Tags
ageing, cleaning, hoarding, Ikea, organizing, tidying, turning 30
Well, if you have to turn 30, this weekend was definitely the way to do it.
I got to sleep in, and then PH fed me breakfast. He then produced two awesome gifts – A 9 bin shelving set for organizing the toys in Owl’s room (because the pile-everything-in-a-heap method wasn’t really working) and METAMAUS, which is a book ALL ABOUT THE WRITING OF MAUS.
Is that nerdtacular or what??
So I read Metamaus until Owl’s nap time, and then we started cleaning.
In the afternoon my friends arrived and they helped me go through my coat closet, my shoe rack, and (most dauntingly) Owl’s bedroom closet.

You could say that Owl helped, too... if by "helped" you meant "picked things out of the garbage and placed them on the Farm Fairy's baby's head".
I packed away stuff he has outgrown, agreed to donate certain things that I don’t mind re-obtaining for my next child, and clapped with glee as his impossible-to-open closet became a tidy, well-sorted space that my child could enter safely without, oh, say, a COFFEE TABLE falling on his head.
Oh, and the red chair
Moby
and the awkwardly large coffee table
were removed from my living room, which now actually has several contiguous feet of open space for the first time in years.
Then we went out for a steak dinner.
SO GOOD.
So, in the last week we have removed 18 garbage bags’ worth of stuff from our house, destined for either the dump or Value Village.
Owl’s room is so tidy it looks almost barren, but the walls are not – the cross stitches that I have been storing for a shamefully long time are finally in their rightful places.
and while there is still work to be done in the bedroom and general organization needs to happen on our bookshelves, I feel quite pleased with the results.
On Sunday we went to Ikea to use the gift cards that my friends happened to give me (which I’m sure was an excellent coincidence has nothing to do with PH winking and nodding at my friends when I exclaimed in glee over their good choices).
Now we have small, moveable tables for the living room (much better for a small space) and Owl finally has his own chair.
I feel almost like a grownup.
Almost.
Well done you! 😀 Really, that’s great work right there. De-cluttering ftw!
(Just a shame it’s so terribly dull to clean or would probably get done a lot more often, right?)
Yes. It helps to have friends there. I find the random chatter that my brain makes while I clean (trying to keep itself busy) somewhat unnerving.
While I wish you’d taken a before picture of Owl’s closet, I can imagine it… and this is MUCH better.
Good for you, a tough job well done. I hope you feel good about what you’ve accomplished so far.
I wish I had, too. Problem is, it was hard to even OPEN it, and then when my friends did get it open, I was so busy being embarrassed/amused by their horror that I forgot to photograph it.
Let’s just say that there was a year’s worth outgrown baby clothes in a pile, a coffee table standing on on end and leaning precariously against the bookshelf, a jumble of age inappropriate stuffed animals, a breast feeding pillow, a baby bath, a lot of disposable diapers, and more…
Yay such an awesome job! Welcome to 30 🙂
Thank you!
i will take this as inspiration for MY 30th birthday weekend. i was going to just get so drunk i forgot it, but this sounds much more productive, and less expensive:)
Happy birthday, and may this decade bring nothing but wonderful to your life!
PH was going to buy me some ice wine, but the restaurant was out of it 😦
Although being drunk WHILE organizing with friends might also be fun…
Great job! IKEA ftw! 😉
I can’t wait to do some of this stuff, actually. I just need the time. Maybe I’ll try to tackle my bathroom this weekend… Thanks for the inspiration!
The disturbing part about MY bathroom cleanse was that the medicine cupboard is STILL full.
But it’s sort of fun. I made a game of it – see if you can beat my low score. The oldest medication in there was dated 2004!
You’ll win that one! We very recently went through them and organized it all — they were kept in a jumble in the cupboard over the sink in my kitchen, and we had to dig to find what we needed. Now I have three separate bins: one for vitamins and other daily things like Liam’s nose spray, one for painkillers and other medications, and one with first aid supplies and thermometers and so on. The first aid bin is back in the original cupboard, along with a first-aid book, and beside Chris’s many teas and coffee. The other bins have moved to the top shelf of another cupboard. It’s so much easier to find and use things now. Yay for organization!
I really need to use a similar system. Maybe vitamins downstairs, where we’ll actually have drinks to take them with, meds and first aid stuff in the bathroom…
Yay for decluttering! Everything looks great. You’ve inspired me to set a deadline to clean out Mr. Man’s closet. Poor kid–it’s the catch-all closet! Nice work and happy, happy birthday to you, sweet lady!
Yes, we had several closets like that! Talk about scary piles!
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Heh. I just threw out a Neosporin that expired in 2001. 🙂 Apparently I was thinking of you?
Congrats on having more space to live in! And happy birthday.