around a bit. I've refurbished the use of my shoe box; cleaning it up and making it into a book case for my night time reading instead of tossing it out. You see, it's not your ordinary style of shoe box... and it doubled well as a book case too. It looks great! 

Then I found two large lampshades and tried to upgrade my old ones... which didn't work out. So, I asked my Dad to help me. My lamps I bought last year from K-Mart were super-glued within an inch of their lives - something I didn't expect from K-Mart, but it's happened. So, Dad worked something out and made them fit. And the old shades? Well, they're on their bedside lamps - and both my parents have said they've never had so much light in their room ever! 

I've taken another bag of goodies to the charity store and enjoyed finding those lamp shades while I was there. But that was about two weeks ago... I haven't been op-shopping for something in a little while. I'm still decluttering in a major way.

This next week, I'm hoping to pull out all my VHS tapes and look into getting them converted to DVD to enjoy them like I used to... as my 21st Birthday is on them, so is a few movies we taped and some documentaries we can't find on DVD. So, it's something we want to look into. After they get converted to DVD, it'll be a matter of tossing out the old VHS tapes to the recycling bin. 

Otherwise, the everything is going well. I've bought a plant for the bathroom and I'm no longer using any plastic bags. I tossed out my last lot of recycling of plastic bags yesterday - how good is that? I'm using all reusable bags in all things in my life from shopping bags to grocery bags. 

So, how is your decluttering going? 

Little Things

I've been out at op-shops and doing good things for myself lately. 

Over the past week, I've bought only small things for the house, and yet I've donated more than two bags of goods I no longer need to my local charity store. 

On Monday, I bought a lovely hat for next Summer, and then on Wednesday, I bought two lamp shades which I thought would go well for my bedside lamps - I wanted to change them over from the plain white ones I bought from K-Mart. 
Now, when I got them to my folks' house and proposed this to my Dad (as I'd need his help), we had a good look at the lamps and we found that everything had been super-glued to death. 

Yes, this is the ultimate example of the throw-away society we're being forced into. All I wanted to do was the little thing of changing my lamp shades to prettier ones, and yet the way they were designed (and rather cheaply too!) made it so I couldn't. 

This is disgusting to say the least. 

Anyway, Dad understood where I was coming from and Mum wanted my old shades once we figured out how to get the new ones on. Both my folks are pleased to see I am thinking outside the box with this instead of buying new lamps - and lamp shades cost me under $20 for the two, as I bought them from an op-shop. 

And my budget this week for op-shopping was around $15.00 of a book and two lamp shades. Whereas my charity giveaway this week was a magazine holder and a bag of goodies which work but I don't need anymore. 

So, how are you doing with your decluttering this week? All good? I'm going so well! Right now, I'm getting through my wardrobe - anything I can't fit into is going straight into the donation box. How good is that? 

The Signs of Progress!

At the beginning of the year, I put up a little table on the sidebar of the amount of rubbish bags, the donation bags filled and the donation runs I have done - and I've kept it up-to-date.

Now, look at the numbers! Aren't they fantastic? I thought to leave it up there for 5 months and see how I do. It's coming up to the end of May and I'm very pleased to see how many Donation Runs and Donation Bags Filled are up there. But Rubbish Bags are past 20! Woah! 

So, if you're keeping track of these three things in your decluttering, how many have you done? I'm curious... and we could challenge each other with it too if you'd like - see how many we get done by the end of the year to see if we could beat each other. 

Nah... it's not how many we can get done, it's a matter of how tidy our houses become. I'm just pleased to donate as much as I am donating. My house is looking better and I'm so pleased with my progress this year. 

Well, how are you doing with your progress? 

Donation Day!

On Monday, I emptied the Donation Box! Yay! First I went around to Mum and Dad's and grabbed whatever Mum wanted to get rid of and took their stuff off them and took everything to Vinnies at Underwood and donated big-time!

They were so pleased to see so much good stuff come through the doors. I took along 2 irons - which worked - and a couple of lovely prints, and also some pretty things I no longer fitted into... I know that sounds awful, but I don't see the point in keeping clothes which I don't fit into anymore. 
And Mum agreed with me. She was so pleased to see I tried on something in my wardrobe and just tossed it straight into the Donation Pile. I think it's the gym work which is making me fit into clothes differently too.

Also, since I got the new vacuum cleaner, I've been cleaning out so much more from my house so much faster than I used to - this is good! I even gave away a couple of handbags I no longer use.

Now, my little secret for donations is: if it hasn't been used in over a year, it goes into the Donation Box and it's donated. If it doesn't fit me anymore, it goes there too. 

Do you have any secrets to decluttering your house? If you do, please do share them. 

I'm always looking at Peter Walsh's Facebook page for tips and tricks to keep my house looking nice - you know the 10 minute clean-ups and the quick tidy-ups before bed and morning rituals before leaving the house kinda thing. Well, until my next post, I hope you're keeping your house nice and your decluttering is going well. Mine is going better than ever. 

Weekend Challenge Time!

I know, I haven't been around this week... but I have been cleaning up and house and totally enjoying my new little vacuum cleaner. It's such a cutie!

Well, I've also cleaned up the living room to the point where there's nothing in front of the entertainment unit or the credenza. How amazing is that?

This gives me a chance to look into this weekend challenge with something a little different.

I'm going to go through my First Aid Kit where all of my medications are. If there's anything out of date in there, put them into a bag and give them to a chemist/pharmacy and keep only the ones in date.

The pharmacy disposes of these out of date medications properly; and some of them give them to third world countries. So, there's the challenge for this weekend. Clean out your first aid kit and make sure everything in it not only is working, but the medicine there is within date. 

So, how is your cleaning out going? Mine is going really well. I'm going to do a Donation Day on Monday. I can't wait!

It's Friday!

It's coming into a long weekend here in Australia, and I thought to keep this one as light as I can.

But first, I scored a new vacuum cleaner yesterday! I traded in my old one for $10 and bought a nice new one called a Titan 2000 from a place called Godfreys. What a nice little unit it is too! It's a bagless and cost me under $150... not a bad price if you ask me. I've always wanted a bagless cleaner and it's really doing a great job too! I've already vacuumed the living room floor and it looks brand new!

Well, today, I'm going to be putting away the archive boxes and bringing in the bags to sort through from downstairs. This means I have to go out and get 2 more archive boxes. One is going to be a Memory Box for my other Memory items (from one of my other posts below) and the other one will be for storing what I need - which I haven't figured out yet, but it's good to have an extra one on hand.

Okay, it's the Weekend Challenge time! And I think it's time to clean out your shed. I do this every few months and it's a good thing to get into the habit of. You go out into your shed and sort through the items in there which are broken and unfixable. If you've got long-term unfixable things inside that garden shed, it's time to put them off to one side and label them as 'lost causes' and take them to the dump. 
Then, get in and sort out your power tools and put them in one area, so you can lay your hands on them at a moment's notice. Get out your label-maker and label each one so you can read it clearly - and so can anyone else who you know in case they need to grab it for you from your shed. There's nothing worse than going back and forth to your shed because somebody grabbed the wrong box of tools or the sander instead of the drill.
You get in and pull everything out, make sure you have a light inside the shed - which works - and everything is in there which is supposed to be there. If your work bench is unorganised and dirty, get in there and work on it so you can actually work on it, not accidentally cut yourself and not know what you did to yourself. Have your tools hanging up, in their boxes, wherever they're supposed to be all clean, not sticky, not greasy and ready to use. Make it look like it's a place you want to go to every weekend and work in... not a place to be ignored.
This weekend is the weekend to clean out shed, work out what the hell the workbench looks like and make your shed look and feel like a place for that project you've been meaning to do instead of the hiding place of all the broken tools and a junk pile with a door. Go on... I believe in your ability in being able to work out your things in that shed! Visualise your perfect work space and shed, and do it, make it a reality!