Photo by dulcie and used under Creative Commons

The reason this is odd is that our house is not listed for sale, and we moved in barely over a year and a half ago.

Side note: Gosh, have we been in this house for a year and a half now? Where did the time go?

I’m not really too sure what to make of this letter. We Googled the guy, and it appears to be a local doctor, so at least it’s an actual person. The handwriting is a nice touch, nicer than a typed form letter.

Still, the thought of moving makes me almost queasy. I’m finally making progress in this house! I’m getting organized (slowly but surely), and getting rid of junk, and I’m learning ways to prevent my home from getting filled up with crap all over again.

What would you do if something like this happened to you? If you randomly got a letter from someone wanting to buy your house?
Would you follow it up, and perhaps end up selling and using it as an opportunity to make a clean start in a new home, applying all the decluttering and organizational skills you’ve acquired (why not start fresh)? Would you turn it down and continue working on decluttering your current home (it’s not like it was your idea to move)?

At the very least, this unexpected letter has caused me to try to see my house through a stranger’s eyes. When I came home from work today, I tried to pretend I’d never seen the inside of my house before. I looked around, and saw more clearly that some of my stuff was just clutter.
Look around your own home and try to see through the eyes of a stranger. What do you spot that you don’t love and don’t use? That’s clutter, so you can get rid of it. If it’s usable, donate it or sell it on Kijiji or CraigsList, if it is broken or useless, recycle it or toss it into the garbage.

So will I be selling my house and tossing all my belonging into boxes again soon?
I certainly hope not. I still have a few boxes left to unpack from when we moved in!

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Do I Need a New House Already?

I couldn’t think of what to write about. I poked around on the Internet for a bit, looking for any new research studies or related breaking news, but wasn’t inspired.

They say if you don’t like the news, to go out and make some of your own, so I did. My living room was looking dismal. After the holidays I kinda just let it go, and it needed to be cleaned up.

Here’s the before:

Before, originally uploaded by KittyCanuck. (that’s me!)

Pretty bad, eh?

And after some time and effort, here’s the after:

After, originally uploaded by KittyCanuck. (that’s me!)

Psst! If you click through to my Flickr page (both photos are links), you’ll see notes all over the photos of just what all that stuff is!

It took me longer than planned to get to the after stage, as you can see because it’s night in the second photo I had to retake this photo this morning, as when I was about to upload it I discovered that my first attempt was very blurry. I had to go out in the middle of the afternoon for a Con-G staff meeting. I co-founded and run an anime convention, which is amazingly fun, but a lot of work. Our meetings tend to run long, so by the time I got home and got the living room finished it was dark.

I got rid of a bag of recycling and a bag of garbage, and took what belonged in other rooms to those other rooms. That pretty much cleaned everything out, so then I vacuumed and dusted ran the soft fluffy vacuum attachment over the coffee table.

I guess getting a touch of writer’s block is good for me. After all, it got my living room cleaned today! What did you declutter this weekend?

Psst! You can also add your own photos to the Cluttercubed Flickr pool! I’d love to see them!

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Writer’s Block is Good for Decluttering

Many of the ones I’ve found in stores don’t really suit my taste, so I have been thinking about making my own DIY charging station. Here are some great tutorials for charging stations that I’ve found in my search.

Ryan over at the Weekly Geek created a fabulous charging station with some historic flair! He gives a nice tutorial with lots of in-progress photos. He pulled the whole thing off with about $25 in materials, too. I love the look of this one! My house is more modern/clean lines/minimalist (er… ok, so it’s not, but I’m working my way there, ok?) but I might try something like this! I love that it has a lid, so that it can hide the items from view! I think this looks nicer than having them all just sit on top.
Photo by Ryan at WeeklyGeek.

Here’s one with a nice twist: switches to turn the individual chargers on and off so they are not all sucking power while you charge one device. PROD posted this tutorial on Instructables, so it has lots of nice pictures and instructions. I’ll be honest, though. I don’t know enough about wiring to be confident in trying something like this myself, but if you’re better at playing with electricity than I am, you might want to give this a try!
Photo by PROD.

Two Loose Teeth built herself a neat crafty charging station. [Found via Lifehacker]
It’s a nice take on a crafty/scrapbooking style. The bookplates make the holes in the box look much classier than if they’d just been left plain, and also provide some protection for the cardboard box if the cords are tugged.
Photo by Lisa on Two Loose Teeth.

Instructables goes one step further and makes his charging station a truly decorative piece. You’d hardly guess it was functional!
This is another one I’ll avoid trying myself, since it involves drilling through glass (Michael went to a glass store and got professional help to do this step!) but the end result is very different from other charging stations I’ve seen. I’m not personally fond of big orange fake flowers, but this is so versatile you could put almost anything that suits your own decor in the top. I would advise against putting anything too fancy there (a tray of candles, several small figurines, etc.) as having to take several things off and put several things back on would make it annoying to actually use. If you don’t actually use it, it becomes clutter, no matter how cute it is or how much work you put into it.
Photo by Michael Pap.

Have you made a great DIY charging station yourself? I’d love to see pics! Email me at caitlin [AT] cluttercubed[dot]com, or just add them to the ClutterCubed Flickr Pool!

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DIY Charging Stations

My other family gathering usually has lots of gifts, and this year was no exception. I’m lucky again, however, in the my family respects my wish not to get buried in more “stuff” for the holidays. In the spirit of decluttering, I got a few gift cards this year.
I love gift cards! They are easy to carry and easy to organize, which makes them a great gift for any cluttered person, especially ones that are for services/consumables instead of for purchasing more stuff.

This year I was given a couple gift certificates to Red Lobster and Cineplex, so that my husband and I can go on a few nice “dates”. Dinner and a movie, anyone? I’m pretty sure we’ll end up going to see Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. I’m a little worried about Sherlock Holmes, since I’m a huge fan of the original novels and the old 80s TV series and this new movie seems more like James Bond, but I’m looking forward to seeing it anyway.

The best gift card I received, however, was a $100 card for Molly Maid! I’ve never had a cleaning service before, so that’s pretty exciting.
Unfortunately… that’s all they are. A cleaning service. I don’t usually need as much help cleaning as I do tidying up. My house isn’t really dirty, just messy. Errr, ok, so my house could use a good cleaning. It’s hard to vacuum when there’s stuff all over the floor, and I haven’t even swept the entry way in a few weeks due to the hustle and bustle of the season. *sigh*

I am very thankful for this gift, but I must admit that it is stressing me out a bit. In order to use this gift certificate, I need to get the house in shape to be thoroughly cleaned. I need to get the stuff off the floor, off the counter, off the table, and back to where it belongs. I am going to have to set myself a deadline to get the house “cleaner ready”. If I called them today for a consultation in order to use the card, I’d feel ashamed of the mess, ashamed about what it says about me to strangers, and I’d feel worried that they’d think I was trying to make their job harder by making it so difficult to complete their tasks.

Have any of you ever used a service like Molly Maid? How does it work, exactly? How much would you say you have to clean up before the cleaners arrive?

Photo by me (Caitlin)! My cat Dax carefully inspects our gifts after we return home.

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Clutter-Free Christmas Gifts

progress2

It’s easy to make progress when you have a bit of help! Right now, I have two (unrelated) friends living in my spare bedrooms. It’s pretty cool to have room-mates again for a while! I haven’t done that since college!
Since both of them are way better at organizing and decluttering than I am, they are doing a terrific job teaching me some tips (I’ll be sharing those later!) and showing me better ways to do things.

I’ve got some before, during, and after photos in the works, so those will be posted soon!

If you’re in a decluttering slump, a great way to get out of it is to get some friends. Offer to do something for them in exchange, and it’s a great way to get lots done! I personally find I’m way more motivated having someone right in there with you during things that are, let’s just say “less than thrilling”.

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Making Progress!