The Words Wood and Trees Spring to Mind

There are two ways to look at a problem, and we either live in a house that is too small for us (my preferred opinion), or we have waaaaaaay too much stuff (probably the true problem).  Either way, I'm trying to clear some of the accumulated cr*p into more manageable amounts.  This afternoon I thought I'd try and tidy up some of the piles of books that I have littering the dining room.  Because I sell second-hand books on both Amazon and Greenmetropolis, there are, literally, hundreds of books crammed into a smallish room.  I have one very large bookcase from Ikea where everything is neatly stored, and a much thinner bookcase where books are more or less neatly shelved.  I've also got a lot of boxes of books shoved under other items of furniture, and quite a few rather unsightly piles of books like the one below.

I usually have a rough idea where a book is if I've sold it, although sometimes searching for the darned thing can take a while, as I crawl around on my hands and knees pulling out boxes, and searching through piles.  On really unfortunate occasions, it can take two or three goes through the various piles to actually locate the required tome!!

I didn't actually get that far with sorting out the books as my eyes alighted on a rather nice three-storey plastic storage unit which has been lurking under the side in the kitchen since we moved in (now almost three years!)  I suddenly realised that the trolley would be ideal for storing some of my craft items which had been shoved on aforementioned bookshelves wherever I could find a space.  On closer inspection the trolley only contained a bag of dried out garlic cloves, a cloth bag, and the cling film, foil and sandwich bag packs, and an embarrasing amount of dust - ahem!  Not exactly a good use of the item. So I rearranged a few items on the kitchen shelves, stored away the cling film and foil, threw out the garlic cloves and thoroughly washed the storage unit.

I took all my craft items off the bookshelves, which left me with ample room to store a lot more of the books on the shelves.  Which in turn freed up two rather nice plastic storage crates (a corner of which can just been seen in the top of the photo) - now in the bedroom holding piles of fabric for crafting, and the space in the kitchen where the storage trolley had originally been is now home to the laundry basket.

Without having thrown out one single item the house feels a bit more organised.  Just wait until the weekend when I have a really good go through the books, then, hopefully, I will be able to see the wood for the trees!

Comments

[Gill]

Having sold a few books on Amazon myself recently, I can see how the books might pile up. Once listed you could be hanging on to the book for months or even years until the right buyer come along! But it's very easy to sell a book on Amazon isn't it, much easier than listing on Ebay, and of course you don't have to relist after 10 days. Enjoy the rest of your sorting out.
Gill x

[mom2fur]

I love it when I find a new use for something I already have! I like that storage rack. The color is very pretty--too pretty to be collecting dust in the nether regions of a kitchen.

[Claire]

Wow' I'm impressed - I have re-organised my craft room and that took me a while, and I haven't thrown much, if anything out, apart from paperwork I no longer needed. I love it when you find things you can re-use. My metal veg trolley has been used for veg, cat food, my craft items (like many would fit on it...) and now ise storing all David's acrylics and tools for his Warhammer stuff he does. All for £2.99 from Kwik save about 6 years ago.....x