sorting

We spent most of the weekend going through Zac's nanna's things with the rest of his family. She didn't have a lot of clutter but it's amazing how much stuff is in one small house. There were several large boxes filled with family photos and other keepsakes of that kind, we inherited an organ, a record player and large speakers, a dining room table, wardrobe, night table and kitchen pantry shelving unit (as well as lots of little bits and pieces like some of her Melbourne demons things, kitchen bits and pieces and other little things that remind us of nanna. there's still a LOT of stuff that will be heading off to the op shop even with everyone else taking some of the bits an pieces (we're the only ones who could really take much of the furniture but it's only a few pieces of what’s in the house).
after the amount of sorting we did there it re-motivated me (I would have thought I'd be over it) to do what I've been procrastinating doing this whole 6 week-- organize our house (and now I only have a week left to do it). We have soooooo much clutter and junk that's piled up over the 7 years we've lived here (nanna had lived in her house more than 60 years and I’m sure our junk amounts to a lot more than hers). I had to do a lot of sorting, reorganizing and throwing away in our kitchen just to make the new pantry and table fit. Our spare room (aka "the junk room") is getting fixed up so it's a usable spare room for guests and music room. we've taken a few bags of our stuff to an op shop and I’ve got an old record player and some shelves sitting out front with a free sign hoping someone takes them (otherwise I’ll try freecycle or just make another trip to the op shop).
I’ve started to realize a lot of that stuff that we save because maybe one day it'll be useful just ends up taking up space and never being useful. I think I’ve gotta get better at getting rid of things we don't need (I have issues with throwing things away, even if they're pretty useless to anyone). Hopefully by the time I go back to work next week I’ll be coming home to a nice organized, de-cluttered house.