If You Give a Mouse a Cookie....

Goal:

One cleared out cubby in the Expedit for something Stacy Julian calls Storage Binders. They are a crucial part of the photo handling system I am learning in Finding Photo Freedom.

In order to clear out a cubby, though, a great many things had to happen.

First, to take books off the shelves and sort and choose which ones to sell where, I needed to get down to the basement. I have other books from previous efforts of decluttering my books and they all needed to be sorted.

But before that could happen, I had to be able to get to them and to my sorting surface.

But I couldn't.

They were here, in my son's "video games room."

So, I had to move him out.

In order to move him out, we needed to sell this lat pull down machine over in the corner of the basement by the water heater and furnace:

Got that?

Move the books, move the boy, move out the exercise machine.

We thought we had a buyer for the exercise machine, so we dismantled it.

When he failed to show up to collect it, I decided to store it disassembled and set up the new room anyway. My son helped me and we got it done on the weekend.

That left the former video game "room." It was still completely unusable. (Sorry, I didn't stop to take a picture.)

I stacked everything in the room over to one side. I wanted to take a beauty shot of the recumbant bike so we can sell that too. I really dislike using it.

Then, I could get to work.

I started by piling. I sorted the boxes into boxes of books to sell and boxes of memorabilia. I set up a small kitchen table on loan from my Mom and put the memorabilia boxes on it.

 

Then, on the table where the TV had been, I started sorting the boxes of books I'd already collected from around the house last year. (A local second hand bookstore which specialised in children's books went out of business in the fall. I need to find another good home for them.)

(The white dresser used to be where the black shelves are now.)

Once I had those in piles, and not before, I was able to go upstairs and choose a few things to get rid of and shuffle things about until I had enough space to clear out a cubby. (I added them to their appropriate piles on the table in the basement.)

Ta Da!

Ok, so technically, it isn't empty. That's my cutting mat. But no books. It's empty of books. The cutting mat doesn't count. Besides, it's a scrapbooking tool.

Hooray!

You know, I probably could have cleared out a cubby at any point: physically. I could have just taken the contents and piled them somewhere, anywhere. I really didn't have to rearrange about a third of the basement.

But mentally, that was impossible. I used to just throw things down there willy-nilly to "deal with it later." But I have spent enough time on marathon clean up sessions down there that I just can't do it anymore. In fact, it didn't even occur to me I could have done that until I was writing this post!

That's progress, folks! That's real progress for this procrastinating recovering hoarder.

And so here we have it. My reward. My first storage binder, all put away in its proper spot.

I will make a label for it when I figure out what colour I want to make it.

(Now to get binders for more? I have what I need. Yep. In the basement. That's a whole 'nother decluttering project!)

 

 

 

Linking to the inestimable Jules and the folks who make up the William Morris project every Thursday at Pancakes and French Fries because if creating that cleared out cubby wasn't a cascade of beautiful and useful, then I don't know what is!

 

PS: Both the lat pull down machine and the recumbant bike have been sold and removed. Yes!