Decluttering...

I have been storing furniture ready for my friend to move into her new home and this has triggered a bit of a (long overdue!) sort out of the area we rather humorously call the 'study'. I couldn't bring myself to take a before photo - suffice to say there was barely a bit of floor you could walk across, the bookshelf was so overloaded it was risking bodily injury trying to extract a book and there was not an inch of space on the desk that made it useable!

However, the arrival of my bureau bargain find prompted a big tidy up and I have been uncharacteristically ruthless in what I have allowed myself to keep. The trouble is I am quite a tidy freak by nature so I hate it when things are in a muddle and the difficult thing about living with a houseful of people (I may be wrong, but I think especially when they are all men??!!) is that not everyone shares my desire to put books away properly or put the stapler back where its supposed to be or shred old documents instead of balancing them on the shredder for someone else to do...!!!

But I can't just do 'a quick tidy' round - if I'm going to sort it, I have to Sort It!! Properly! And that means going through every cupboard, box, shelf etc and reorganising everything (is this sounding a bit problematic? I promise I don't have a pristine house and most of the time I just try not to look and tolerate everyone's debris!) This is why it took me two days to sort the study - and told I was controlling into the bargain...

I still can't take a photo as the room is still stuffed with furniture which is going elsewhere but it is getting there and beginning to look a bit more like it could be a useable room again!

Don't you always find though, that there are some things you just cannot part with???

I always struggle with getting rid of books - I just love to have them around and so many have life moments tied up in them. These four made it back on to the shelf - even though my boys are far too old for them now but they used to be among their favourites. They were read so often that we all knew them word for word - 'Guess how much I love you' became a regular bedtime fixture as last story of the night (I love you to the moon and back...). Maybe I'll be reading them to grandchildren one day... (not yet thanks!!!).

I also found this funny little book of makes...

Lord knows where this came from, might have been an acquisition from my mum at some point - some of the makes were not entirely outdated but the text is shockingly so. This laundry bag looks like a very practical make (I had been scooping up piles of washing off bedroom floors.)...

but what really made me smile was this...

The assumption being of course that it was clearly an unnecessary gift for a married man, whose dear little wife would be sorting washing for him! My eldest son was rather appalled but it just made me laugh - has anything changed that much?! We don't readily accept that kind of attitude publicly but we all still do most of what I heard referred to as 'pink jobs' (as opposed to blue or purple jobs!!!). 

I have to confess, this little book made it back onto the shelf too!

There was time in the grand sorting for a little late summer sun appreciation...

Bliss!

Sx