A ridiculously complicated set of events led to Miss B choosing a large stack of books from her brother's shelf. They were mostly non-fiction books about animals, science and the environment, and they were slightly too tall and significantly too numerous to fit on her book case.
A sane person would have removed a few titles she'd moved beyond or stacked the books elsewhere. I hope you know me well enough by now to realise I am not that person. I took it as a chance to work with Miss B and stage a sort out of massive proportions. One that took 7 hours and counting.
Every single book came off the shelves. B sorted them into Keep and Give Away. I sifted again, removing the ones laden with memories to go in the keepsake box and dividing the rest into charity shop and those to pass on to others.
Books sifted, we moved on to the clothes. Every item of clothing in the wardrobe, cupboards and drawers joined the pile on the bed. From coats to knickers we looked at every single item. Did it fit? Did she like it? Did she wear it? Being a lucky recipient of many hand-me-downs, Miss B has an extensive wardrobe. It took AGES to sort. We had items to keep, items to bin, clothes I could use for my craft projects (more of that later...) clothes to sell at the Nearly New Sale next week, things to give to friends and many bags of charity stuff.Then we tackled the soft toys, dolls and fancy dress boxes. I washed all the outgrown costumes ready to take to the Nearly New Sale, which is why my washing line looked rather fabulous today. The black and green witch dress in the middle will be B's Hallowe'en costume this year but the rest can go. B wanted to keep the animal, pirate and the doctor outfits. Old school feminist that I am, I love that the pirate and doctor stayed when she discarded the princess dresses."It's always handy to have some costumes to hand, in case you want to do acting," said my wise 7 year old.
To be honest the room looks worse now than when we started. I think it will take another 3 hours at least to get everything sorted and labelled. However, there is space on the book shelves for new acquisitions, a crate of craft kits sorted and easily accessible and some space in the formerly bulging wardrobe.
It's not the end, but I can see it from here!
J x
Its amazing how one little move can be the catalyst for a whole house sort out....we found a box of books in the hall today that were the result of our last big shuffle over the summer - must send them on their way now!
ReplyDeleteThe sorting the hall thing catalysed a sorting our bedroom thing, which will cause a sorting the sewing room thing..... wish we'd never started now!