Came home from running group today to find that H had gone through his clothes and filled up 4 bags for donation. I went with him to the drop off place.
Yoohoo!
Here we are! 2018! This thread is a couple years old. I was tempted to start a new 2018 one - hoping it would be even more motivation for me. 
S bought me new wine glasses which prompted a clean out of some cupboards to make room for them. First trash bag of the year out the door of various old mugs, water bottles, expired stuff, etc.
I also have a large plastic bin of Christmas stuff to get rid of - wonder if the thrift shops/Goodwill will take that stuff now that it is out of season???
Letās GO! Whatcha going to clean out this month?!!
After the fact but H cleaned out some odds and ends from the basement on Saturday and itās all been dropped off at a local thrift store.
If I have a 4 piece dinner set to donate to a thrift store and donāt have the original box should I bubble wrap everything and pack it up to donate it?
Gosh, I forgot to come back here and talk about a cleaning win!
A woman on NextDoor was giving away antiques and such. Dh and I snagged a few things. He has refinished two tables that replaced our old coffee table (already gone thanks to bulky pickup!) and replaced the table that our TV was on. All turned out gorgeous.
She also had this chest that kept calling to me. It was small ā about 3x2x18āā high. A pretty dark brown. Turns out that her ex-dhās best friend made it in Vietnam. I told her that I was surprised she ended up with it in the divorce, but the new wife didnāt want him to have anything that had been in their house. Wow. OK. Anyway, I wrestled with taking it because I didnāt have an immediate idea for where to put it, but I found the perfect place ā in my closet. Which spurred a major clean. My closet hasnāt been this empty and organized since we moved into it almost 30 years ago! I love walking into my closet every day now.
I hope yāall have a good, clean 2018!
Cleaning out the home office and paperwork today. Amazing how quickly crap piles up in there.
Yesterday, I cleaned the freezer. I threw out some food and put others in the fridge, to thaw for me or the dog. (Bucket-list time: Iāll give her anything her sensitive stomach will tolerate.) I took all the decorations off the Christmas tree, put them in their box, and noted the location of the box on the new list Iām putting together: āWhere Things Are.ā
In answer to your question @raclut I would bubble wrap the dishes.
Kind of like a list Maurice Sendak would have created. :))
Iām hoping the list will help me (and my daughters, if something happens to me) find items that donāt have a ānaturalā home in the house. For example, cooking items are in the kitchen; they donāt need to be on the list. Jackets are hanging in one of the closets; they donāt need to be on the list. Winter accessories? I keep them in a bag, but which one and where? Same thing with any items that have been organized into boxes or bins or bedroom drawers.
When I decorated for the holidays, I threw out stuff I know I will never use. Was very happy to not get lots of stuff as gifts this year. Mostly gift cards and consumables. Last thing I want is more stuff to get rid of.
I plan to trash the old artificial āgarlandā as I put away the streamlined holiday stuff. Iām done with that '90ās fake stuff.
No more Nerf guns! I put them in the trash today, along with a bunch of other stuff from my sonās room. Heās getting ready to graduate from college, and was finally willing to part with many of his ātoys.ā I am donating some, but figuring out which pieces belonged to which gun, or which transformer, was beyond me.
I wish I could do as good a job with my junk as I can do with other peopleās.
I am making progress though, one bag at a time.
S2 supposedly went through his room while he was here last week and came up with 2 small boxes of stuff to keep. Itāll be up to me (and DH if I trust him to not add to the ākeepā pile) to go through everything else to decide what gets trashed and what gets donated.
I finally put several cashmere sweaters in the trash. One year recently many of my sweaters were attacked by something, and several of them had multiple small holes in them. I was thinking maybe I could get them fixed, but it didnāt happen, and I was in a mood today, so they are GONE.
Iām in major, major declutter mode now-the house is going up for sale Feb 1, and weāve already found a new place. The home stager just came by yesterday and I have six pages of stuff to get through between now and then, and Iām not gonna lie; itās OVERWHELMING. Even for me, who loves tackling clutter.
Right now the kitchen looks like a bomb went off in it since Iāve pulled everything out of all the cabinets and Iām washing the insides of them. I donāt want to put anything back in the cabinets thatās not coming with us. So.Much.Stuff.
Oh, the goodwill guys are starting to recognize my car and theyāre bringing out two rolling carts now automatically. I really want to embrace minimalism going forward; this is just wiping me out. Hās list is substantially smaller,-heās doing ok with rehoming his stuff rather than dropping it off at a thrift store, so his friends are all like-itās Christmas every day!
We listed the 250 gallon marine fishtank on Craigslist for $120 bux including the stand, topper, lights, filtration and coral. Four teenagers with a tiny little truck came and bought it (and probably gave themselves hernias in the process, lol). Now THAT felt SO good to get out of the house!
While youngest child is home, using the extra pair of hands to take some big items to the transfer station - a big old upholstered chair that was long past its prime, an old huge tv. Kiddo also cleaned out some old clothing so have a large trash bagful to be donated.
Totally contrary to the intent of this thread, but I bet it would a great time to shop Goodwill (or similar) late January. Between everyone trying to make their possibly last deductible end-of year contributions and new year resolutions to downsize, there may be lots of treasures waiting! ORā¦ maybe this should be posted on the āgood buy of the dayā thread 
Holy JPMorgan. Mr. B finally disposed of all - ALL! - VCR movies. At least Blue Rays will take up less space in the trash can when their time comes. Me thinks we will let the kiddos deal with that.
A good friend told me that her therapist says that your home is a metaphor for your body. So when youāre decluttering and downsizing, youāre also potentially working on slimming down!
I like it. Throw out a box of junk and lose two pounds!