2025 Destash Time to Heave or Leave it

[StephPlum]

I’ll follow along. I retired last year and have a goal of declutterring my house going room by room. I’ve done the easy ones so far but got derailed when I had to help with my mom (dementia at a point of needing to move to assisted living). Now I’ll focus on all the things in her house that need to either move with her (small number) or be tossed (large number) or sell (tiny number).

Made a lot of good progress on my house today. Went through my closet/dressers and have one bag to toss and one bag of clothes to donate. Also tossed a bunch of papers/trinkets/stuff.

I divided my house into 13 rooms/spaces. With the work today I now have completed 4. First three were small/easy (hall area + coat closet), living room... This was one of the harder spaces. Relieved to have it done. I do hang on to things - maybe I'll need it someday. But once it goes in the bag/trash, I'm committed and don't look back.

Heading to my mom's this week to start on what she'll move to assisted living.

 

[OhMari]

I am making photo books with Pictures in my phone. I started this project last Fall. I started with the year 2011. I am making books from Shutterfly. I have 5 made, up to the year 2014. I get coupons from Shutterfly but the books are costing me about $45. I want the hard cover. So I am trying to declutter my pictures. I did do a back up of my pictures onto my 5 year old laptop. I did make a few single copies and put them into some family frames. I also have a stack of canvas prints in my bedroom that I have exchanged out on my walls the last 10 years. Seems when you get a grip on decluttering, something else pops up.

 

[barkley]

well yesterday I got my freezers organized and did an invantory so I know exactly what I have. I also did my pantry and tossed a few things/reorganized a bit to remind me of side dish items to utilize. today the holiday decor comes down and I suspect a couple of ornaments that i've tried to repair multiple times will be tossed. since i'll be in the living room i'm going to snag some items out of the hall closet/china hutch/another couple of storage type furnitures that I eyeballed before Christmas as I was putting away year round decor to put in the donate pile (some Easter decor-i don't decorate for it anymore/odds and ends of stuff we never use).

 

[Turn the Page]

Joining here too.

We do have kids and there is a ton of old toys and such that need to be sorted through and gotten rid of. Our house has very little storage space so that doesn't help matters at all.

I did a somewhat decent purge of my closet last spring and got rid of a lot of stuff but kept too much because it has Mickey Mouse or something like that on it and I haven't worn it in over a decade. I think a lot of that needs to go. I keep finding myself reaching for the same 10 things over and over again. The majority of the rest of it can go. However, I did purge my underwear and sock drawer (I had SO many bras that no longer fit) and DS6's dresser so that was good. It was a small job but I was happy with it. Progress was made!

DH built cubbies for each of the three kids next to the front door for their stuff but DD18 is our of the house now so I think maybe I will clean all the junk out of her cubby and take it over myself. I have work stuff that needs a home.

We are also remodeling two bathrooms as we speak and that has forced us to do a bit of a purge of stuff in there which is good.

 

[barkley]

We are also remodeling two bathrooms as we speak and that has forced us to do a bit of a purge of stuff in there which is good.

hands down the best clearing out of our bathrooms was when we did renos a few years ago and replaced the counters. I could not believe all the nearly empty bottles of stuff, old postdated OTC meds...great opportunity to purge.

 

[Turn the Page]

hands down the best clearing out of our bathrooms was when we did renos a few years ago and replaced the counters. I could not believe all the nearly empty bottles of stuff, old postdated OTC meds...great opportunity to purge.

We did get rid of some stuff when we emptied out the cabinets but there is still a ton left I can get rid of but we ended up with a bit of a time crunch. The bathrooms are being worked on as we speak so I had holiday prep, busy time at work, AND bathroom reno's to prep for and it was just too much. i will have more time to sort through stuff when it goes back in the cabinets.

We are purging a ton of idiotic design and material choices the previous owners made. Does that count?

 

[barkley]

We are purging a ton of idiotic design and material choices the previous owners made. Does that count?

absolutly I will never understand a couple of the material choices the spec builder made on our home-went high end for some but others were just don't they watch any of the real estate/home flipping shows that prove over and over how kitchens and bathrooms are vital in selling??? but the awful countertops this guy chose likely turned off many buyers.

 

[Turn the Page]

absolutly I will never understand a couple of the material choices the spec builder made on our home-went high end for some but others were just don't they watch any of the real estate/home flipping shows that prove over and over how kitchens and bathrooms are vital in selling??? but the awful countertops this guy chose likely turned off many buyers.

We have pine wall paneling used for the flooring in the main living area/kitchen/entry way AND as subflooring in the bathrooms. Plus, they used cultured stone river rock for tile in the master shower and poured a cement floor and didn't seal any of it. Can you say "impromptu water feature?"

 

[barkley]

We have pine wall paneling used for the flooring in the main living area/kitchen/entry way AND as subflooring in the bathrooms. Plus, they used cultured stone river rock for tile in the master shower and poured a cement floor and didn't seal any of it. Can you say "impromptu water feature?"

wall paneling??? granted, if anyone ever did any renos to our first home (which was 30 years old when we bought it back in '91) they would find that in one of the bedrooms there was sheetrock put on TOP of paneling b/c it was less expensive than ripping it out. the only flooring surprise someone someday will find in my current home is tile flooring underneath all the high-end lvp in the entry/ kitchen/bathrooms/laundry room b/c again it was much less expensive to put it on top, our flooring guy said it was perfectly level so no dealing with that-and as an added bonus it provided tremendous boosting of our insulation (energy bills dropped like crazy).

I do have fond memories of doing some work on our first home-removing wallpaper in the kitchen was like a time capsule-layer upon layer of different patterns/style trends

 

[tinkerbellandpeterpan]

Got back from my parents' house yesterday as my dad needed extra assistance to some doctor appts. Thankfully the day we missed was clean out sock/underwear drawer and I already toss any of DH's sock and underwear with holes when I'm folding laundry and I clean mine out regularly so that task really didn't apply.

Tomorrow we will tackle purses/bags, bedside tables, and medicine/first aid. Dresser drawers slated for the 9th will probably have to wait although my dresser is pretty well cleaned out, DH has some work to do. I'm hoping I can just get him to deal with it this weekend though.

 

[barkley]

hoping to purge a bit more tomorrow. in the spare room I had a VERY old bureau that had seen better days and has been for years (since oldest moved out) served as a repository for spare blankets (largely fleece). I went through blankets a few years ago and took a bunch to the local animal shelter but they seem to multiply (are fleece and butter throws the new default gift taking the place of a candle if you don't know what to gift someone???). so the old bureau is now in the garage ready to go to the dump and I just got a bit smaller one from Wayfair (if it's smaller I force myself to be ruthless on purging).