Do you have lots of 'stuff' around your house..?

Having a bit of house clear-out today and it made me realise just how much 'stuff' we have...   nothing in particular, but just general clutter that is no longer used...  

I think it's time to be ruthless...   I've been putting masses of stuff up on freecycle and ebay...  its just an accumulation of years and years of purchases...   I've sure there will be a few car loads that ends up at the tip.

 

 

Comments

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    I used to be pretty minimalist, then my Squeeze moved in!

    There is now a LOT  of stuff hanging around, and it does bother me.  How can one person have so many running shoes?  He has SEVEN pairs in the hall cupboard, plus MORE in a drawer under the bed.

    I wonder if he'd notice if a pair (or two) went missing.....

     

     

  • I'm both.  Having moved from a large house to a small one I currently have a lot of clutter.  But I prefer something more minimalist so I'm slowly throwing things out or finding new homes for them.

    I find that the clutter of Christmas adds to the stress.  We stuff cards and decorations into a space that was comfortable and although it looks pretty, I do find it too busy for me.  I like it when the tree goes down and I get my space back

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    I agree Caz - the tree takes up a huge amount of room, makes the room feel a lot smaller.

     

  • I could live in a cardboard box, Mrs P cannot bear to throw anything away. Unless it's mine.

     

     

  • Wilkie - so you think 7 or so pairs of shoes is a lot??? My OH has 3 shelves full of running shoes in our store room! For some reason he resists getting rid of any, even those he hasn't worn in years!

  • I used to have loads of stuff. Things I thought I needed or wanted or sentimental. Then we sold our property to finance building a new place and while thats being done we are living in a caravan. I took bags and bags and bags of stuff to the charity shop because it otherrwise meant paying for storage. That focussed my mind and I was ruthless. But do you know, we love it! It was liberating to get rid of clutter and I've not missed anything. We live minimilist and compact now and adapted so well that we are re-thinking the final spec for our new place. I'm very happy. image

  • Excellent Soup Dragon..   good for you..image

     

  • We used to have lots of stuff, cluttering up every room, so I built another room, now that's getting there as well so you guessed it, conservatory next.

     

  • Funnily enough I was only thinking this afternoon that when my kitchen was modernised 20 years ago I had cupboards that were empty as we didn't have enough stuff to fill them all. Then approx 5 years ago I had a massive clear out as I had accumulated 'stuff'.



    Now I will hopefully be in a similar situation to Soupy in that I will have to throw a lot of stuff away or pay for it to go into storage as I am renovating the ground floor of my property. My ambition is to be able to store the stuff I am keeping into our 2 bedrooms whilst we decamp to a B&B while the work is done
  • My OH just loves shoes, when I say she's got enough, she just replies 'you can't have too many shoes'



    How about 50 pairs?? Is that too many?



    I have 5 and two of them are running shoes!!



    I would love to de-clutter the shoes but I quite like my manhood
  • I've moved 11 times in past 13 years. Every time I do I wish I had less stuff, and yet everything seems to be important and useful once I'm moved in! I've gone through phases of being ruthless (the biggest one being when I had to clear out my childhood bedroom, and threw away things I'd kept since I was aged 5!)

  • TimeaJTimeaJ ✭✭✭
    I've recently moved in with my hubby, before that I used to rent a room. I was shocked to realise how much stuff I had accumulated over the years as it took one whole day to pack up and move everything. I have now idea how I could fit so many things into just one room. Our flat feels full now! I try and regulary do clear ups in my wardrobe and office before things get out of control, to the local charity shops' delight!
  • Shoes! my wife and two Daughters must have 4 of 500 pairs between them, and they take the same sizes! Yet I get the complaint "what do you do with all those trainers"

  • Big fan of *stuff*, not helped by living in a 4-bedroomed house on my own. 

  • We are fairly minimalist, which we both like, with the exception of a book habit (more hers than mine) and a cd/dvd habit. We don't have huge amounts, just more than we can comfortably store. I would like a bit more wall space though as I do like my paintings (and a nice pile of cash to buy them would be handy!) but other than that we do like to keep shelves fairly tidy. If we had a bigger house with a spare living room it would be our room for "beautiful things" - anything we like with style and beauty to just sit down and admire! (Things other than me, of course!)

  • I'm the ultimate minimalist.

    Ok - that's a lie, I can out clutter the lot of you.
    I'm going to have to declutter and get rid of a whole ton of stuff, it's being forced upon me.

    I actually like stuff and bits and bobs all over the place. I collect stuff that looks interesting. I love stones and pebbles, things that are colourful so I have stuff out to look at. I have a collection of glass in the bathroom and hanging fairies and recycled thingamy wotnots. that's the least cluttered room of the house.

  • Hmm, while lots of people seem to be de-cluttering my missus seems to be taking the opposite approach. She has re-found a passion for collecting bits and bobs of which I dont know what most are for. Apparently some of these things are 'nice to look at'. I also didnt realise that a pair of black leather boots with a small heel is completely different to a pair of black leather boots with a smallish heel and therefore it is imperative to have both pairs.

  • I think its rather said how much most of us seem to have.  Very few people seem to want to collect more stuff and lots seem to want to be able to get rid of stuff.  What a materialistic society we are

  • Just had the movers come round and collect my wordly goods, with a couple of biggish bits of furnitue it all fitted into a 220 container. Admittedly we did a couple of car loads before but thats not much really for a 2 bed semi!



    I took the chance to have a huge clear out and must have taken as much again to charity shop or skips. I think I might have cured myself of my love of buying new stuff.



    Did start with about 150 pairs of footwear .... post clear out about 120 were moved ... those are the boxes I am frightened they lose.
  • E mmyE mmy ✭✭✭
    I've just cleaned out two rooms in my parents house and was amazed at how much stuff had been accumulated. I'm currently going through a ruthless phase at my own home and I'm either free-cycling or dumping the rest of it. I was amazed at how many magazines and books that i had kept that i had no recollection of. The only slight twinge for me comes to photos. I love looking through them but can't find anywhere to store them. Especially as they're of family - I don't want to simply toss them in the garbage.



    As for shoes - I had a huge clear out 6 months ago with the promise that I'd not buy a new pair until I'd thrown out an old pair and I'm doing pretty well on that. Clothes was even worse. Hubby bet me that I could go a whole month without having to wear the same piece of clothing again.... I did it.... With clothes left over *blush*.... So that'll be the next thing to go through.



    It's not that I'm a horder... I just seem to buy a lot of crap thinking it'll be useful!
  • A lot of my stuff in our house is actually a result of family recycling.  When my parents  wanted new furniture they would donate it to me or my brothers whether we wanted it or not.  A bitter family row was caused when one brother tried to get rid of a totally unsuitable wardrobe that had been foisted on him.  'im indoors and I also have mounds of clothes given to us by his sister from other family members, again given because they wanted new things.  Result - we have the clutter they have the minimalismimage.

  • This house is full of crap. But you have to look for it. Nothing is on display. I like the minimal look. image

  • George Carlin



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac



    Sorry you will have to copy

    and paste this link but its worth it top sketch
  • Way too much stuff. 

    Some of it is a hangover from moving from a flat with lots of cupboards to a house with only one - there's stuff that has been in the garage since we moved in and never seen the light of day. We don't have a car so it isn't that easy to get rid of stuff.

    I do regularly send things to charity but when I do the OH seems to replace it, especially books and DVDs. Still, now we both have Kindles and iPods with an iPod dock on the way I'm hoping we can start to reverse the process.

    Trouble is we need an electrical inspection and some rewiring. I just dread to think how much crap we'll have to move to get it done.

  • both, my living room and kitchen are very "homely" i have lots of pictures on the walls, furniture etc, but "my room" which is my gym/office is like an operating theatre, i'm far too ocd about things in there, i think its the ex military in me, even if my keys are on the desk it bugs me and i have to put them away, but its only that room, for some reason the rest of the house i actually prefer it to look "lived in" 

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