February 28th, 2010 | 
Author: A series of operations are getting underway this week at home with the basic goal of simplifying our cluttered home life.
We have a lot of “stuff”. Far too much stuff and it’s all over the house. We’ve finally reached breaking point and it’s time we all un-learned some bad habits. In the process, the stuff is going to be culled. Mercilessly.
Gone will be my caches of “stuff for projects that never get done”. Gone will be the assorted “I can fix that” things. Gone will be the boxes of stuff in storage that haven’t been opened since we moved here nine years ago. Gone will be most of the toys and books that the boys have outgrown and now clutter their rooms.
We’ll donate what we can, but I expect that the vast majority of the stuff will be binned. I’d like nothing more than to rent a dumpster (skip to those of you in the home countries), but those things are expensive: $125 for delivery and pickup plus $120/tonne for disposal. One like that in the picture would wind up costing at least $300.
So, into bags it will all go. If they’re not too heavy (max 20kg), I can just buy tags ($2 apiece) and put them at the curb. What I’ll probably wind up doing is borrowing Dad’s box trailer, filling it and taking it to the transfer station myself. It still costs $110/tonne for disposal, but there’s no dumpster to pay for.
Wish us luck.
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Believe me, you’ll feel a difference when it’s all done, Gord. We do that periodically and it’s as if the house breathes a sigh of relief.
i periodically try to do this too, especially the stuff that will allow me to fix something in the future. i can honestly say that nowadays it’s not so much that i’m a hoarder as i have no attachment to these things, it’s more that if they are easy to get at and lift, i’ll throw them all away but if i have to crawl or pick up heavy stuff, i just leave it. i have a dismantled piano in my crawlspace that i was gonna make some sculptures out of
Jim, the biggest problem with our house is that it’s too bloody big. When we bought it 9 years ago, we were looking for a place that had space for us and something that could serve as private space for Bridget’s elderly mother. What we got was a 5-bedroom behemoth. The price was great and the layout was perfect, so we grabbed it.
Now that Joyce has passed on, we don’t need the space. It’s easy for the collected “stuff” to get out of hand before it starts to impinge on you. Time to clear it out and start thinking about downsizing.
But Dad, I like were we live! Why do we have to move?!?!?!?!?!
Also: Good luck cleaning out my room.
>=-(
I agree with you……this year is the year of the ‘garage’, according to my other half!!??
When he told me that, I quickly said, “Cool, there will be room to put my boat in the garage ….finally!” He was not amused!!! :-)
Good luck! I purged before my last-but-one move and was hoping B could purge before this last one. Maybe when he unpacks…