In an endeavour to keep reducing until there is nothing but useful and loved things in my home I continue to revisit areas where I have decluttered previously. This week I decided to take another look under the laundry tubs and here are my before and after shots.
Hi Colleen, it’s Friday night and hubby and I are tired from a very busy week, so we are watching recorded episodes of criminal minds. During the commercials I cleaned under the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, the linen closet and the shelf over the washer and dryer. You know what it really only took maybe a half hour for all of them. I threw away a bunch of gross sponges, some bad rubber gloves, some perfume i never wear anymore and hairspray that had a weird smell. thank you so much for the pictures and the idea to see how much I could get done. I think I will try some more areas on Saturday after the grandsons football game. Enjoy your weekend
Hi Colleen,
well done mate. That sounds like a whole lot of clearing out with very little effort. I cut up one of the rubber gloves I through away to make a non-slip jar opener. I used it this morning and it worked well.
What kind of football does your grandson play? It is a big footy weekend in Australia this week with both the NRL and the AFL grand finals. Not to mention the world cup rugby going on in New Zealand. My sister-in-law and her son are staying with us in order to go to the game tomorrow in Sydney. Needless to say I am not doing much in the way of decluttering this weekend. She didn’t bring anything with her to give me so that is good. I have my family well trained.
Colleen,
What a great idea – I have tried several jar openers, with no real joy – here’s one that won’t cost money if it doesn’t work – my wrists are feeble on jars!
Thank you,.
Hi Ann,
I used to have one of those tupperware ones but it go old and perished and one day I thought what am I going to use to get a grip on this lid. Then I thought of the rubber gloves so when I found this lonely one I figured I would cut a piece off for this purpose and keep in my utensils drawer. I could just use the rubber gloves that are under the sink when I need one but God knows what germs they have on them. I washed this piece of one before putting it in the drawer.
Love it! Every little bit helps 🙂
You are so right Megyn, every little bit does help and it feels good no matter how small the items are that are decluttered.
I recently reworked under my sink because we have little relatives who now know how to open cupboards and it was important to get the bad things out of their reach. This is a nice timely reminder to check under there again and throw out the crap that accumulates. And also to check the actual cleaning cupboard (above the fridge) to throw out excess stuff there too.
I wish I could inherit your donated squegee tho 😀 I always wanted one of those
Hi Inga,
I use microfibre clothes so I don’t have a lot of nasty cleaning products. I love microfibre! As for that squeegee, when I saw it under there I thought “When have I ever used this?” I have cleaned all the windows in this house several times but never used the squeegee so I figures I didn’t need it. Once again the micro fibre does that job with just good old water. I wash my floors with microfibre and water too, they are shiny white tiles and they come up brilliantly.
I had a good clean of the kitchen today and am taking a floor cleaning bucket to the charity shop tomorrow – it takes an awful lot of room to store (came with the house) but I haven’t used it for months. I prefer to use a smaller, multi use bucket.
Finishing off my declutter honeymoon week, on Thursday I took a very good quailty silk skirt to the hospice shop: have worn it once in 5 years and I confess a small wedding gift we were given that we will never ever use (2 mugs – we have 6 and that is enough for us and visitors). We appreciate the love behind the gift and know the hospice shop will make good use of them.
This afternoon, I weeded my ‘jewellery’ collection: too many necklaces I haven’t worn for a long time and a couple of containers from my ‘dressing table’ top that really just encourage clutter.
I also rehomed around the house ‘stuff’ ona little set of wooden shelves that I was using in the dining room: I put them there earlier in the year to store more in our multi purpose dining room but have now decided they were just encouraging the keeping of too much stuff!
All together now… “we don’t need more storage… we just need less stuff”.
Hi Katharine,
you have had a busy week and what great progress you continue to make. Realising that putting storage in place often just attracts clutter rather than control necessary items is a big lesson to learn. Knowing what is and clearing clutter is one thing, learning the reason why it keeps getting there is key to eliminating it altogether. You are learning how to stay ahead of it now rather than cleaning up after what used to be the inevitable. Well done Katharine.
I repeat after you… “we don’t need more storage… we just need less stuffâ€, “we don’t need more storage… we just need less stuff 
I love posts like this that show the principle of looking at what you have, and seeing if it is what you need/want. I don’t think anyone would think the ‘before’ picture looks like clutter, and yet, when you took a look at it, you saw that it was surplus to your present needs. This is awesome!
Second lesson (love the posts that have more than one!): One needn’t keep everything that is useful. This is one of the hardest things for my lizard brain to accept. I keep thinking, ‘but I could use this!’
I tore through our games closet today, taking out games and puzzles that we haven’t played with in more than a year. Regardless of how fun they were in the past, if we’re not enjoying them now- out they went. It looks great, and now a family with younger children will be able to enjoy them as much as we dide.
Hi Sabine,
I think these before and after posts are the most popular with all of my readers. As simple as they are for me to produce there is often more than one lesson to learn from them and the readers just love the visual as well. You must be a practical person like me if you have a hard time parting with seemingly useful items. No matter how useful it ought to be though, if it isn’t getting used it isn’t useful to you. Best to hand it on to someone else.
And here is the good news for you. You now won’t need to do Wednesday’s mini mission because you have already done it. Well done getting ahead of the game by decluttering your games cupboard.