Day: December 3, 2025

And we are off to a terrific start with one 135L garbage bag full of crap getting tossed to the curb. Plastic wrappers, broken bits, old forms/letters, junk mail, busted up drawings, broken crafting supplies, loads & loads of dried up paints, and cracked paint pots. Scraps of fabric, knotted lengths of string, twine, thread you name it. Gone, gone, gone! I also took this time to organize the bins a little better as I emptied them of junk. I have even tackled two dining room drawers that have been housing junk since 2014! What a find. I guess because I don’t store stuff in there I never felt the need to look. Glad I did, as it was a treasure trove of toss-able items. No 8 don’t need a packing pass from 2016. No I don’t need tickets to a work event from 2015. Bye-bye!

There are only a few select places in the house that I have not yet ventured in order to purge us of hoarded garbage. I am here to manage only my own things, and the common areas of the house. Ever so slowly I am recovering floor space, shelf space, cupboard space, and drawer spaces for new, or less commonly used items. If we have a flat spot you can rest assured it will find itself covered in three layers of clutter and junk before you even know what’s happened.

I love having “living room” children, but it does mean that their belongings migrate out from their bedrooms and into the common areas of the house where it inevitably gets left. My kids love to set up sprawling dioramas and tableau for their toys, right in the middle of the floor of a room, and then walk away. Fully expecting it to remain intact for weeks until they can deign to play with it again. Woe be tide the adult that clears it away before they had their second go at playing with their layout! Namely me. I get the abuse for cleaning up their toy dioramas from the floor. It me!

I have one more bin under the side board in the dining room to search, and tidy up before the whole row is finished. It’s the fullest of the five bins in that location. We have more fabric bins in the basement all loaded up with whatever you can imagine. Plus several in the adjoining living room full of various toys. I sorted the dolls, and associated accessories last year (I think?) so those I’m not going to bother with just yet. I’m not here to throw away toys, just junk, wrappers, bags, flyers, pamphlets, scribbles on pages, and broken bits of whatever I can find.

Both girls are almost to the point where they are growing out of the toys they have. My goal would be to sort them, and store them nearly by brand, or category, and save the good stuff for the future grand kids (should we get any, and be alive still to enjoy watching them). LOL Dolls of varying sizes made a huge splash at this house, so I’m not looking to get rid of them. But I do want them cleaned up, sorted, and kept neatly stored away if they are no longer being played with. Clear storage bins are our friends! Use them to their full extent. It’s glorious.

It’s times like this when I need a paper shredder for old documents. Or an open burn barrel to dispose of sensitive financial materials. That might be an office expense for next year.

Funnily enough once Christmas break is done the house will feel emptier almost immediately once I take down the tree, and put all the decorations away. That makes this place feel less full, cramped, and encroaching in one simple action. I like that. Don’t get me wrong, I love the tree, the lights, and the festive atmosphere, but this wee little house can feel cramped right quick with very little effort.

To ease the congestion at the front door I plan to remove the dog cage, in favour of a raised bed, with a pull out drawer. Maybe a shelf/mock head board at one end so I can still put some items on top. Or better yet, a table that runs the length of the sectional couch, that has at least three shelves for stuff. That would actually help out far more. I should talk to my wife about that option. She might actually take to that because we are always at a loss for storage around here. It’s open concept, so no walks to place an armoire or a group of cupboards. I’ll save that idea for later.

I have some 1 L beer Stein’s in my possession that I’m going to offer to some friends after they move, because I was gifted them from an old job, and I don’t drink beer all that much, and certainly not in 1 litre quantities at a time. My younger friends might actually put them to use, where for myself they are just eating up cupboard space that I could use for our kettle, or coffee maker, or silver bullet. I have items waiting to get put someplace more useful than the counter tops.

Small houses show as cluttered so easily. Lived in is one thing, but cluttered bordering on hoarding is another. Oh well, onwards and upwards.