The BIG declutter

Last month we accepted an offer on our lovely three bedroom semi in SE London. We’ve lived here, and loved being here, for over 20 years. We’ve also accumulated a LOT of stuff. The gorgeous and large rooms are full of gorgeous, large pieces of furniture. We are intending to downsize, so that means decluttering. 30 years worth of stuff.

I’ve been reading a lot about how to declutter, there are so many different methods: speed decluttering, Swedish death cleansing, the poop method (really- you imagine if you’d keep the item if it was covered in 💩), the four box method, the Marie Kondo method and so many more. I’ve been watching ‘Sort your life out with Stacey Soloman’, where they lay everything out in a massive warehouse, and the owners realise they don’t need 300 spoons. I’m making notes and I’m trying to learn.

The reality is that it’s time consuming and hard. Each weekend we are setting aside time to sort through each room and all the parts of our life.

I’m going to share some of the progress we’ve made, in the hope that it’ll encourage me to continue to move forwards.

The loft

This was hard physically. There was stuff up there from when we moved in! There were broken pictures frames and old paint cans. A lot of this just needed to go in the pile for the tip, or in black bags to go in the bin.

Then we came across all our wedding cards. We got married in 1997. We were babies. We did a lot of the organisation ourselves, we were on a budget. In the loft were the handwritten menus and table plans, along with the illustrations that I had my class at school write and draw. Hard to part with, because there were so many memories in there, but also we don’t need these things going forward.

Wedding memories

Small stuff

We had a lot of CDs. I remember the CDs we listened to when we first got together. We got given CDs as wedding gifts. We used to go to Tower Records in Piccadilly when we’d been out for the night (it was open until midnight) and buy them. Going through the CDs was another trip down memory lane. We had so many (at least 600) we had to develop a strategy. It was a donate (or sell)/ maybe keep/ definitely keep situation. After the initial sift, we went through the maybes and decided which ones were our favourites, as they seemed to fall into categories. I mean, how many Ibiza chill out CDs does one person need? Seeing them all together helped us to make some decisions. We managed to get rid of over 400. I know we’ve probably still got too many, given that there is so much online now, but I still love a CD.

I found sorting through the DVDs easier! I don’t know why, but I wasn’t as emotionally attached. My main concern was to make sure we kept ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, just in case it wasn’t on at Christmas.

Photos and photo albums are more of a challenge. We have a few albums that predate digital photos. There were lots of really awful photos that I took when I was young, like the ones from a camp when I was 9 years old. These were a no-brainer, they just went in the bin. As we went through others I retrieved important pictures, with an idea that maybe I’ll do something with them in future, but the others I am just trying to say goodbye to. I guess this is the Swedish death cleansing in action! I imagine that they’re of no interest to anyone else but us!

I’ve so enjoyed going through the photos though, and sending reminders to friends and family.

One thing I came across was this notebook that was a gift from one of my best friends, around my 19th birthday.

It’s got lots of quotes in it and I’d diligently filled it with photos and notes. I’m not sure I’m quite ready to part with it, and I definitely need to share it with her soon!

I also found a pile of letters that my husband and I wrote to each other when we first got together (we had 6 months of a long distance relationship). Yep. Not binning those yet either!

Furniture

So much of our furniture is enormous! We’ve walked around the house looking at each room and made a list of what we are keeping a selling / donating. This was actually quite straightforward as I don’t have the same emotional connection to sofas and cupboards. Thank goodness. I needed an easy win!

Clothes and accessories

I’m pretty good at regularly going through my wardrobe and getting rid of things that don’t fit or I’m not wearing, but I fear I might need to get a bit harsher going forward. I mean how many sweatshirts does a girl need? I think this is where I will need to use the ‘spark joy/ Marie Kondo’ method to get rid of items! I usually deploy the keep / sell / donate system. I’m trying to wear things that I haven’t worn for ages and trying to work out if there is a reason why: does it lack pockets? Is it too tight? Does it feel scratchy? if they aren’t quite right they need to go….

Will these items make the cut?

What has helped has been setting aside piles of things for my goddaughters. I think knowing that someone I love might enjoy using something has helped me to part with it. I know that one of my goddaughters will love a couple of bags, and another will enjoy a few nail varnishes.

I’ve also made a little pile to donate to the school summer fair, this includes some unused toiletries that’ll go well in the tombola!

Filing cabinet

This was surprisingly straightforward. So many things are online now, so all those old bank statements could go straight through the shredder. There were a lot of hospital letters from my cancer treatment. These certainly didn’t all need to be kept. I kept a few, just in case I needed dates, but I probably should have added them to a spreadsheet somewhere!

Future challenges…

I’ve got A LOT of cookbooks. I love cookbooks. I think I’ve got every Nigella cookbook for example. I did do a cull last year and got rid of some quite ‘meaty’ ones, given that we don’t eat meat this was fairly easy. I know I’m going to find it hard to get rid of some of these. As soon as I open one I’m transported to ideas for future meals, even if I don’t follow recipes exactly.

Just part of my collection…

How many race T-shirts is too many? Asking for a friend. That friend is me. I once had a blanket made from old race T-shirts. I wonder if I could do this myself as a future project?

Whichever way you look at it, there is still quite a lot to do and in the meantime the house feels quite chaotic! Any top tips to share in terms of getting ready to move?