Making a home inventory - why do we own so much!?

I’m in the midst of updating our home inventory for insurance purposes and hoping we never need it and wanting to just get rid of tons more stuff! 

No wonder housekeeping takes so much time and energy. 

I do have the visual clutter at a very low level if you exclude the garage and my husband’s desk🤭

However we do have a house that has 3 bedrooms (one used as an office/music room), 2 bathroom, kitchen, garage laundry/storage room, and living, dining, family and little bonus rooms. So lots of room and stuff to care for even though we have reduced a lot each time we move.

I’m at the point I am decluttering as I go about other tasks. Today some unnecessary paper manuals left the house. Little steps.

Focusing on ease of maintenance - Thriving Week 16

CURRENT MINIMALISM MINDSET 

After one year in this house I’m not stopping decluttering or reorganizing as appropriate but every time I clean or use something I am considering if I could make it a tiny bit easier to manage. When I focus on deep cleaning a room or area I am asking myself “How can I reduce the effort required to take care of this space and stuff?”

So I am asking 

• Why am I storing this thing that hasn’t been used in a year and has no sentimental or decorative value?
• What would happen if I got rid of it and then wanted or needed something similar? Could I borrow it or cheaply replace it?
• If I am going to keep it, could I store it someplace that makes it easier to manage and/or more likely to be used?

SO WHAT TYPES OF CHANGES HAS THIS MINDSET LED TO RECENTLY?

1. The dog has matured enough to no longer have to sleep in his crate or stay there when we go out although we are keeping it for now. I have 2 lovely crate mats and only need one given its minimal use. The extra mat plus an extra smaller dog bed were being stored under the king size bed making it difficult to vacuum there. I am getting rid of one crate mat but keeping the smaller dog bed for now and storing it in the spare upstairs closet.

2 We have an old set of sheets for the king size bed that haven’t been used for over a year. The thought was that if we were sick or couldn’t do laundry then they were there “just in case”. However we also have a queen bed and a queen air bed with 3 sets of sheets that fit them. The worn king ones are going and freeing up closet space.

3. My son is having a family taco party for his upcoming birthday. We have been storing partially used margarita ingredients since New Year’s when we made blue margaritas to toast Michigan during the Rose Bowl, but never make them at our house. I offered them for the party and got rapid acceptance. More pantry space. Really don’t know why we brought it home in the first place.

AMAZING HOW MUCH CAN LEAVE OUR HOMES AND NOT BE MISSED!

Of course non-consumable stuff keeps coming in but we are trying hard to make sure it is the result of thoughtful and intentional acquisition. 

So far this month we have acquired a sunshade for the car windshield since it gets really hot in the summer and the car is parked on the street. I saved the box to store it in the garage during cool weather when a warmer car is appreciated. We also acquired 4 folding patio side tables and put the 2 rusty old ones in the declutter pile.

Decluttering and inventory management

Do you have an approach to decluttering and managing your home’s inventory? 

Even though we don’t buy much to add to our home it is a constant process for us as needs change and home upkeep becomes something we want to do less and less. The cleaning and upkeep of “stuff” is necessary but I keep trying to reduce the amount there is to do. At the same time we need to manage our inventory so that if we do move it is less work or fewer things have to be replaced.

Early in December our son and DIL will move back to their condo the things they stored here during their recent travels and the related renting out of their home. That will make this task easier.

I’m hoping to go through each space in this house before the end of the year and let go of things that aren’t absolutely keepers. 

At the same time I’m continuing to look for things that are needed but annoying in some way or require repairs.. So far I’ve replaced a can opener that was dull and scheduled professionals for some home repairs.

I’ve also decided I no longer want to hand wash dishes or clothing if it can be avoided. Pots and pans still have to be hand washed but I’m replacing things like a wood handled pastry/basting brush that can’t go in the dishwasher and avoiding purchasing any clothing that can’t go on the washing machine.

I started this decluttering round with first aid and medical supplies. Big containers of out of date hand sanitizer that were given to us are gone and the remaining items organized better. Most everything is in one cabinet in the hallway with a few more frequently used items in the kitchen and bathroom.

Now I’m working on the laundry room cabinet and cleaning supply storage areas. BTW, does anyone use laundry soap strips? They would take up so mush less room!

More Out Than In

No, I'm not talking about our social life or cash flow! I'm talking about the perpetual need to declutter, minimize, manage household inventory or whatever you call it.

I am resolute that we send at least as much out the door as comes in unless consumable lol. In the 5 years since we moved here we have acquired a fair amount which is not surprising considering how we minimized so as to have less to move. Still, it adds up and lives in cleaning/organizing chores, in visual clutter or too many decisions to make.

In addition to going through storage areas that are frustrating to me because they house things never used or are cluttered, I've also come up with some key questions to ask in different situations.

For example, our lovely maple cutting block has developed cracks and warped which makes it both potentially unsanitary and frustrating to use as it wobbles. Our instant thought was to shop for a similar new one but in the meantime I pulled out a smaller pressed wood one that we rarely use. Some research showed that type never cracks and rarely warps but if it does it can be fixed easily most of the time. So it seems we already have something we can "use instead" so now we just have to figure out how to dispose of a heavy hunk of maple.

I'm finding the "What can I use instead?" question be one of the most useful to ask before replacing something or adding something new. 

Another question that is helping right now is "Would I buy it again?" which has been particularly helpful with my less loved or worn clothes. In the case of a pair of shoes that were hurting my feet, the answer was yes and I ordered the same ones. In the case of a few tops that I have never reached for first, the answer was no and they went to the thrift store without being replaced or were cut into rags if too worn for that.

And then there is "Would any one be happy if I gave it to them or kept it for later?" which is most helpful for those things you feel you should keep but don't use or put out to enjoy. I have a trio of those right now all antiques that might work for stage props or delight just the right person but I don't want to look at or care for them anymore. 

How do you approach the ongoing editing of belongings?

Declutter, organize, simplify or all 3?

 I was washing out a couple of kitchen drawers when it dawned on me that my frustration with them was due to having things I used very often mixed with those that were only used occasionally. I moved the occasional use items to a less convenient drawer and it has made a difference not having to sort through so much each t8me I reach for something. I’ve now applied the same principle to my sewing/mending supplies and it worked again. No decluttering the things now organized by frequency of use makes my life simpler.

On the other hand I was pulling out some manila envelopes to organize our fire safe paperwork when I saw that I had saved a big pile of sheet protector pages although I rarely need one. All but a small number went into the donation pile.

It seems that for me this combination approach along with revisiting how much “inventory” we want to keep on hand is the way to go. Some of our stocking up during the pandemic has left too many items stored and that is going to change too.

How are you managing your “stuff” at this point in your life to ensure that it isn’t increasing your mental and physical workload? Are actual or anticipated shortages causing you to still stockpile or are you moving back to pre-pandemic inventory levels?

Monday Musings Week 2 - Where does all this stuff come from? More importantly, why is it still here?

Wow, I looked in the closet that I need declutter and clean out and wonder why after almost 5 years in this house are we holding on to all of this stuff! Part of the challenge is that Hubby can't let go of any hobby items even if they aren't used for 20+ years. Ya never know ...

So half the closet will be devoted to his hobby history and some to storing the suitcases and an air bed. I'll have to see what is left that I can remove.

This has led me to wonder if I can declutter 2000 non-consumable items from our home this year and personally bring in fewer than 22. Hmmm.

I also read last year about the idea of visual clutter bothering some people and for sure it does me. So I’ve been putting things behind closed doors to decide about later. It also makes cleaning a bit easier and there is always a lot of dust here probably due to the farming not very far away.

The concept of resetting your home also appeals to me but I am taking it slowly as I want to do one or two spaces at a time and clean thoroughly at the same time. To start that means my office with some time on the small bedroom closet too. One very visible space and one closed door storage space.

So far I’ve found 29 items to remove and am clearing my office of visual clutter and rethinking what I want to have in there yet again. A tiny start but a start.

Do you have any decluttering or limited acquisition goals for this year?

The temporary clutter of decluttering

 It never fails at least for me. I decide to declutter or something breaks and then it takes time to get rid of it.

- The items I removed from the small bedroom closet are now in our den. Pickup date December 3rd.

- Paint cans to be taken to hazardous waste are sitting in the garage and I need to schedule a drop off date.

- Broken radio and air fryer also sitting in garage along with paint drop cloths. Will slowly discard in regular trash which has a small bin and limited extra space each week. Our bit if yard waste also sits around waiting for space in the regular bin.

- Items like Christmas lights, etc. that are going to our younger son are sitting in the small bedroom waiting for our trip starting December 4th.

- Christmas decorations still to go through are sitting in our dining room.

Does it get worse before it gets better at your house too?

A helpful beginning to a series on record keeping!

If you are like us you have a lot of paper records and a lot of online documents or records in your email. Add to that your online accounts and other variations and it can be a lot for you, your partner and/or your executor to figure out and access.

This looks like the start of a promising series on how to make your record keeping as simple and effective as possible.

Generally Accepted Record Keeping Principles

Wow, the extra stuff in our life seems to know no end

The latest things to leave the house?

- Piles of old papers belonging to my husband. He still has to bring home the work files he wants to keep though (sigh!).

- A book that was in said pile of papers.

- An empty wooden box

- Extra hanging files and folders.

- Fireplace matches - you know, the extra long ones.

- Empty CD cases and rewriteable CDs.

- A map to the state where my parent's lived.

- A top I keep trying to make work for me - it doesn't.

- Keys that belong to nothing currently in our life.

Just posted via email to be taken by someone I hope! If that doesn't work the I'll try Freecycle.

- An oak roll top desk that was a 14th birthday gift to my older son 30 years ago.

Next up for curating:

- Travel related items including briefcases and suitcases

- Blankets & quilts

- Paper photos

10 keys to nothing in our life and other finds

I am diligently working on going through paper files and emptying a large desk that we want to remove from our house. The paper situation is fairly straightforward although I have been surprised that about 60% of what was in our files is not needed and has left the house.

Then I found a collection of extra keys. I spent about an hour trying to match them to ones we use and make sure all the extras for the house were collected together. I threw out old suitcase lock keys and the key to my FIL's former home. That has left me with 10 keys that I have no idea where they came from. Old padlocks or bike locks? Extra keys to my parent's former home? Keys to door locks we have replaced?

I have been walking around the house trying to make sure there are no locks that I'm not seeing. You might think that is strange but it took me 4 examinations of my current car to figure out where I could plug in my cell phone! Who puts that almost under the emergency brake?

So the getting ready to move efforts continue. A bit more paper to go through that requires my husband to make decisions about it and then on to photos. Yes I am groaning at the thought.

Update: I tried some more keys and two of our locks don't work from the outside as they are either dirty or corroded. That is the basement door and one lock on the front door that is never used. Adding lock cleaning/repairs to the list. Le sigh.

Downsizing & Moving Update - #2

Well it turns out that we are only moving a handful of books so all 3 bookshelves need to find new homes! In addition to the books that left the house a lot more decorative items/gifted items left to find new homes too. We only kept about 20 books including cookbooks and a dictionary.

We also curbside donated the old white plastic patio furniture. Space is appearing in our home quickly. This is good as you want your home to look as spacious and light as possible to potential buyers.

We did decide to redo the main floor bathroom so that is on the to do list for sure.

I found a table cloth we don't use that will make an attractive crate cover. Much better than a striped beach towel!

While on vacation next week we will be driving by houses that are currently for rent in one of our targeted areas. We are slowly narrowing down where to look for housing in the huge Southern California area. I think it will help if we decide our new "jobs" are frequently spending time with and helping my FIL while our sons and DILs will be who we drive to see. After all the 4 of them work all week!

I am being sure to get receipts for all of our donated items and logging them into Itsdeductible.com
as this will be our highest income year for a while and maximizing our deductions just makes so much sense.

We have let parts of the yard get away from us the last couple of years which is easy to do with the crazy growing season we have here in the South. My husband started major pruning on Sunday. With a year to fill back in we can cut bushes quite a bit and know they will look great next Spring.

And of course there is ongoing maintenance as well as an upcoming vacation and then a family visit to keep us occupied.

Downsizing & Moving Update - #1

We will get this done!

1. Went to an open house down the street to see what is on the market right now.

2. Two bags of items donated to thrift store.

3. Maximum number of partial cans of paint plus other items to semi-annual toxic waste collection event. Glad we will be moving somewhere that has these weekly not just twice a year.

4. Agreement reached as to next steps:
     - Ruthlessly declutter 2 bookshelves in guest room and 1 in study
     - Pick one bookshelf to move to California and move into study
     - Move dresser in study into guest room
     - Donate 2 extra bookshelves, a lamp and a recliner
     - Paint dark feature walls in 3 rooms in lighter neutral color of other walls
     - Talk to realtor further about need remodel bathroom vs selling price
        
     That should keep us out of trouble for a while.

5. Found enough appropriate color leftover paint to prime one of the feature walls - yeah savings!

Spent so far on preparing the house for sale
$ 90.89 - patio and sun porch furniture that we will take with us to CA

We are headed to California for vacation at the end of this week so getting a start on most of this will wait until we get back in mid-May but before we have family visiting over Memorial Day weekend.

First attempt at home staging - sunporch and courtyard

These are old photos so this isn't exactly what I started with but that 25+ year old white plastic furniture and the plant stand as well as lots of stuff on the shelves were definately there!

So I took everything out but another plant stand and started redoing it using what we have with one exception. The exception is a small outdoor table purchased for half price at RiteAid  ($13). The stager had recommended a 2 chair cafe set for the courtyard but the least expensive one I found that we were willing to keep was $99 plus tax at Ikea. We have 4 outdoor chairs and a larger table and umbrella so 2 can go in the courtyard and 2 at the table on the patio.

I followed the recommendations to move the black bench in front of the soon to be replaced windows and decided to add two more chairs to make a conversation area. She said to have only 1 to 3 items on each shelf so that has been edited as have the 2 wind chimes we had up. I like it a lot more now myself so we will see what my husband thinks when he gets home from work.

I am finding that I want to follow the spirit/objective of her recommendations but do so in a way that works for us. One room at a time!

But I might need it!

Letting go is hard to do LOL.

Here are prime examples that are on their way to the thrift shop and logged into Itsdeductible.com

All unused for well over a year (years?) and not worth moving across the country.

I found 2 more after taking the photo!

 

But I thought I had gone through all those papers!

In the seemingly never ending task of reducing our belongings in advance of our cross country move (Hubby retires in 21 months), I have been trying out the Konmari method of deciding what to keep.

My clothes were easy as they have had a lot of attention this year. My books - same deal. Then I got to papers excluding sentimental ones which are mostly my genealogical files. I thought this would be a breeze as at the beginning of each January I go through all of our files and remove unnecessary paper. Well, clearly I thought I was doing that!

It turns out I haven't really looked at each piece of paper but rather whizzed through each file. I'm almost done with the looking at each piece this round though.

What's left? I still need to go through our fire safe, a notebook of mine and our kitchen desk pile. But this morning Hubby asked what he should do with all of the papers in his office at work that represent his lifetime career achievement!!! I suggested scanning them and tossing. Hopefully he has multi-page scanning capability at work as our combo printer/scanner/fax will only do one page per file. I'd buy a new scanner rather than moving and storing all of his papers which will probably rarely, if ever, be looked at again.

Onward with papers I can deal with.

Hmmm, why do we tend to think more is better?

I am in the midst of listening to our CDs to decide which ones to keep and to bring music back into my life. I am finding ones that I hadn't listened to for years that I enjoy. I'm also finding that we have too many in different categories.

Yesterday I listened to 3 Frank Sinatra CDs. I enjoyed 2 of the 3 and found one to be of poor acoustic quality. The question that popped into my mind though was why did we have so many in the first place? Probably one would be enough but I kept the 2 good ones for now.

Today it is the 3 Cuban/Latin CDs. Tomorrow will be the 5 (!) Pancho Sanchez ones. I know why we have so many of those though. We went to an outdoor concert by him 25ish years ago and had a grand time so we loaded up on his music.

I've also been listening to the ones I brought home from the 100s recently donated to the Friends of the Library. Those are easier to make decisions on. If I don't like the first track then it goes back. So far I have only picked 3 to add to our collection and I am waffling on one of those LOL.

For me at least as far as music goes 1 or 2 is better than 3 or more. I am a person who like variety and at this time can't stand to listen to music that isn't uplifting.

I think that often we think more is better when we like the initial item a lot. How many times have you bought more colors of a top or shirt when the one that you really liked was the first one you selected. More wasn't better then either. The same can happen in other areas of our lives. I am trying to notice what I do automatically that doesn't add value for me and this is one of those things.

How many is too many? How many is enough?

This is one of my first world problems. How many of each type of thing if just the right amount?

So much has been written about how to declutter or reach the right balance point for your belongings. So many different approaches.

This is what I am trying right now.

I am following Mette's lead as she discusses in her post about creating a five year shopping calendar but I am trying to create a one year shopping calendar for my clothing and other useful things.

The first step is to decide how many of each type of garment is the "right" number. I managed to shed older tops using this approach while others had not helped me let go of them. Did they bring me joy per Marie Kondo? No, but they stayed in the closet. Had I worn them in the last year? Yes, but more because I felt I should wear them because they were hanging there. So 10 short sleeve/sleeveless casual knit tops is my number to try and I have 11 now plus 2 dressier ones. At the end of the summer if not sooner I will let the one go that is most worn out or least suited to me. I will not buy anymore until Spring 2016 when I will replace one or two.

As I continue to work on decluttering the office I have lots of these choices. Three exercise DVDs when I barely use one? Two are being donated.

Two books on colored pencil drawing when I took a class and then haven't drawn since? One will be donated but I am keeping the pencils and one book as I have realized that I like draw.

So my decluttering and therefore shopping questions for now are:

- How many is the right number to have?
- If I have too many should I let them wear out or remove them?
- If reducing the number I have, which ones of what I have are the best and/or most used?
- Do I need to add or replace in this category?
- We will see how it goes.

What to do with documents you have to keep?

I am determined not to move a lot of heavy paper back across the country. However there are things one has to keep - back tax returns come to mind as an example.

What are you all doing with those kinds of things. Scanning and putting the file in Dropbox or a similar secure cloud storage device? Keeping them in hard copy?

I'm a late adopter of technology but have set up a Dropbox location so our sons could access information in case we needed them to step in.

Very interested in your answers!

When you are planning to move - don't add any more stuff to your life!

We know we are selling this house and moving across country in 2 1/2 to 3 years and that we will be both paying for the move and downsizing at the same time. We don't know if we will have any sort of yard or not, the size of our next home, etc.

We haven't started the radical downsizing that will be required. What we have started is not buying anything we don't absolutely need to replace something that is no longer usable and/or that we wouldn't be willing to pay to move. So I have only replaced 2 necessity items for the house this month. Our rake broke and those leaves won't rake themselves so a new rake was acquired. Also 2 specialty type of light bulbs burned out and, since we don't have them in our stash, 2 new light bulbs that were put into immediate use.

That leads me to the whole area of stockpiling. We have lots of different kinds of light bulbs among other non-food/non-toiletry things stockpiled. Nothing more is coming in in those categories until we have none left.

I do laugh about the fact that we still have houseplants left to us by the previous owners 17 years ago. They will be left for the next ones if they want them!

What have you done when you know a big lifestyle change is on the horizon but still a ways away?

52 Projects Sunday

It has been a while since I did an update on this and I know I am still a bit behind schedule but that is ok. I am up to project 14. Unfortunately, two of my projects were related to my Mom's death but they had to be done.

The new screen for the French press speaks to the wonders of online shopping. I was able to order the part and it arrived two days later. No more worries about pieces of metal shredding into our coffee in the morning and no replacement of the perfectly fine other parts of the press.

12. Helped prepare Mom's house for sale
13. Unpacked and put away items brought home from Mom's house
14. Replaced screen on French press

My 52 weeks of decluttering project took a numerical set back due to the items I kept from my Mom's house. Currently my tally shows 178 items have left our home and 92 came in (not counting replacements or consumables). So I am only at 86 items decluttered out of my goal of 365.