<p>My tip for cleaning out closets: start by taking everything out. Absolutely everything. Then only put back things you really wear or need. Did this with D a few days ago - now have two bags of stuff to donate, and she can hang up the clothes Santa brought her.</p>
<p>I am on a mission to throw away or give away 5 things a day in January.</p>
<p>I love this…</p>
<p>I also love the idea of taking an empty garbage bag and walking around the house and throwing away at least 50 things (or at least until the bag is full).</p>
<p>If you have kids you can trust not to throw away important things, this can be a game.</p>
<p>My sis regularly walks around with a good sized box and fills it with giveaways and then puts it in the trunk and drops off at local thrift store. </p>
<p>Right now…my laundry room is a wreck…one of my cats jumped up on a shelf and knocked some stuff over… :(</p>
<p>Amesie, emptying out the closet first works!</p>
<p>Re: decluttering. Know what you’re giving away. A few years ago, a friend told me an art print she had was recently appraised for $800. I had the.same print only I couldn’t find it. DH reminded me that we gave it to his office assistant when I was redecorating. She’s retired now and in northern CA.</p>
<p>Last year I told my D she lead to fill two tall kitchen garbage bags before she returned to college. And if she didn’t, I would.</p>
<p>Get new floors! I am so excited, we are FINALLY getting the wood floors I’ve wanted forever (or the 25 years we’ve been in this house) in the bedrooms. SOOO kids Xmas break to-do is cleaning out “stuff” from the rooms. When they leave, <em>I</em> will be going through what is left and moving it. I am NOT moving much back! I am NOT moving my bookcase back into my bedroom… only could part with one shelf of those books, but hey! every bit helps.</p>
<p>We did the purge from 2000 sci fi paperbacks down to 500 a few years ago. Take care to check, even some paperback first editions can be worth something! </p>
<p>I also follow the Nothing in unless something out rule. </p>
<p>When all else fails, I visit my mother, the hoarder, then I come home and clean and throw away stuff like crazy, but it only lasts a few days. Since kids have both been gone, house seems cleaner, but it is because more stuff is gone (and there are not 20 pairs of shoes by the door, only 10!!) LOL</p>
<p>“Where’s that stack of old boxes that used to be in the dining room? I dunno Hon.”</p>
<p>Just don’t go too crazy. I know someone who donated ALL their daughter’s winter clothes that she had stored in bags in her parent’s home. They thought it was stuff bagged to donate! All sweaters, coats, jackets, boots etc gone! And the d. didn’t realize it until she visited when it was much too late to try and get back.</p>
<p>True story…friends went on vacation. They HID all of the expensive jewelry in a pair of boots at the back of the closet. Didn’t give it any thought until the husband wanted his rings. The boots (and the contents) had been donated to Goodwill,.</p>
<p>Thumper – that’s enough SF books (do you have any SF Magazines?) that it is worth hauling them either to a good used bookstore or, if you have one, a SF store. We took in five or six cartons of SF paperbacks and magazines from the late 50s, 60s, and 70s, and ended up with nearly $600 credit at the used book store - turned out that a couple of the old magazines featured original stories by L. Ron Hubbard that became the basis for Scientology, and they’re quite valuable even though they weren’t in amazing condition. We’d been hauling those boxes from move to move for more than 20 years; it was great to get that space back.</p>
<p>On the boxes stuff came in front: I have files with use and care booklets (kitchen, inside, outside) for everything – as we buy a new whatever, I staple the purchase receipt to the inside front cover, write the purchase date & the warranty length on the outside front cover of the use and care book, and then toss it in the file. I toss any boxes where the warranty on the originally enclosed item is done. If the four-year-old DVD player breaks, we’re certainly not shipping it to the manufacturer for repair.</p>
<p>Hiding jewlery in boots (pockets,…)… Small in-wall safes can be acquired for around a hundred bucks on Amazon, and they’re really, really easy to install. Cut a hole in the drywall of a closet, fit it in, screw in the bolts, and set the combo. They you should never have to deal with losses of hidden jewelry. (Also great for stashing cash if you keep a bunch at home, not that we do, or for storing the extra pain killers you didn’t finish after surgery.)</p>
<p>arabrab-
We’ve been doing the 'staple the receipt to the cover of the manual" thing for many years.
All go in one deep drawer in our kitchen mudroom. Quite messy but if we have it, it WILL be in that one drawer.
In fact, we just located the book for our 6 year old DVD player that we will gift to a friend’s kid…so she’ll get the manual, remote and player. Makes us happy to find it a new home.</p>
<p>DH has a closet full of banker’s boxes filled with scientific articles that he copied at the local health sciences library in the pre-pdf days. I really want to toss ALL OF THEM!!! Everything he has in those boxes is now available online!</p>
<p>Believe me…I’ve TRIED the used bookstores around here. They are NOT interested in these SF books.</p>
<p>Re: manuals…I had a 20 year old upright freezer. The power company hauled these things away in an energy savings campaign. Mine went WITH the owners manual. </p>
<p>It’s the boxes in the attic from OLD VCR players, microwaves and turntables that HAVE to go…they are complete with the styrofoam packing…you never know when you will need to move or send them for repair. We don’t even own most of this stuff anymore.</p>
<p>At least 1,000 SF books here. S1 and DH would shoot me if I got rid of any.</p>
<p>Currently have a box of kids’ science books ready to donate, which I hope I can take to the program where S1 and S2 attended. They are happily subversive about real science books vs. the school-approved, jargon-filled schlock. :)</p>
<p>We have 60 shelf feet of books just in the family room…not counting the big bookcase in the living room, basement, each bedroom, upstairs hallway and the tiny one in our bathroom! Ikea loves us. This is NOT a big house!!</p>
<p>When I come back from my parents’ house, I am also motivated to toss stuff. The lower level of their house is pretty bad.</p>
<p>At least the boxes in the attic will be handy for hauling off the books, thumper!</p>
<p>If anyone is interested and willing to invest the time- you can go to bookscouter dot com and enter in the ISBNs- they will search online for whatever the book will sell for on the used market. (Like a shop bot for used books- they check all the reputable used book dealers). Every book published since 1970 has an ISBN- if not on the back cover, then on the Title page in the front of the book.</p>
<p>What is it about throwing away books??? Feels like blasphemy (no offense).</p>
<p>Ah-h-h, all these posts about books. As much as I love actual books, the piling up of them is the main reason I got a Kindle. (No collection of SF books, though.)</p>
<p>I have a great love of books. And an addiction to bookstores. But, to control the clutter, I now only buy at used bookstores, where I can bring in the old and come away with the “new”. For more recent releases, I will ask the library to get them for me. </p>
<p>I have been clearing out the books here for the past month- have made about 500$ using the bookscouter, and I’m only through one small bookcase. (I have 10 more bookcases to go).</p>
<p>We buy used, too – there is a great bookstore in Chico, CA and we always bring an extra suitcase for bringing home the results of that visit… 
We are also serious library patrons…</p>
<p>DH doesn’t want a Kindle because so much of what he reads isn’t available electronically.</p>
<p>What a timely thread! Thanks for starting it Colorado_mom! I was just sitting here thinking “I’m going to go clean out and reorganize one of our rooms today…” (and was procrastinating…). I don’t do it often, but I can really only get motivated for one room or space at a time. </p>
<p>Like Colorado_mom, I also keep a basket in our front closet for donations that will end up on the porch when the charity calls. We’ve also used freecycle and craiglist in the past (the hassle there is no shows). But I find giving it away really makes it easier to part with something (I hate to just throw things out that still function, but if someone else can use it, it seems better than hidden somewhere in our house). </p>
<p>When I buy a new article of clothing, I always take something OUT of my closet to free up a hanger.It is actually easy to find something I can’t remember wearing in the last year or two. I wish I could learn to do that with other things, like books. </p>
<p>I also find ‘everything having a place’ helps me a lot. We have a particular box where all the writing utensils go, a bowl where all the coins go, a basket where all the ‘bits of paper we need to save’ go, a big basket for all the dog toys. I love containers, and it makes uncluttering a bit neurotically fun because it’s more like sorting. </p>
<p>My husband is also the packrat in the family though he has gotten much much better since he wanted a few episodes of Hoarders, lol. But I find it helps ME a lot to put the nice piles of HIS stuff in his office or workshop. He doesn’t mind and I don’t have to look at them.</p>