A couple of years ago, just after the pandemic began, I spoke about downsizing our book collection. Shortly befor that, I mentioned we were getting rid of old electronics. Almost a year prior, I asked about how to downsize. With K1 firmly living their best life NOT in their childhood home (seriously, on a recent dinner here with their partner, it was clear they were *visiting* their childhood room, not still feeling like they lived here) and K2 a semester away from graduating high school and heading off to college, we’re thinking a LOT about the Stuff we have and what to do with it.
There have been many, many articles about why “kids today” — and by ‘kids’ I mean everyone who is generationally younger than a Boomer or Early GenXer — dont’ want the Stuff their parents have. They don’t have the desire or room to house the family china or Greataunt Margaret’s china poodle collection, nor do they want heavy oak furniture. They don’t want to be keepers of the photos of people no one knows because two generations ago, no one labeled the pictures.
And then there’s the concept of Swedish Death Cleaning… decluttering from your life the things you no longer need, so that when you (hopefully way in the future) die, no one else has to go through your stuff deciding whether to keep or toss the china poodle collection or your high school love notes.
I continue to try to downsize our Stuff. Sometimes it’s easy… I found a canvas bag full of curricula that belongs to my church that I didn’t know I still had. One delivery to the church religious education director and that corner of my room was clean! Other times it’s harder… I have at least four boxes of material from the kids’ time in school that I need to go through. This past December, we got rid of two items in our living room that triggered different feelings and required different methods...
The first was a large entertainment center. You know the type… looks like an armoire, and came from that time when TVs did NOT hang on the wall and often had a stereo system to accompany it. We’d purchased it in the early 1990s and it was gorgeous. But by the late 2010s, it began to feel like an oversized item taking up space in our living room. K2 wondered if we could get rid of it and free up more space. And so I tried. And tried. I asked friends and family, but no one wanted it. I called everywhere that said they took furniture, and was told they specifically did NOT take this item. I advertised on local yard sale and Buy Nothing and Free sites. For four years. Then our old, nonsmart TV died, and we bought a new one. The kind designed to hang on the wall. And so we reluctantly agreed we’d tried our best, done our due diligence, and agreed to get it to K1’s partner’s piclup truck so he could take it to his dumpster. As the Universe would have it, as we maneuvered it to the front door, it tumbled down the porch steps and became… well, much easier to load into the truck.
The second item was our electric piano. It was in beautiful shape, we just have zero people in the family who’d continued piano lessons and could play it. It had become a de facto shelf/table/spare seat. But we knew newer models were worth thousands of dollars and a quick search suggested this very model was worth hundreds of dollars. And so it was I ventured onto Facebook Marketplace, terrified of being scammed but heeding the advice of trusted friends that I could successfully sell my piano. I admit, when the buyer arrived I casually snapped a photo of his license plate, but it went off without a hitch. He was THRILLED to have the new instrument, and I was thrilled to have spare cash to put towards Christmas.
The vast majority of what I’m cleaning out these days goes to the annual church yard sale or to my local Buy Nothing group because it’s not worth my time to haggle over payment for a $5 item. But occasionally I’ve got other items that are worth something… Mr. Brillig’s and my ice skates, used maybe five times and in excellent condition. Tomorrow I’ll list those and hope to get enough to fund dinner out.
What about you... When it’s time to clear things out, are you Team Yard/Garage/Tag Sale, Team DonateIt (if so, who do you generally donate to?), or Team BuyNothing/Freecycle/etc? Do you find it easy to let things go, or does it depend on what it is? Share your thoughts and experience in the comments! After perusing tonight’s Tops, of course!
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