Life Changes - Reorganising when they’ve flown the nest
A lot has changed in the last 30 odd years. I arrived at Kings Cross Station with one suitcase aged 18, where I was met by my sister and her husband who drove me to Kingston Polytechnic. I’ve now come full circle where the last of my children have left the nest.
Through the renting, buying, buying abroad, three kids, pets and a vinyl collector/music enthusiast husband, we’ve accumulated an awful lot of ‘stuff’! Which is all fine, but it all needs to be reviewed at regular intervals to ensure we know what we have, so we can enjoy our space and all our possessions. And moving on items which are no longer needed.
The first thing I did was enlist the help of my sister! It’s so much easier to commit to the organising/ decluttering task with help. Someone to work alongside you, so dedicated time is set aside and progress monitored - it’s pretty overwhelming otherwise and a bit boring! This way it was fun, with plenty of laughs along the way!
We took photos of each space, this not only allows you to compare before and after but you see different things in a photo.
We tackled my daughter’s room before she left for university, and worked with her to sort each area. As you can imagine there was a substantial amount of clothes! Cancer Research and Trinity Hospice benefitted from the ones she no longer wanted (many had been bought in charity shops in the first place). Some she sold on depop.com for a bit of extra cash.
We reviewed her books/ papers/photos. It was fun finding those ‘I love you’ notes from current friends from when they were in Reception Class at Pelham Primary School! A box was kept of ‘memories’ but a lot was discarded - it’s interesting that when time goes on and if you review say every few years, you realise some things are less important and can be moved on.
I won’t take you through each area of the house but the biggest challenge was the loft. We had a loft conversion about 7 years ago, so it was cleaned and sorted at that point. We now only have the eaves off one bedroom - but it’s quite incredible how much ‘stuff’ fitted in there! We went through everything and now I have clear areas for sentimental items, Christmas decorations, ski wear (which takes up a surprisingly amount of room with 5 of us) all now vacuum packed and stored in the largest suitcases we rarely use, camping equipment, and lastly the variety of suitcases we do use on a regular basis and used to be a nuisance to pull out.
Job done and I honestly feel so much better knowing our house and contents are in an orderly state - I really don’t want to leave my clutter for the ‘kids’ to sort out and deal with.
I’ll go into detail about the rest of our house and our home in Brittany in subsequent blogs, thanks for reading. I’d be interested in any feedback, your experiences or comments you may have?
Alex, Sisters Tidy Space