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The Junk Space – Declutter!

The Junk Space – Declutter!

Posted On March 21, 2012

Do you have one of those areas that is a throw for all?  

A spare room drowning in junk, a garage full of storage boxes or a set of drawers filled with paper work?  Well combine all of that together and what do you get?  Our under staircase storage room!  Well at least that was what it was intended for!  As the years have passed it has become a place to just throw things that dont belong anywhere else or a hide all space to chuck everything in when unexpected visitors arrive!

and you thought I was exaggerating! 

It was one of those jobs we have been “meaning to get too”  a neighbourhood roadside collection was the motivation we finally needed to attack it!  In the great depths of junk we unearthed…..

  • A full size baby bath and change table
  • A high chair
  • 3 picnic baskets!
  • 2 bookshelves full of folders containing old uni assignments and teaching supplies
  • 10 storage boxes full of rubbish stuff
  • A christmas tree
  • Boxes of old photos and photo cds
  • Enough scrapbooking supplies to start my own store!
  • A million electrical cords
  • Old Birthday cards
  • More than 25 photo frames!!!
Oh and a didgeridoo!

So I guess you get the picture.  I had to be ruthless.  Most things under there had not been touched in years which made the cull a bit easier.  I’ll be realistic.  This was a big job.  There were arguments, sweat and a whole lot of dust.  There was one huge boot load of stuff to throw and many bags of items to be donated.  But we did it.  We survived the seemingly neverending pile of “stuff” and found treasures and a whole new list list of to do projects!
 
Our tips for tackling the junk zone. 
  • Send the kids away!  They are distracting and will be over excited by every bit of a thing they find in the area and want to keep it!  We were also going in and out of the house a lot which got a bit scary with two kids who could of wandered off!!
  • Only fools rush in.  Allow the time but don’t procrastinate or get distracted.  Be prepared and have the supplies hat you will need on hand.
  • Have a second party.  You will need backup when it comes to the culling decisions!
  • Have a system.  Donate, Throw, Keep, Rehouse.  We knew about the first three but we found we needed a new category, rehouse.  There were some items that we wanted to keep but they could be better off stored in other areas of the house such as the ceiling cavity!
  • Know yourself.  Many times we have kept items telling ourselves we could sell them on ebay.  A year later they are still there.  This time we just donated or sold on our footpath!  Are you a doer?  Will you commit to taking the time to sell?

  •  Door to door sales.  SOme of the larger items we put out for sale on our footpath!  They sold within an hour to people in our street!  A quick cash sale also gave us some money to spend on storage containers and label tape and enough to pay this cute little salesman!
One huge project is now complete!  If only that was the end of it!  It has now created several mini projects to tackle over the coming weeks!  Stay tuned…….