My son’s bedroom has been the alternate off-site storage facility for his and his wife’s (who I love dearly) stuff since they got married and moved into a terrific, perfectly located, very small DC apartment 18 months ago. They have had so much fun living there, but are moving to a house in the burbs at the end of this month.
Yay!
I can’t wait to unload all their stuff!
His room has his off season clothing (one small closet in DC), multiple bags of sporting equipment, musical instruments, extra bedding (combining two lives into one small apartment), boxes and boxes of books, a box of growlers and glasswear, left over college stuff…
I’m looking forward to loading up my car and bringing all that stuff to them on a weekly basis until his room is reasonably empty of stuff.
I am happy to load it and transport it. I will not edit it, and I will not wait for them to take time to come here and do it themselves. I want it out, and this is the quickest way of accomplishing that goal. Their other storage facility is at DIL’s parents’ house. I think they are also looking forward to this move.
Addendum to my post, we spent a full week at my in-laws house this summer. My husband, my three grown children and I worked on the second floor of their 2plus car garage, clearing out, cleaning and sorting the stuff that had accumulated over the years. We ended up with a lot of “garbage”, recycling (decades of original packaging), a very large SUV full of donations, and…
Boxes and boxes of stuff their nine children (my husband’s siblings and step-siblings) had left, stored, forgotten about, you name it, over the years. We labeled all of those boxes by name, and everyone has agreed to dispose of their own boxes of stuff at their next visit.
I will not become the defacto storage facility for my grown children’s stuff that they don’t want to be bothered to deal with. That stuffed garage is my motivating image.
@VeryHappy , Growlers hold beer. At craft breweries, you can get them filled up to transport your beer home or to wherever you want to take it. They can be glass, stainless steel, etc. Most breweries have their own version, often glass, with their own logo on it.
They hold 4 pints of beer. If you have a craft brewery near you, in certain days you might see a bunch of bearded guys in their 20s, 30s lined up on a weekend morning or afternoon with their growlers waiting for a fill.
I always did really well with garage sales but quit pricing things which is a huge time saver. I only put a price on higher priced items or something that are multiples like glass ware or costume jewelry or t-shirts.
Often people would offer more than I would have priced an item for anyway.–and if someone wanted to haggle too much after I’d given a fair price I’d raise the price for fun.
I just read an article this morning about decluttering and how the Swedish start in their 50s to minimize the job for their children - it can take decades. Sigh…I can’t find the article to link it. There is a book coming out, “The Swedish Art of Death Cleaning” that sounds interesting. Morbid title, but it not only advocates cleaning out for the kids, but talks about decluttering and only keeping what you use and enjoy.
My dad (he’s 95) has boxes marked “TOD” (toss on death). It’s papers he’s already sorted and nobody will need once he’s gone. Already taped up and ready to go. It’s his gift to us.
The yardsale has been going smashingly well, surprisingly.
I sold the wedding dress to a family who is going to use it as a quinciniera dress (apologies for murdering that spelling) for their daughter, so happiness on both sides about that. It is a giant poofy ball gown with a basque waist, so it’d work well for that application.
I’m down to some comics, some DVD’s, and a lot of board games. The DVD’s are 50 cent each, and while they’ve been selling, I’m surprised they’re not selling better.
Weather has been good, and only a few people were ugly about haggling.
first time on this thread but boy, do i need a swift kick to get me in action on my storage room in the basement. it’s so full that there is barely a pathway through it. LOTS of old kids toys, holiday decor & boxes of old work pieces & magazines & mementos & my childhood stuff and ETC> ETC>. How do i get through it all? where to start? “A bag a week” sounds like a great, ambitious idea! do you toss? donate?
Depends. If something is very old, broken, can’t be cleaned, etc. It’s best to toss. Personally I would recycle stuff like the old magazines and mementos (save a few). Be realistic.
As for donating, find somewhere you can donate to - either a local place like a Salvation Army store, etc., a church pr school rummage sale or go on line and see if an organization like Purple Heart or Lupus does pickup where you live. That way you have a plan for your donate pile.
I do a triage - sell, donate, toss/recycle. How do I get through it all? Just diving in but it’s been an ongoing process. I get too bored to keep at it so break it up into small increments.
