I’m sure I’m not alone in this – there’s a tremendous amount of “stuff” in my home. Things that I don’t need, often things that I acquired as gifts or on a lark and then put in the basement or attic and forgot about.
This weekend, I decided to go mining through the basement and put some of it to use. I dug out a homebrewing kit that my brother-in-law gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago and set up my first batch of beer — I’ll tell you how that worked out in another 26 days. And I fired up a bread machine that my sister-in-law gave us and made a delicious loaf of hot, fresh bread to go with last night’s chili dinner.
It really is astonishing how much random junk you acquire. I think that plastic consumer doodads are just part of our birthright as Americans.
If you really want to cut down on stuff in your basement, you should just move every few years or so. When you have to take the time to put stuff into boxes and pay someone to load and unload it from a truck you realize quickly which things you value and which things you don’t.
Yard sales are nice too.
Also, I’m pretty sure > 90% of the stuff in our basement is baby stuff.
That’s true about the moving. Not just because of the purging that comes along with packing all of that stuff up, but because if you’re constantly moving you’re probably dealing with a smaller house or apartment and don’t have a bunch of empty rooms to fill up with more furniture.
I’ve told Sue before, whenever we move, we’re hiring an estate sale company and getting rid of everything. I’m leaving with a laptop and the clothes on my back.
We’re going through this right now as we pack up and move 540 miles northward. I made 3 trips to the dump, my full size pickup truck piled full each time. We loaded Katie’s compact SUV full another 4 times and made runs to the Goodwill. We’re keeping our bed and whatever furniture that has either antique or sentimental value, but everything else is going to get sold, donated, or thrown away.
It is absolutely amazing and humbling to see your life reduced to some quantity of cardboard boxes.
On the automotive side, I’ve sold 6 or 7 cars already, brought one to the recycling yard, and have plans to sell at least 2 to 4 more cars. When we finally sell the SC place, I’ll go through the barn and begin packing and culling my stash of car parts.
Check out the Tuna Blog, I’ve been documenting our move there.
http://www.tunachuckers.com/blog
Did you finish your garage?
Heh. My mom had a Simca back when she and my father first started dating. He drove a Sunbeam.
The garage in Tigerville is sided and roofed. The only thing really missing from it are garage doors to make it fully enclosed. I decided not to bother with that, since we’re selling it.
The photographer came Sunday, the house should be on the market any time now. I’ll post a link when it’s up.
@matt:
Why does it not surprise me your mom had a Simca.
Any pictures of the car?
None that I know of, but I’ll keep an eye out the next time I see the family photo albums.
Mom loved cars — her dad was a real wheeler-dealer who was always buying or selling one. I guess he actually had a couple of rented garages that Grandma didn’t know about where he kept Jaguars and other toys.