De-Cluttering - Second Edition

I've been at it again - two sessions and I'm up over 60 items - that takes me through January 12 - yippeee.

Let's see - we left off at 29 - so here we go again - but first a few words about our house.

We signed the papers for our house 6 years ago today (Jan 3) - what a day that was - a new house - new keys - and boxes to pack and things to move - but we were excited.  We love our house - it is easier to keep clean than the older, vintage houses that we've loved for so long - no dust filters down from the ceiling edges - wind doesn't blow through the tiny gaps by the windows and we have double paned windows and a perfect seal on the doors - so it is warmer and cozier.  I thought while telling you about my de-cluttering this time I would show you some photos of our wonderful home.  You've seen some of it - in the photos of table settings - lets have a look around.

The dining room - before we had the dark pine green carpet removed - and replaced with tan.  Fortunately you can only see a tine bit of the carpet on the right side of the table.  This dining room set has been in our family for five generations.

I decided to tackle my closet yesterday - and check for anything that needs to be weeded out.

30-35 - 6 pieces of clothes to go to Goodwill

The dining room after the new carpet was installed.  That was one of the first projects when we moved into the house.

36 - a blouse to my daughter
37-41 - clothes that had to go in the rag bag or the trash - they were too worn to give to Goodwill

China cabinet in the  living room with pine cone dishes and milk glass chickens.  In the door below (not shown) are my loon dishes - a gift from our kids a few christmases ago.

42-52 - 11 coat hangers to Goodwill - still have plenty

While I was in the purging mood - I attacked the two main utensil drawers

Grampy and Donnie in the piano room.  Donnie is using a wooden Washington Ferry for a seat - and talking on his "telephone" duckie push toy.  Everything he touched was turned into a telephone - it was so cute.  This was taken when they visited us in September  of last year.  Donnie was 14 months old - Grampy was considerably older.

53-62 - goodbye utensils I no longer use - or don't know what you are for.  I also organized and washed  the drawer and dividers.
 And that was it for yesterday - I felt it was a good day and things are looking great.

Today I tackled the studio - oh my - what a tackle.  When the holidays began, my studio became the dumping ground for whatever we didn't want to deal with at the moment - and I had to dig my way in.  It didn't help that I was sick with a major cold during Thanksgiving week - more dumping of things I didn't feel up to dealing with.

Since I'm not showing my studio - I thought I'd show you a bit of  Don's den.  He collects baseball memorabilia and reads lots of baseball books, mostly the history of baseball and oral interviews of players.

62-66 - I'll give myself 5 items for all the recycling I did. If I counted each piece of paper I'd more than likely be up to 600 by now - but I'll be sensible and give myself credit for doing it - and count it as 5.

Grampa Bear, sitting in one of the matching recliners in the living room.  It is sometimes hard to find a chair without a bear in it in our house.

67-72 - Six plastic boot box size storage boxes reorganized and  sorted - since this is de-cluttering and downsizing I will count the reorganizing of spaces as part of my list.  They are not things I got rid of - but things that were sorted and put in their proper places - and the boxes stacked neatly on the shelves in the studio.

Quilt rack in the bedroom.  You saw another quilt rack in the piano room above - Donnie is sitting in front of the other quilt rack.

There you go - 12 days ahead.  I'm not so sure that this is going to be so easy as time goes on and I get rid of and organize more things - but I'll try and keep to my original goal - 1484, or 4 things a day by the end of 2014.   Only 1412 more to go!!