<p>If you want to get rid of beanies, you might consider donating them to a school. Our school librarian used them as end of the year prizes. </p>
<p>As to the OP: You may want to get rid of the crib. I know you probably have sentimental values but there has been many safety changes. Grandchildren are too valuable to take a chance with.</p>
<p>Good luck decluttering. It will be freeing. (BTW I just got done cleaning out an elderly aunt’s apartment. I am real glad she didn’t have a house full of stuff.)</p>
<p>Stupidest thing in our attic: A 2 ft x 3ft relief map S made on foamcore, with some sort of clay/hardened dough mountains. I have no idea what this is a relief map of - might be Narnia. </p>
<p>Also, my mother brought us all my old college stuff when she moved. I had old text books and exam blue books. I read one of the exams I had in the box - at this point I don’t even understand what the question is asking, but at the time I wrote a whole blue book on it and got an A minus!</p>
<p>Stupidest thing in our attic: my Halloween costume from my stint as a school librarian. It is a bookworm costume. I made a stack of books out of a large carton and wore that over green sweats. It was quite cute, but I couldn’t sit down it!</p>
<p>We did a major clean out of our attic, basement, and garage last summer; this summer we’re remodeling and we’re grateful we have space to store our real, useful stuff while we’re under construction.</p>
<p>These stories are hilarious! Splashmom, to answer your question, after we went through all of the stuff we put aside the pertinent items (like the naturalization papers) in a big box which my brother now has. Everything else was chucked or sold when the dealers came through at the estate sale. (old military uniforms, etc.) I feel the way another poster here does that its a terrible burden on the next generation to have to filter through. I really don’t want my kids to have to do what my sibs did. Its depressing and sad, although through our tears we did have some laughs and learned some family history that we didn’t know.</p>
<p>OMG on the beanie babies. We have a huge bag full of them that my MIL gave my D. Our attic is not a walk up but one of those holes in the ceiling which makes it useless for storage. But, we do have storage under the eves (correct speliing??) in three places. I have just started cleaning my S’s playroom, yes this is the 18yo going off to college in the fall. He hasn’t stepped foot in it for about 10 years. It took my about 8 hours to pack up three playmobile castles, two forts, about a thousand Lego sets and disassemble a train set attached to an 8X12’ board. oh, all that “good” stuff is going under the eves with some of the not so good stuff either getting sold or given away to the next generation of boys. 11yo D’s stuff will be moved from her playroom into S’s old playroom so we can free up her existing playroom and convert it back to a bedroom. </p>
<p>H is a packrat and claimed the cellar as his when we moved into this house many years ago. His junk flowed over into the garage, in which is barely enough room to fit my car in the winter. So much stuff that I can’t open passenger side doors once I am in the garage. Most weeks just prior to trash pick up I go through and try to find something to throw out that he will not miss. Like those preprinted labels from when he had his own business 13 years ago. Unfortunately, the rate at which stuff is incoming is greater than the stuff outgoing. :(</p>
<p>H just had someone come to give us an estimate on a new roof today. The guy said we would have to cover EVERYTHING (all millions-of-things of it) in the attic with plastic before they start. Maybe that will give husband the initiative to just CLEAN IT OUT!!!</p>
<p>I try to keep my ‘conservation of stuff’ theory - stuff comes in, stuff must go out. It doesn’t work perfectly, but it helps at least a bit. Books are difficult to get rid of , but there is now an organization in our area that comes to your house and takes them away. They donate some and sell some. And, I remind myself that I can get most books again online or downloaded to my Kindle.
We have many shelves of toys that will be hard to sort out because of the memories. But I consider the fact that I have almost none of my old toys,and I’m pretty happy. (I have at least one - an old rocket ship - but that might be it.)</p>
<p>I winnowed down the kids’ stuffed animal collection from about eight Rubbermaid containers to three or four. The very gently used ones I donated to Project Smile in Massachusetts.</p>