Tag: #decluttergame

Every home is a dream of its owner

If you’re a Baby Boomer, or older, your dream was to own your home.  Owning a home meant so much! 

It meant you were mature, and you could take care of yourself, 

It was a symbol of coming into your own,

That you were serious about a long-term relationship,

That you were ready to settle down and have children,

That you were committed to your job and wouldn’t be looking elsewhere for work.

You lovingly filled it with items you were given by friends and family, mostly big, brown furniture.  You cleaned it at least weekly and took pride in that.  It was “sparse”, but it was yours. 

Now, after the trials and tribulations life has thrown it’s looking a little not-so-clean.  The rooms are bursting with items collected but never passed on to those in need.  Most of your children or grandchildren are not so interested in the brown furniture and all the other treasures you hold.  It’s hard to maneuver around all the furniture and collections with a walker or wheelchair. Your eyesight isn’t what it used to be, and the unseen dust bunnies are gathered in the corner.  Suddenly, your dream is a nightmare and a burden. 

You can change that!  Get someone to help you whether you hire a team of people like we have at DeClutter By Deirdre or family and friends. In an afternoon your dream home will be changed for the better! You will feel lighter and that pride of home ownership will creep back in.

Imagine having friends and family over for dinner (that they bring, of course),

Imagine having more lighting in your home so you can see in dark corners,

Imagine furniture being weeded out so you can walk safely,

Imagine regaining pride in your dream home!

Contact me at DeClutterByDeirdre@gmail.com, we will resurrect that dream.

Throwing GUILT, oh my!  We can all probably say we’ve thrown a little guilt at one time or another!  Here’s the thing about guilt, it makes the guilt-delivering-person and the guilt-receiving-person feel bad. Not wanting to Move-Family-Treasures-Guilt is the pain of not wanting to let go and hoping that others feel the same way about your treasures as you do OR you will try to make them feel the same way and that does NOT work!

Mostly, it’s elder parents who downsize before their adult children downsize and want the adult children to take all the “stuff” they have collected from ancestors before them.  Many years earlier the elder parents accepted their own parent’s treasures because, during that particular period of time, things generally were A. well made, B. cost a fortune and C. it was understood those treasures were intended to be passed down.  So, we have Baby Boomers holding on to their grandparent’s possessions and now they are the ones looking to downsize and give the items they no longer want or need to their children.  Guess what?  The grandchildren, in general, don’t want those family treasures.  They have purchased or rented furniture that is contemporary, sleek and light in many cases: heavy, brown furniture does not fit into their lifestyle.

Many adult grandchildren move frequently and change jobs just as frequently, they are not “Company Lifers” and I don’t mean that “Lifers” is a bad term, it just doesn’t seem to apply lately.  They tend to rent more than own and the dwellings they rent are smaller and cannot fit the large profile furniture of their grandparents.  Their color schemes are different than the muted greens, browns, oranges of their grandparents and frankly, you can buy a new piece of furniture in the color you want cheaper than if you take something to be re-upholstered in a new color/pattern.  AND, the fabrics are different now, a big one being they can be sun and stain resistant, something their grandparents didn’t have incorporated into their furniture.

Trinkets, novelties, figurine collectibles are not so desirable to the adult grandchildren.  They have no space and many former family treasures have no meaning to them.  They, smartly, prefer to have less to dust and keep clean!!  Good for them, let’s join them and get rid of that Not-Moving-Family-Treasure-Guilt!  Contact me for help moving and sign up on this home page for my newsletter.

The key to DeCluttering is to create a Habit of DeCluttering. And one of the keys to adopting the Habit of DeCluttering is to understand where your cluttering or DeCluttering Habits first started so you can adjust the bad habits into new, positive DeCluttering Habits.

What is your earliest memory of a DeCluttering Habit or lack of a DeCluttering Habit?  Was your earliest memory of cluttering and DeCluttering before you were a teenager?  Take a minute to return to your 15 year old self, what were your DeCluttering Habits?  Did you have any that you had observed and adopted or were told to do?  Were they related to just your space or to your home and if you had a yard to your yard? Now think about your 25-year-old self, what did those DeCluttering Habits look like during that period of your life?  Were they different from your 10-year-old, 15-year-old or 25-year-old habits? When did the Habit of DeCluttering change? What are the DeCluttering habits you would like to keep?  Which habits do you want to release?

I have found a person’s DeCluttering Habits are established early and are only changed by a shift in perspective or a dramatic incident.  Many times it’s a tragic, life-altering event, it can also be as simple as someone showing you that another way to present yourself to the world works better than the current way.

To start your DeCluttering journey examine when those Habits of cluttering and DeCluttering first appeared and what caused them.  Then observe how they have changed, or not, over the years. Thirdly, decide which habits would best serve you going forward in your life and make those changes. Believe that you can make a small change right this minute, you can.  I believe in you.

Great Grandma’s China
One of the most angst producing items to get rid of in a home is the family’s set of china. The most expensive bone china was almost a given on all bridal registries and part of the wedding experience was planning a day to meet at the bridal registry at a favorite department store. Now, it stays stacked in piles in a breakfront or on shelves in the basement or packed away in a storage unit.
The sad thing is, right now not many people are interested in grandma’s china therefore it’s very hard to sell china. Unfortunately, those expensive, beautiful pieces of artwork that someone used to crave to be added to their wedding gift registry are out of style. Think of all the familiar manufacturers of china: Noritake, Lenox, Royal Dalton and Mikasa to name a few. There are also grades of china: fine bone china, porcelain, ceramic and earthenware/stoneware.
I suggest getting rid of the heavy dinnerware and use the bone china! Bone china is very durable and tends not to chip like other forms of dinnerware. China is lightweight and easier to handle as we get older. It’s thin and a lot of plates can be stacked in one cabinet.
Speaking of a lot of plates, think about how many you actually need. If you no longer host all the family dinner parties why not keep only the amount that you need for 6 days of meals? Keeping only 6 sets of dinnerware also allows for visiting company.
Try to find an organization who could use the extra dinnerware, think outside the box, ask around to different organizations, you will be surprised which organizations will take them.
Use the fine china, you deserve it!

I want you to understand the gravity of how quickly your situation can change. This is such an important concept that I am writing about it again, 2 years after my first post on the subject of personal control over your items and the importance of DeCluttering while you are still in charge of your faculties and your life.

Mary and Bill were living in their colonial home in a remote section of their town. Living with them were their Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) and their wheelchair accessible van that they needed to get around town.  Their daughter lived 2 hours away and was bedridden, pregnant with her first child.

Colonials traditionally have a small half bath on the first floor and a steep staircase to get to the bedrooms and larger, full-size bathrooms. Mary was in a wheelchair because of some difficulty walking and it had been determined that she should go to a rehabilitation facility to gain back some physical strength.  At the same time, her husband Bill was moved to a different facility in a different town in order for him to regain strength lost after an illness.  They were both headed towards release from their perspective rehabilitation facilities and they decided it was time to move to a permanent home in an assisted living center which would entail moving to a third location.  Mary called me to see if we could facilitate that move to that third facility and coordinate with their CNA’s.

We set up a meeting so I could I meet with the 2 CNA’s to understand what Mary and Bill would need.  Mary had told me over the phone items she would need in their now very small one-bedroom apartment at their new home, but all other decisions were up to the CNA’s and they went back and forth as to which items should be taken to the new place.  They tried their best and I waited patiently for them to decide.

An issue came up while we were trying to get their possessions moved: I couldn’t get in contact with their head CNA, phone calls were made by me but never returned to me until a family member let me know that the CNA had been admitted to the hospital themselves!!  When we went to move the items that had been chosen we were told some of them were staying at the house and some new items were being taken to the new place.  We got the new items loaded up, unloaded at the new home and I set up their apartment in anticipation of Mary and Bill’s arrival the next day which was Thursday.  Friday, I got a call that Bill had died.

Months later I was giving a DeCluttering presentation at Mary’s new home and Mary attended. She wanted others to know what she had been through on her journey to her new one-bedroom home and recounted her story to all in attendance.  She wanted everyone to know she had zero say in what was taken to her new home, her nurse companion made those decisions for her and Bill and neither of them ever returned to their former home.  Mary said to listen to Deirdre, get rid of items while you are in charge.

I hope you will heed what Mary said and contact me if you need help onsite or from a distance.  www.DeClutterByDeirdre.com

ReConnect Live with Family and Long Time Friends.

Here is one of the very best things you can do for yourself, right now, to enrich your life and bring you joy!!  Think about longtime friends who bring joy into your life, think about the ones who make you smile and laugh so much your sides hurt!!!  Have you spoken to them recently?  If not, ReConnect Live with them, today!!  Whether they are family, friends or friends who act like family: reach out and reach out to them LIVE, in real time, no texting.

I don’t want you to text or write an email, ReConnect via live or in-person: make a phone call, Skype, FaceTime, Zoom, etc.   If you had to leave a message and they don’t call you back right away, don’t take it personally, enjoy the conversations you have with the people who do call you back or that do get in touch with you and expound upon those.

What if you called 5 people in a week, for a 10-minute call?  Put your timer on and say to them “I’m just calling for 10 minutes, tell me what’s going on with you and then I’ll take 2 minutes telling you what’s going on with me.”  The following day move on to the next person on your ReConnect Live list. Imagine how enriched your life will be and how many different, life-enhancing subjects and happenings that you will learn about. Perhaps you’ll acquire a different point of view, perhaps you’ll learn some great insights that changes your perspective on your life, perhaps you learn to take care of something. What will happen is you will rekindle your joyful spirit.

If you’re afraid that you won’t be able to think of something to chat about with someone on the fly, take a couple notes on subjects that you want to discuss with them and have a light discussion, nothing heavy.  It can be something like:  did you read about the latest law going into effect? have you seen the color that was chosen as the color of the year? have you decided on what you’re going to do this summer for vacation? did you see what the Housewives did on their latest episode? Respect their opinions without judgment.  Feelings of judgment are the quickest way to shut down or heat up a conversation.

Keep it light or keep it deep?  That depends on your relationship with the person you are speaking with and where you want to take it (or leave it).  Do you want to deepen your relationship or do you want it to be light and fluffy? By keeping in touch with a variety of different people we can be exposed to different points of view.   You wouldn’t speak to everyone about politics, for example.  You shouldn’t speak to everyone about the new color of the year and perhaps you shouldn’t speak to everyone about where you’re going on vacation this year.

I do suggest that you give a chance to people who might want to know what the new color is even though in the past, you generally spoke with them about their child.  Think outside the box, this will help you expand and deepen in that friendship.  Perhaps get together live/in-person to enjoy a cup of coffee, lunch or perhaps a weekend away.  Discuss things that are on top of your brain or the things that are really weighing heavily on your brain, whatever you do reach out!  Talk to people and if they don’t call you back don’t take it personally just move on but keep them in your heart.

Bring joy to yourself and others, make the call!