Decluttering - How Long Have I had that thing (Really!!!)

Last week I spent everyday sorting and clearing every surface in my family/kitchen/dining room and including piles of things on the floor which ranged from toys, magazines, baskets of clean washing, recycle boxes for Sienna's crafts, school notes, drawings and anything else you can think of.  I was determined to only focus on these three rooms which are effectively one big room anyway that we live in everyday.

Seriously it took me all week and I worked hard at it.  I wish I was wearing a "step counter" because I'm sure I walked 10,000 steps every hour.  If there were 3 hair bands I just picked them up and walked into Sienna's room and put them near her hair stuff.  3 marbles had to go somewhere, play dough animals had to go in the container somewhere.  I even pulled out our huge leather lounge and swept and mopped underneath it and found water bottles, papers, marbles, hats etc.  It was a massive massive job but it's done and I feel amazing even just walking into the room now.

We've been in this house for 3.5 years and I still feel really disorganized.  At my previous house I could lay my hand on anything in a matter of minutes but not so with this house I feel my "normal organizing skills" aren't there as well as they could be and I opt to do something happy with my time like sorting out my photos and editing them vs spending 4 hrs decluttering.  I do declutter things in a small way but this room, in fact this house needs the 100 % once over in each and every room and then I will feel like we can maintain our home.

I've listed a whole heap of Becky Higgins Scrapbooking items and here so that I can recoup some money back for these brand new items unopened sitting on a shelf.  These items weren't in the family/kitchen/dining room but were on shelves in the hallway.  I used this system for a while but decided to go with the digital version for Project Life instead of the physical pages so all these new and unopened items I've had for ages I can sell, get some money and clear my spaces.

Which brings me to the most crazy part of when you declutter and that is when you actually realize how long you have been holding onto something.  I purchased some rolls of plastic lining years ago which goes on your pantry shelves.  I bought these rolls of lining for my previous house which I built and moved into in October 2006 and I didn't end up using them.  We moved to this house 3.5 years ago and of course I brought them with me to line the pantry shelves at this house and I never did.  These 4 rolls (3 unopened and 1 opened) have been in the cupboard ever since and every time I need the rolling pin I have to move these rolls to one side, pull out the rolling pin and then do the reverse when the rolling pin has to go back.  The other day when I decided I was going to donate them to charity I thought since I was selling things on ebay I might list them and that was until I looked up the item on the Ikea website and found out they are $2.99 a roll.  A couple of things happened when I read that and the first one was I laughed out loud, and the second one I thought OMG these items are worth a total of $12 and I have had these in my possession in my kitchen (in two different houses) for a period of 8 years.  Seriously.............I immediately put them at the garage door to give them to charity as I haven't used them in 8 years then I'm never going to.  The funny thing is when you declutter you almost convince yourself where you can use them since you already have them in your possession.  I said to myself "I should use these on the garage shelves" and then I said to myself  "don't be silly, get them out of your house, 8 years is long enough to not use them".

I think when I worked out how long I had owned these 4 rolls of lining it was easy to think this is so crazy but in my day to day life these things didn't affect me at all so out of sight out of mind.  It was only when I needed to get the rolling pin out that I thought of them and it was annoying having to move them each time.  These items were perfectly good when I moved house last time so I didn't end up getting rid of them at the time.

It's easy to have things and the years just fly by and you don't notice time.  I do love my stuff and I have more stuff than all my friends (not in a "Jones" sort of way more I have craft stuff that they don't have etc.) and that's just me however I'm working towards having less stuff but it just takes time and it was nice to think that I will not have these 4 rolls of perfectly good shelf lining in my possession anymore.  These are going to be donated, end of story that is 8 years old.