QM, whether extra dusting is needed or not depends on whether you live in a low dust area and/or have a family member with allergies. Bookcases with glass doors are just so much nicer. 
If the books are all squeezed together, donāt you just need to dust the tops and sides - the exposed surfaces? Removing them all and dusting one by one seems a little OCD to me. I guess Iām just lazy.
Mom was never lazy about creating cleaning projects. Kindle books do not require dusting, thank goodness. For everything else there are glass door cases. Dania sells very nice ones. Plus, I just despise built ins in homes.
We do have one multi-shelf glass door case, with some of the ābestā books in it. I think our house is not super-dusty, but I am quite tolerant of a little visible dust. (Life for me impossible otherwise.)
We must have lots more books than even CC normal. I need to weed.
One time (about 50% fewer books) ago, a moving man asked me how many of our books I had actually read. I had to take a step back. Well, certainly all of these, and a whole lot more . I struggled to come up with an answer that didnāt sound condescending.
We have eight floor-ceiling bookcases of books, and I have culled another bookcase worth and packed the childrenās books for the next generation. Dragonmom, you are not alone!
Poking my head back in to grump about my H.
We have a community yard sale coming up this weekend. He has a room entirely filled with old electronics. He agreed to tag and move a lot of the stuff to the garage (staging area). Itās the last community yard sale before we put the house on the market next spring.
He had the day off yesterday, which he spent telling me to get off the computer and get MY stuff out to the garage. I had designated two hours to do this, and I did at the designated 2 hour chunk (I like to chunk unpleasant tasks), after listening to him gripe at me for hours.
What did he put in the garage? One baseball mitt, one animated āhogā plush, still in the box that sings 'get your motor running". No pricetags on either (I had given him stickers and a pen).
That was it.
I put about 10k steps on my fitbit yesterday just moving stuff from the house to the garage and tagging it.
SO MAD AT HIM RIGHT NOW.
I was doing so well. Iām back to being completely overwhelmed. One bag/box at at time, right?
MofD, when you are talking to him again try taking pictures of the things
he is having trouble letting go ofā¦it worked with my Hās letter jacket.
Knowing he would have it in our photos did it.
Iāve been hounding my husband to do some outdoor maintenance before it gets cold out. He finally had a Saturday at home, beautiful weather for yard work, and instead he cleaned his closed and the basement rec room. 4 garbage bags in the dumpster before I even asked what he was doing. Yard work is still not done but the closet looks fabulous!
@oregon101 that makes sense for visually interesting objects like lettermen jackets, but makes less sense for a 1997 DirecTV receiver. 
I think Iām mostly aggravated because heās typically very rational, and heās not being rational with this at all. It was his idea to downsize and declutter. I seem to be much more goal/task oriented. Heās much more blue sky theory.
He was upset that Iām going to sell my 24 year old wedding dress at the sale. Itās not like Iām going to wear it again. I also may be significantly less sentimental than he is. Iām thinking he needs to watch a few episodes of Hoardersā¦
I can relate to #2810. How my dh determines what is a priority task I have no idea, but it rarely matches what weāve been discussing for the previous week (or month.)
On the bright side, a neighborās 22 yr. old son is coming to clean out dhās garage this afternoon. Heāll put everything in his dadās pickup truck and trailer then brush down the walls, clean the windows and sweep/mop the floor.
Dh thought it would take 15 minutes to move out the things he wanted to keep; instead, it took him >90 minutes. He had so much sorting to do, but also kept too much. When I saw what he kept, I insisted that he go through the basement garage and move at least as much stuff from there to his garage to be hauled away. Some will go to a recycling center and the rest to the county dump.
I hope to hire the young man to help with our basement garage later this year. It has been an embarrassment every time someone comes to do maintenance or repair work down there.
I think the problem with electronics is they cost a ton when we bought them years ago and are now nearly worthless. Itās a double whammy for most.
To be honest itās probably good to at least make the āget rid of pileā even if it isnāt going into the āgarage sale pileā quite yet because most likely itāll be in the garbage at some point. So if itās now or two months from now it wonāt make a difference.
MODāāHe was upset that Iām going to sell my 24 year old wedding dress at the sale.ā
Are YOU going to be upset if nobody loves it?
I am in the process of cleaning out a storage space. I had some furniture that a local auction house is going to sell at auction (for a fee). The rest I planned to give away until a friend asked me if I wanted to sell stuff at a local flea market. This is a big, yearly event in our town and folks from all over come for it. I am at a loss on pricing itemsāit seems overwhelming. Right now I am ready to call a local non-profit that comes out and takes household goods. I keep thinking that anything that had value went to the auction house. For those of you who sell household itemsāis it worth the effort?
@Bromfield2, I donāt think itās worth the hassle to sell most items. Except for a few things that family or friends could use, weāve donated anything thatās in good condition for years. Yard sales, flea markets, etc. take a lot of time. After you sort, price and set up the stuff for sale you often end up with people wanting to haggle over things that are already priced at 1/10 of their original cost (or less.) Iād rather donate and be done with it.
I am not going to bother with selling anything we plan on not taking with us. All goes on the curb with āfreeā sign or to Goodwill. The site Iāve been frequenting accepts furniture and old electronics.
My one garage sale experience was similar to @Silpat 's . Not worth the hassle.
@gouf78 , no, Iāll actually be surprised if someone wants a 24 year old dress. What I WANT to do with it is turn it into a multi-media piece, which would require cutting it apart. H is horrified by this. At this point the giant poofy dress that is taking up so much space in my studio and my mind is just aggravating the crap out of me, and Iāll be happy to sell a dress that was $2500 in 1992 dollars for $200.
I am fully expecting the garage sale to be a hassle, as well. The upside is that Iām reminded of how difficult it is to get stuff out of your house once you bring it in, and Iāve been a lot fussier about buying things lately.
The awesome thing about our community yard sale is that we have a donation company coming through the neighborhood that will pick up everything that doesnāt sell afterwards :).