Blog-Land Bugs

When I said yesterday that I had caught a bug in Blog-Land and hinted that the bug might keep me from the computer, I inadvertently misled some of you, for which I apologise.  

You see, there is nothing wrong with the computer, nor with our connection, nor even with Blogger itself (though I know it has been behaving in a somewhat sulky and irrational way for others out there...)  

The bug I caught was the 

30-Day De-Clutter.

(Dad - if you're reading this, pick Mum up off the floor!)

I read about this on Joanna's blog, who had seen it on Lorraine's blog,

who'd read about it on Floss' blog,

who'd seen the original post by

A Thrifty Mrs. And Blog-Land is teeming with others setting about an autumnal-pre-Advent tidying even without having signed up to the De-Clutter, so I'm sure it's contagious - LovelyGrey has even been sorting her knicker drawer!

Basically, over the course of 30 days you find three things a day to get rid of.

These items can be sold, donated, given to friends or recycled, but by the end of the 30 

days they must have, like Elvis, left the building.

I began the day before yesterday with a de-clutter of the drawers of the sideboard in the dining room...

...and then the little two drawer chest that sits on the landing.

Mostly these drawers contained tablecloths, napkins, pillowcases and guest towels, so it was pretty hard to find anything to eject.  

From my Mum's selection of pretty guest towels originally.  Tiny, tiny cross-stitch!

This tablecloth always used to grace the table for birthday parties when I was a child.  Patched and stained it may be, but it evokes such happy memories, I can't part with it!

This one reminds me of when I lived in Richmond close to Kew Gardens.  We could see the Pagoda from the back bedroom and the bathroom.

After neatly re-piling all the lovely linens back in the drawers I did manage to find a pair of wooden ducks and a little coaster that I have no use for, so that was my first three items, all heading to the charity shop.

Yesterday, I completely emptied the airing cupboard and began a massive sort out of what had lain within. 

I found a seriously nasty pair of curtains with no vintage charm whatsoever to get rid of (is that one item or two?) and a navy blue box-pleated single bed valance to send to the charity shop, a pillowcase that had both lost its partner and been indelibly marked when the eldest of the brood had his wisdom teeth out (bin for that then, so doesn't count) and two duvet covers, one of which can be sent to the charity shop and the other which has already been recycled into about forty dusters, so that was the day's tally achieved.

But the best bit of the De-Clutter so far has been the re-organisation that it encouraged.  Normally the airing cupboard is jammed full of stuff, but it's devilishly hard to find what you require.  

So today I set about making 'bedding bundles'.  Each bundle comprises bottom sheet, top sheet or duvet cover and pillowcases (2 for single bundles, 4 for double).  Some of the 'sets' are mismatches as (being a bit of a bed linen magpie) I do have lots of embroidered pillowcases and sheets that don't 'go' with anything else, but look nice combined with other bits.

Then I used gift-wrapping ribbon to ensure my bundles stay together and are easily identified.

One bit of ribbon for single bundles, two bits of ribbon for double, three for King-size, and two of different colours for twin.  

I'll put a drawing pin in the back of the door for the ribbon of sets that are in use, otherwise the system will fail within a matter of months!

The pretty blue flowers are on a beautiful vide-grenier find from last year, an enormous heavy linen sheet.

My airing cupboard now looks like one belonging to a bit of a control freak, but I am deeply satisfied!


Today the onslaught continued with the nightmare cupboards in the corners of the kitchen and utility room, which contained mostly baking tins, bowls and cooking paraphernalia.

Hmm!  I think there are more tins than I am ever likely to need here...

Ditching tins that have lost their loose-bottoms got rid of some bulk into the recycling bin, then a weeding of duplicates, near duplicates and never used items (charity shop bound), plus a Juicing machine, mandolin and pasty maker that I'll try to pass on to other people meant that one cupboard is now empty, and everything for baking is now in one place.  I definitely exceeded the tally today, but I'm not hanging onto things for the sake of keeping in line with 3-a-day!

Heading for new homes...

This is tidy - honest!

Anyway, I'll try to spare you from too many posts about the 
de-cluttering process,  even though I am sure to continue to be very enthusiastic about it!  Who knows I might even have a neat knicker drawer soon...