I look around my house these days, and it’s easy to get discouraged at so much clutter! It’s not a big house, as houses go. It’s a fairly basic three-bedroom bungalow of about 1800 square feet, built in 1955, and it’s pretty dated. In 1994 we moved in, and in 1998 gutted and replaced the original kitchen. In 2002 we did the same to the main floor bathroom. The updated version of both is now outdated. The kitchen is large, with lots of cupboards, every one of which is crammed full. The countertop is full of stuff that gets used almost daily and has nowhere else to go. Everywhere I look, I see clutter, even when the house is tidy and everything is where it’s supposed to be.
Our current plan is to stay in the house as long as possible, but for years I have been thinking, surely it is possible to cut down on the clutter even if we have no plans to downsize any time soon. I have made a few half-hearted attempts – for example, at persuading Bob to part with his three banker’s boxes full of school notes – high school and university notes from the 60’s and teaching notes from his 30 plus years of teaching. Several times I gathered them up for recycling and they got as far as the bottom of the basement stairs – but he’s a sentimental soul and wasn’t ready to let them go, so they would find their way back to the shelf. “They represent so much work…” he would say. I would shrug and think, “Well, as long as we have the house we can store them, so what harm does it do?” And there on the shelf they sit today, mocking me.
So, when Susan and I were invited by a friend at Christ the King Anglican Church to come to a talk given by Etobicoke’s very own Downsizing Diva, on January 15th, we said, “Why not? It might be fun.”
And it was fun. Tea, coffee and goodies were available as we sat at tables with members of a Christian women’s group from various neighbourhood churches and learned how to make downsizing and organizing our homes less overwhelming, even if we have no plans to move. The number 1 rule seems to be, “Start now and start small.” There were two handouts – a brochure advertising Downsizing Diva as “Your Downsizing and Moving Specialist,” and a sheet outlining simple tasks that can be done in 20 minutes or less. Tasks such as:
· Clean out your cutlery drawer, tossing anything rusty, broken, or totally useless.
· Clean and organize the area under your kitchen sink.
· Clear out your medicine cabinet.
· Sort the winter hats, scarves and gloves drawer, matching pairs and discarding any orphans.
· Sort your towels, discarding or donating any frayed or discoloured ones.
You get the picture. I’m sure you can think of many other small, easy tasks that need doing in your own homes, that will get you started on the road to purging and organizing the entire house and will give you an immediate sense of accomplishment. The hand-out sheet had the catchy title, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” To quote one of my favourite authors, J.R.R.Tolkien, “The job that’s never started is the job that takes longest to finish.” How true.
There were two speakers, both very entertaining and engaging as they talked about the obstacles to carrying out a project like this.
Emotion is the number one obstacle toletting things go. There are powerful emotions attached to the objects we have accumulated over the years – memories, nostalgia, fear, love, sentimental attachment, the “What if…?” syndrome which, for people born in the 40’s and 50’s, was conditioned by the depression years of the 30’s. Our parents, for the most part, couldn’t bear to part with anything that might prove useful one day, and this attitude was consciously or unconsciously passed on to us. Some of the examples they gave would have been funny if they weren’t so common:
· A bag of colourful swizzle sticks collected from the bars and restaurants of one’s youth.
· Sports equipment that hasn’t seen the light of day for thirty years.
· Would you believe, bread tags. They actually mentioned this, and I immediately thought of a certain yogurt container full of plastic bread tags, carefully stored in a kitchen drawer since our now 47-year-old son was in Grade Two and his teacher wanted us to save them to be used as counters at school.
· Inherited photos from the past. I think of the top shelf of a bedroom closet whereon repose half a dozen boxes of obsolete photo slides, some of our own, some inherited from our parents. Why on earth are we keeping them? Realistically, are we ever going to have them converted to digital versions that can be stored on a computer? Not likely.
· Same thing with developed or printed photos, stored in albums or even shoeboxes, that are of no earthly use to anyone or ever will be, but which we can’t seem to part with because of the memories and nostalgia involved.
When a friend of mine a few years ago moved from their big house into a condo, she had to dispose of boxes of old photographs that they would no longer have room to store. While still in the house, which had a wood-burning fireplace, she and her husband went through them all, fondly remembering the person or place featured in the photo and consigning them one by one to the fire. An emotional, but very satisfying, exercise in self-restraint.
The way to deal with emotional attachment is to maintain a determined, detached attitude as much as possible, honestly asking yourself if you are ever again going to use the article in question. Clothing is a case in point. How many of us have a closet full of clothes that no longer fit, are out of style or need repair, that we don’t like, wondering why we ever bought them and knowing we will never wear them, some with the tags still on them? We hang onto them because they cost good money and one day they might some back in style or we will lose that extra weight. Get real. This will not happen. As Marie Kondo once famously said, “If it doesn’t give you joy, out it goes.”
A second obstacle to a purging project is the physical and logistical reality of actually doing the work. It takes a lot of time, physical exertion that we may not feel up to, and fatigue that we know will result from constant decision-making. That is why our Downsizing Divas urged starting small, building up stamina as we desensitize ourselves to the idea of letting things go, and confining the biggest jobs to periods of no longer than three hours. They offered several tips for doing this:
· Start early and downsize with purpose.
· Break up the work – take frequent breaks.
· If planning to move, declutter before you pack anything.
· Take pictures and preserve your memories in a photo book or album.
· Work with a partner, understanding that their emotions are also at play.
· Ask for help. Hire help if needed.
· Be as honest and realistic as you can.
During the process and afterwards, when our closets and cupboards are cleared of unwanted stuff and we are resting from our labours and feeling righteous and smug, we realize that everything must go somewhere. What do we do now? Donate, sell, or toss? Tossing is usually an easy decision, so it comes down to donate or sell. Many suggestions were offered for both, with the audience chipping in with their own suggestions.
Donation destinations include places like Value Village, Salvation Army, Habitat Re-store, Diabetes Foundation and Kidney Foundation (both of which offer free pick-up), Furniture Bank, church garage sales.
Where to sell stuff?
· Consignment stores can be difficult to deal with, as they are often very picky about what they will take and involve rules and paperwork.
· Auction houses were mentioned. (When we were clearing out my mother’s house, we used an on-line auction company called MaxSold, which was very efficient and effective.)
· Social media seems to work well. When our friends Irene and Stefan were downsizing from a house to a condo, their daughter took charge of selling unwanted furniture and household items very successfully using Facebook Marketplace. There was a recent article in the Star about a woman moving from a big house to a much smaller laneway suite, who sold $8000 worth of stuff on Facebook Marketplace.
· You can always have a garage sale, if you don’t mind the work and the haggling over loonies and toonies that goes with it.
Many of you have already made the big move, sold your big houses and moved to a condo, or sold your condo and moved to a retirement community. If so, you know the work, both mental and physical, that big move entailed. When two of my sisters were planning that move some years ago, both said that it took them close to two years to divest themselves of the accumulated stuff of decades. If your move is imminent and it all seems so overwhelming, Downsizing Diva could be an option, to guide you through the process, help you make decisions, manage the selling, delivery, donation and disposal of surplus items, and make your home comfortable and safe.
Our afternoon with Downsizing Diva at Christ the King Church was well spent. Susan and I both went home filled with inspiration and enthusiasm for simplifying our lives by clearing our homes of unwanted stuff. The next day Susan proudly announced to me that she had already done many of the items on the list of “Ten Simple Tasks that can be done around the house in 20 minutes or less”. I went home and with Bob’s help over the next two days cleared out two over-stuffed closets, which resulted in four big bags of items for donation and one big bag of garbage. Providence took a hand – two days later, the Kidney Foundation people phoned wanting to know if I had anything to donate. Out went the four big bags, which were picked up on Feb 4.
Happy purging, everyone!