On the decluttering train

This week's little decluttering job is complete.  To look at the space, you'd think not, but I only ever intended to do a small portion of the job.

This week it was the front cupboard.  It's this monstrously sized cupboard in the front entry way.  When we moved in we thought we'd never fill up all that space.  Alas and alack, we did fill it and it was overflowing.  It seems to be a consistent phenomenon:  you fill whatever space you have.

The top shelf of that cupboard has been hoarding and collecting things since the very year we moved in here, a way back in 2005, as it turns out.  Twelve years.  Before I attacked this vortex of stuff it looked like this.

I spent an hour going through photos and kid's school work and baby cards and all sorts of things.  I threw almost all of it out.  I kept the catering/picnic stuff.  I kept a small box of photos and keepsakes.  I kept a couple of portfolios from when Mr Busy was in Prep/Year1, and Miss Mischief was in 3/4.  The 3/4 one is interesting to me, since I now teach that year level in the same school.  Mr Busy graduates next year, so I thought I'd stow that work in case it's wanted for graduation celebrations.  Can I just say, Mr Busy was awesomely cute way back in the day.  He's still cute, but he has such a long, lanky body now.  His cute little 6yo self was so compact!

Everything else?  Gone.  That Linak box?  Full of stuff we didn't need.  Up the other end?  Phone books.  Who on earth needs phone books anymore?  We don't even need them for loo paper (my mother says they all looked forward to phone book loo paper because it was softer than whatever else they used).

The new-look top of the cupboard looks like this:

Most interesting discovery?  A brass plumb line and eleventy million disposable cups.

My organising/cleaning/decluttering "done" list is looking pretty good:

• pantry
• oven
• recycling bin
• desk area
• entry cupboard (top shelf)

I still need to work on the dining room.  And then I need some major storage overhauls to happen, in the form of shelving for the bottom section of that front cupboard.