My garage lost 150 pounds!
April 29, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , trackback
It was almost the end of April and my committed effort to declutter had not taken off the ground. So this past weekend, I decided to start with the most cluttered place – our garage. Many people have seen these scary garages where junk piles from the floor to the ceiling. Parking a car? Don’t even think about it. Not even enough space to squeeze in a bike. On our very street there are a couple of houses that have accumulated 20 years of junk (oh, they prefer to call it treasure). On rare occasions when I see the inside of these garages, I shudder and promise myself that mine will NEVER EVER be like that.
The only way to completely declutter, according to my husband, is to move everything out into the sunlight and carefully consider which ones deserve to be moved back in. So after two hours of moving everything to the driveway and front yard, we had people walk by and ask if we were having a garage sale. Not quite yet, we said. Maybe come back in a week.
It was embarrassing that in the pile were bags and bags of baby clothes, most of which had never been used. After doing lots of oos and ahs about how cute these 0-3 months baby clothes were, I stuffed them back into the bags and pushed them to the go side, ie., to be disposed. It’s always been difficult for me to get rid of clutter because I unwisely assign sentimental values to stuff, especially when it comes to baby items. But this weekend, I decided to give myself only 10 minutes to reminisce. That moved things along much faster. Baby toys, to the go side, pack-n-play, to the go side, high char, to the go side…
Computer keyboards, 5 extra mice, old speakers, 30 cables of some sort, and boxes and boxes of floppy discs! Remember those? To the go side.
2 snow brushes/ice scrapers? It’s never snowed a flake where we live. To the go side.
The let go started getting easier once I was in a groove.
Knickknacks and figurines we received over the years and could not part because friends so and so gave to us. Sorry, to the go side to find better homes.
And books, loads and loads of books, from undergrad to graduate school from both of us. Don’t think we’d be rereading Advanced Calculus. Sorry, knowledge, to the go side.
This purging process went on for 3 hours. When it was all done, our garage shed about 150 pounds. The question then was where the 150 lbs of “treasure” could go. The easiest approach was taking to Goodwill, my husband’s clear preference. But why go the easy route when you can have more complicated and time-consuming ways to dispose the “treasure”.
So we agreed that I had a month to find homes for the “treasure”. After that it will call Goodwill its new home.
Then Sunday morning, at our local farmers’ market, we bumped into these friends that we had not seen for three years. They used to live in Tahoe and moved to our little city six months ago! And they are pregnant with their first child! My mind started turning. After 30 minutes of reconnecting, I worked our “treasure” into the conversation. It was actually a somewhat risky topic. Apparently some first-time parents can be quite offended when offered second-hand baby items. Seriously, some do.
Luckily our friends are beyond cool. They are coming to pick up all our baby stuff this week. Well, can you blame me for congratulating myself for my first decluttering success?!
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Comments»
Aren’t you going to need at least one snow scraper? In case you travel? lol
Way to go with diving into the decluttering, Cindy! And that is so great that you ran into someone (so quickly) that needed stuff you were willing to let go of. Synchronicity raises its pretty little head.
Good luck with the rest of the stuff. Tick tock tick tock….
I will stop pregnant women in the neighborhood I don’t even know and ask them what supplies they need. If I don’t have it, I can bet 3 of my friends do. The fancy stuff too. They might be weirded out for about 15 seconds until they realize the wealth of stuff we all have in our closets just waiting for a good home…for free.
Good work!
Joyce, you can so have my snow scraper
But I suspect you already have a few in your garage.
Chile: It was an encouraging start. Soon, I will be a blackbelt declutter. Watch out.
Needle: ha, you embarrass pregnant women too?! I did approach a pregnant semi-acquaintance once in an attempt to unload one of our car seats. But sadly the brand was not up to snuff. She turned it down. And now I am always a little bit embarrassed when I bump into her.
That’s great! One of the things I realized while I was decluttering this weekend is that it is much harder to declutter when you are also trying to keep your garbage count down. You have to really think:
1) Can I give this to a friend?
2) Can I give this to someone via Freecycle?
3) Can I give this to Goodwill and if I give it there, will it actually get used or will they dump it?
4) Does this have no value and I just have to live with throwing it away?
One of the things that I have learnt is that apparently Goodwill works with a textile recycler. So actually if you have clothes that you might not be sure someone else will want, you can give them to Goodwill and they will at least get recycled.
Here is an article about textile recycling with Goodwill:
http://www.apparelsearch.com/Terms/T/Textile_Waste.htm
Arduous, thanks for the link. I’ve often wondered about where stuff goes post Goodwill. Heard many different unconfirmed things, e.g., bulk ship to third-world countries, landfill, etc. It’s good to know that they actually work with a textile recycler. I am with you in that my first inclination is still to find a match for my stuff first, friend, neighbors, garage sale shoppers, and freecycle. If there is absolutely no match, then I go to Goodwill. The downside is of course it takes way more time to off-load the stuff.
Great tip! I have a little bitty christmas tree from my single days that I was going to donate, but I’ll ask around and see if anyone wants it first. Great job on cleaning out the garage. It can be daunting for sure!
Wow! Good for you! I’m looking forward to a similar project this summer and then I’m planning to ahve the “mother of all garage sales” some time in the fall. I’ll probably find about 20 ice scrapers because I buy a new one every single year to replace the ones I just can’t find! (We get enough snow & ice that it matters!)
Congrats on the decluttering! And I’m glad your friends were receptive to taking your kids’ stuff.
I picked up some scooby doo stuffed toys that was left out with a “free” sign on the sidewalk. After making sure they aren’t dangerous I plan on giving them out to the babies i know.
Heather, one of my neighbors actually makes and sells miniature Christmas trees. So there is gotta be a market for it
Donna: Mother of all garage sales, huh? Want a picture so I can see what it’s like
Beany: good idea. If I cannot find a home for my stuff, I will put a “free” sign on it and leave by the curb. I have seen “free” things miraculously disappear.
Congrats on the decluttering. We too were able to give some of our extra furniture to friends that needed to set up a new home.