It’s good for you, it’s therapeutic, it creates space for new things and you have to do it or end up like the poor souls in those TV programmes where every room is full to the ceiling until the neighbours contact the TV channel who come with a camera and a skip.
We’ve been doing it for over a week for the S&H. He has now been married nearly a year and his bedroom is still full of junk. After much measuring we decided we could get a bed settee in there if we took everything else out. We couldn’t fit a full double in the space, which folds out of a three seater settee but the two seater settee converts into a wide single or a small double but they are newly weds and that’s what will go in the room, open out and get walked round so that’s it, plus, we found a nice one in a sale.
The problem, other than the extortionate delivery charge, is getting rid of the old bed and the extortionate removal charge. The only people I could find who would take a clean, flat, undamaged, single bed with all fire retardant tags and give it to charity wanted £55 + VAT for doing so. That’s the thick end of £70 for removing a bed. I found this uber depressing, bearing in mind that when my mother goes, there will be three single beds and a double to be similarly disposed of. Perhaps there is a market for biodegradable furniture with a timer on it. You could see the sofa had reached zero, slot it into bin bags, gather round for a quick hymn and come down in the morning to find it had self-composted and you could just pop out and spread it round the rhubarb.
In the end, all suitable avenues having been explored, the OT took it out on the drive with a wrecking bar, imagined it was his mother-in-law and for lo! Matchwood! We wrapped the wood in the mattress and he drove it to the dump. The OT has many faults, many, many faults. Many faults. Many. But he excels at destruction. I have learned over the years not to let him in the garden with sharp tools if there are plants there, because he prefers just nice flat soil. However, in the matter of bed wrecking I feel he is at the top of his game. He followed this with metal shelf deconstruction which was great except that we needed somewhere to put the deconstructed shelves.
The loft is full. We only boarded it out when the S&H came home with a sad expression and a ton of junk, barely three years ago. It is full to the rafters and the only possessions we have up there are an old duvet, a Victorian Fireman’s helmet and a water tank. I have brought the S&H up all wrong. I thought he was bright enough to have realised the correct order of acquisition is the house first and then the contents. And then the decorating. And then the cats.
So in order to store the shelves, deconstructed, for the S&H we needed to make space in the garage.
I took two, count them, one two, one and then another one as well, DOLLS HOUSES, BIG TWELFTH SCALE DOLLS HOUSES to the dump.
Yes the Victorian board school and a shop with living accommodation above that had never even been photographed.
On the first trip the OT, on top of his game, suggested the charity shop at the dump rather than the skip and, on the second trip we saw both being bourne into the office at the dump quite carefully. And I knew I had moved on.
Upon our return we investigated the gigantic and mysterious box upon which the school had stood for many years. Star Wars Toys. A phone call revealed that they are valuable plastic tat which cannot be dumped as it is a collectable, or sold because he wants it. So he has been told to take it next time he comes, or the nice man at the dump shop will be happy again, twice in the one month.
I have this theory that there must be a day in your life when you have exactly the right number of possessions. You leave home with a suitcase and save until you have the start of a house, which you work and save to fill. (NB Webmeister: This is the normal order.) Some time later a camera crew roll up with a skip. On one day, one perfect day, somewhere between the two, you must have exactly the right amount of stuff. I think some agency should exist to text you on that day so you could enjoy it, because after that it’s downhill all the way. (Unless your house is really bad, in which case it’s downhill to the living room, through the tunnel of newspapers into what used to be the kitchen and up the hill of old sofas and bags of clothes into the dining square metre.)
When we have finished emptying the room we will paint it. The settee will be delivered on Saturday and that will be it. Stop. In that room there will be walls, carpet and a bed settee. Absolutely perfect. I did it with my shed. There are walls in there, a table and a chair and a shelf I designed, built into the double skinned wall, that is just big enough for a pencil pot. I haven’t even put the rug in there that I bought for it because it would spoil it.
I can clap along if all I need is a room without much junk and then I’m happy.
And I couldn’t finish today without saying how much I will miss Leonard Nimoy. Spock was everyone’s perfect friend: someone who stays cool under all provocation, has solutions to your problems and an abnormal physical quirk whose absence on you makes you look good. He leaves a space the final front ear in my universe, that’s for sure.
Live long and declutter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JanelettinggoLaverick.com