The last time I spent in the company of The Divine Sarah (and her hubby, shuddup you dirty-minded sods) was when she lived in her Colorado house. It was a lovely place, and I have to confess I did feel the occasional pang of envy.
Her new place? Apparently, not so lovely.
Of course, what hurt Sarah was that she moved the entirety of her old house’s contents into (I assume) a house of similar dimensions, and she and Dan brought everything with them. That, I could have told her, was always going to be a mistake, because a rule of thumb when moving is that you always repeat always de-clutter before the move.
When New Wife and I moved a couple years back, it helped that we were losing a bedroom (and its closets and its bathroom), so we had to get rid of an unconscionable number of things that we decided we were never going to need again. (Sarah talks of a couple SUVs of stuff headed to Goodwill: that’s beginner activity where I come from.)
What’s interesting is that of course I had to de-clutter bigly, back after Connie died and I had to empty our enormous Plano house (seven 30′ dumpsters… how’s that for clutter?) so I could remodel and sell the place.
And New Wife and I moved into an apartment, she bringing only a couple of suitcases-worth of her stuff from Seffrica, and I bringing only the remnants of the stuff I’d kept from the old house (less than a quarter of a single-car garage’s worth). And we still managed to accumulate possessions during our time in that apartment so that when we last moved, there were many trips made to Goodwill etc.
I might as well have been in the Army for all the moves I’ve made in my lifetime — the biggest one being from Seffrica to the Land Of The Free in The Great Wetback Episode of ’86 (three suitcases, from a huge townhouse in Johannesburg), and the next biggest was the aforementioned one from the Plano house.
Obviously, in terms of stuff let go, the Seffrican move caused the most: stereo set, a thousand or so albums, furniture, 400 bottles of wine — what the hell was I thinking? — clothing, a garage-full of tools and two cars. (Now that I think of it, even the relinquished clothing was ridiculous: a dozen suits, a dozen pairs of shoes, two dozen dress shirts… oy, it hurts my brain just to think about it. And by the way, all the clothing still fitted me, so it wasn’t even that any were particularly old or threadbare.)
Recently though, I’ve learned to be absolutely ruthless in paring back stuff. It helps that we have an apartment that cannot contain anything more than what we have, so whenever we see something we’d like to buy for the house, the first question is always what we’ll have to toss out — new stuff is replacement, not additional. This includes clothing, even.
Anyway, let me just give y’all an example of what I’m talking about. This is our breakfast nook/dining room:
And no, it wasn’t posed or set up, but completely impromptu: I was lying on the living-room couch and thought it would make an interesting still-life pic. (That’s why the side pieces of art aren’t hanging symmetrically, sue me. They are now, though.)
In Comments, feel free to share the details of your most wrenching move. Or just tell me what caused you the most anguish to let go…
I desperately, DESPERATELY, need to. Bad.
My detached 24’x36′ building is 1/3 office and 2/3 workshop and both spaces are narrow paths winding through grand canyon walls of “stuff”.
Stuff that sits for years but after I get rid of it, within a few days I need it.
What I really need is a 60′ long extension on the building….
> because a rule of thumb when moving is that you always repeat always de-clutter before the move.
And declutter after the move too.
A little more than 40 years ago I was living with my starter wife in a tiny apartment above a hardware store just a few blocks from the University. It was an 1880’s building with brick walls, steam heat, and infested with ginormous black Asian cockroaches, which we fought to a standstill with borax. I had just graduated from engineering school and was looking for work; we were both broke and unemployed since my engineering internship expired upon graduation.
A fire started in the basement of the store, and with the huge quantity of flammables and a brick structure that acted like a chimney it quickly spread. Since it was summer and we couldn’t run the A/C (cost too much) we were both sitting without anything on in the apartment. When the smoke started coming in under the door to the hallway we threw on clothing, and my wife grabbed her cat while I got the fire extinguisher and felt the door. It was cool so we made it out and down the stairs.
But the only things we had with us was what we had grabbed. My shorts had all my usual carry stuff on my belt, fortunately including my ID and checkbook. But I lost my entire collection of record albums (LP’s), about 3,000 of them. I had been a photographer and all of my prints and negatives were stored in a desk. The fire burned for hours, and was a multiple-alarm turnout for the MFD, who did a great job of saving the adjacent buildings. But ours was gutted.
The only things salvaged were in the bedroom closet, where the fire burned out the supports underneath and the entire thing fell into the basement (first floor had already burned out) which was full of water from the fire hoses. It contained my camera case, my camping gear, my shotgun, and my boxes of slides (photographs). That stuff all stayed there for three weeks, under water, until they started to demolish the building. I got there and was able to get the crane operator to stop when they hit the strata containing my stuff, and climbed down into the hole and started throwing stuff up to grade level. It all reeked of the smoke of things that shouldn’t burn, but I cleaned, dried, lubricated until it wasn’t too bad. The shotgun receiver (a Coast-to-Coast brand Mossberg) was okay but the barrel was pitted and the rear stock had some nasty mold growning under the pad and finish. That’s all we got out, except for a few albums which survived the plunge.
It’s a nasty way to “declutter”. I think it was Mark Twain who noted, “Three moves is equal to one fire.”
When we fled the Soviet Socialist State of Minnesota to come here to NW Wyoming we took basically EVERYTHING. We had lived in an 1,100 square foot house for 27 years and moving here to more than double that space was simple. In terms of volume, the single biggest thing were my books. We finally had a place in which I could put up shelves and get all my books out in the open. Second biggest thing was the volume of ammo…most of it in .50-cal mil-surp boxes, but some of it still in the original wooden cases. I had bought cheap and stacked deep and haven’t had to buy ammunition since we moved, and probably won’t need to until I’m toast.
We don’t plan to move again, and if something stupid breaks out we aint’ a-gonna run no more; we’ll just be speed-bumps on the road to freedom. But I’m never going to “declutter” again unless it’s something just as catastrophic as a fire. I LIKE having all my stuff.
Since 1999 I have moved six times. I definitely need to declutter and get rid of a lot of stuff. I cleaned out the basement a few years ago but I didn’t go far enough. The garage is getting emptied out this summer come hell or high water.
The books will be mostly hard to do. some will be easy but I have collected some fine books that I really need to read.
I dropped out of a whiskey club because I was buying faster than I was able to drink it. That has helped slow the wallet from becoming empty.
When the Navy sent me to Sicily, my sponsor advised me to keep my household goods to a minimum, as my wife and I would be living on the economy due to a shortage of military housing. I showed up with a futon, a couple of moving boxes of clothes and some kitchen gear. My Late Wife, OTOH, found her needs more extensive. She had a couple of DoD sized moving crates for her stuff.
We found a nice 2-bedroom apartment in Catania, secured a lease and scheduled the movers. It only took a couple of hours, the movers were great, so great that they invited us to a “family” restaurant in the oldest part of town. We were there for hours, and every time we asked for the check, they would bring us another course and another bottle of wine. It was 2 am before we got back and our apartment was completely cleaned out. Not even the empty moving boxes were left.
You see, in Sicily, the movers “de-clutter” for you. All part of the service. At least we got a nice meal.
Ugh.
My first year complete at the State Uni, I moved the entirety of my possessions from my Dorm room back to my childhood home. Everything and I mean everything, fit into a 1984 Honda Accord Sedan, with room left over.
My first home was 1000 sq ft and for me and my then-wife it was cozy. Baby # 2 was on the way so we decided to buy a different place that was 2800 sq ft, it felt like we had just moved into a warehouse.
25 years on and I’m still in the same house, but then-wife graduated to ex-wife, and new-wife and her stuff moved in with me on a crash (need to get out of your old house by Saturday, kind of thing) relocation. And the clutter just keeps growing.
I have no desire to downsize, I like having the stuff and for MY side of the stuff its stuff I use, but the pile-o-shit just keeps growing. Kid’s growing up and being in the in-between of dorms/apartments/etc have seen us become a storage unit for their crap as well.
I don’t really have an answer or a point, we have downsized some things, only to find out we regretted the purge. I’d hate to have to explain this to some kid in Sudan or Haiti, but having too much shit is almost as stressfull as not having enough shit.
I used to collect certain things. Because I enjoyed it. I have stopped. I don’t have time anymore to enjoy the collections I have, and I’m just creating a shit-show monster for my progeny when I quit this mortal coil. I still have my books, guns, tools etc, but some of the KnickKnack items have stopped growing.
Last year on September 26th, Hurricane Helene put 14″ of saltwater in my house. We lost everything. 7 months later, everything in the house is new except for upper kitchen and bathroom cabinets, a few things in the garage, some (but not all) patio furniture. It was a trying time to rebuild, but the result is refreshing.
We got 12” with Idalia, spent 9 months refurbishing the entire ground floor, only to have Helene dump 3 feet of water in the living room a couple of months later. Since we exceeded the 49% threshold, we couldn’t get permits to rebuild, so we sold the house for less than half of what it was worth pre-flood and bought another place on higher ground. Oh, well…..
Ouch! That’s painful. Losing your house because of 49% threshold. We were a bit worried about that while rebuilding.
Kim, this one hit home. I am getting ready to retire and leave the God forsaken State of Illinois. However, once I do retire I will have the full time job of cleaning out our house before doing some remodeling and putting it on the market. The problem I face is that we have collected all of my parents stuff, all of her parents stuff and all of my brother’s stuff who passed away unexpectedly. On top of this mess is my wife is something of a hoarder and every room in the house is full of stuff, some of it still boxed from moving here back in 1996. I just might be in contention to beat your 7 dumpster loads. One of the problems I have is; how do you know what stuff to throw away, what to give away and what might be worth selling.
Short answer: if you haven’t used it in two years, get rid of it (tools might be the only exception here). Clothes: one year.
What would really help is if you move to a MUCH smaller place, so you literally cannot fit it all in.
But I must emphasize this: if you do the above, DO NOT REPEAT not get a remote storage unit. Nostalgia is too expensive, plus you’ll keep adding more stuff.
Uh, that 2-year rule doesn’t apply to guns.
That needed to be said.
My father just passed and he and Mom (deceased about 10 years ago) were children of the Depression and didn’t throw ANYTHING away. They’d lived in the house for 60 years and he had a fully equipped woodshop in the garage.
Oy vey! Massive sale of tools and lumber. I think the furniture will go with the house.