Decluttering: Abundance and Memories

It's getting to be spring, plus my mother will be visiting in a week or so. Time to declutter.

I live in a little house that is almost 100 years old. There's little storage space and what there is is ad hoc. Not only do I not have a linen closet, but I don't have a real laundry area. The washer and dryer are in a small closet off a hallway. My linen storage is above, on shelves. It's a good thing I don't iron, because there's no place to do it.

Experts say to start with what bothers you the most. Because my house is small and I have so little storage space, things reach a critical mass with unsurprising regularity. Well, the laundry area has gotten so bad that I had to avert my gaze.

Mr. FS built a small storage area off a little building in our yard. It used to be a kindergarten. Mr. FS has claimed that as his study. He says the storage area is mine, however.

One rule of organizing is to only have things you use regularly in prime space. Well, all the storage in my house is "prime," owing to its scarcity. So I now have boxes to go in the storage shed.

Even though the process is a painful one for a clutterbug like me, I had an emotional afternoon. There were the tin soldier quilt covers my kids used; there was the beautiful baby quilt my old friend made for my son; there were the dancing duck pillow cases my son loved; there was the Japanese shibori fabric I bought at a fundraiser before Katrina that was donated by neat people who moved away; there was the old table cloth from the 40s that I bought at a yard sale when I was in graduate school; there were the toile sheets with hidden cherubs that fascinated my children when they were little. There was the Marimekko fabric I bought in Finland when I was 18 (shout out to Metscan). For a few years, it served to hide my doorless closet in college. That's just for openers.

I hope you don't think I'm getting rid of any of this. I see though that I won't need to acquire anything for a while. What wonderful things I found!

P.S. I did find a few things to donate.