Hallie cleans house...

 HALLIE EPHRON: My husband and I reached a detente early in our marriage. He could go to all the yard sales and buy whatever he wanted (mostly books), and I wouldn't nag him about it, as long as I didn't have to look at his piles of stuff.

He celebrated this arrangement in one of the anniversary (our 30th) cards he drew for me.

When Jerry died, with my daughters' help I gave away his clothes. I enlisted a used book dealer (of Antiques Roadshow fame, Ken Gloss) to take his sizeable and variable book collection.

Then I went upstairs and stared up the attic stairs into the darkness. And closed the door. I couldn't face it. Not that, or the clutter that filled our the basement. Ditto what was in the garage.

Most of what was there I hadn't touched or clapped eyes on in years. I shut the doors and vowed not to think about it until I was ready.

It took me a year to feel comfortable with--embracing!--the idea of liquidating all of it. Push a button. POOF! Ready, Set, GO!

I made my way through the three cluttered spaces, moving elsewhere anything I wanted to keep. It was a meager pile. A stained glass window, because you never know when you'll need one. A box of old family photographs. Of course. Scuba gear. Just because. It really didn't amount to much.

I got in touch with my friend Kathy Vines (Clever Girl Organizing), a professional organizer and member of NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers) and she recommended a local service, "Clean Out Your House".

I took pictures of the 3 areas I wanted cleared out ("It all goes!") - here's the basement. (If you do this be sure to use PANO on your cell phone to get a panoramic shot.) They got back to me with an estimate which seemed reasonable.

A few weeks later two trucks and a dumpster arrived along with a team of extremely polite and sturdy young men.

Within about 6 hours, here's what that basement looked like. Likewise, the attic was completely empty.

They came back a few days later and emptied the garage.

I feel 30 pounds lighter. And no, I do not think I'll miss the life-sized porcelain cat or the early Apple computer and two nonworking printers or the piles of student grade books from my years of teaching and and and...

Last minute, I did rescue this dollhouse for my grandkids and a box of family photographs. But otherwise no regrets.

My fantasy right now is that someone else's husband is pawing through the stuff in the dumpster and marveling: How could anyone throw this great stuff away?

Have you contemplated a great cleanout or is one awaiting you in the future? Or are you one of those disciplined people who resists yard sales and actually gives (or throws) things away?

Downsizing... giving it away

HALLIE EPHRON: My husband was a collector. He couldn't throw away a pencil that had a few inches of lead left in it, and teabags had to be used at least twice. Stamps... uncancelled? I found caches of them that he'd soaked off envelopes stashed in mugs throughout the house.

Of course there were thousands of books picked up cheaply at yard sales and library book sales and even off the street.

Since he died, I've been slowly and lovingly working through his collections. Exhaling as I downsize.

Books first: I found an antiquarian bookseller (Ken Gloss who's on Antique's Roadshow!) who was interested in taking the books. AND carting them away. WITHOUT ME paying HIM. Win, win!

Here's *ONE OF MY* before and after bookcases.

BEFORE

AFTER (saved photo albums and bird books... the below cabinets are empty, too!)

For the rest, in the time of Covid, yard sales have pretty much dried up. My neighbors have taken to posting photos in a local Facebook group of whatever they're getting rid of, piling it on their front steps, and labeling it: FREE.

Jerry would have loved it... not for giving his treasures away, of course, but stopping every few blocks to see what he NEEDED that was being tossed. He would not have been onboard with my giving away 6 bookcases but I was thrilled to see them depart the premises.

Now I’m an old hand at giving things away on Facebook. In my travels, this posting cracked me up.

So in these unusual times, are you acquiring or downsizing? I do hope you're not dumping your giveaways on your neighbor's steps...  And how's it working out for you?

RHYS BOWEN: I would love to downsize and get rid of clutter but John is like Jerry, he clings onto STUFF! in the belief that it might come in useful done day.

A few years ago daughter Anne came to help purge the garage. It looked wonderful but now is back to nightmare.

I’ve done my own purging and got rid of so many books and clothes but John has 5 pairs of white tennis shoes he doesn’t wear but won’t toss! Uggghhh

This is why I enjoy our house in Arizona. We started from scratch. All new furniture and no clutter. The garage is pristine. Two cars. That’s it. I sent a picture to my son in law who replied,”Who are you and what have you done with my in-laws?”

HALLIE: I'm tempted to send you a picture of my garage but it's too horrifying. It's on my to-do list.

JENN McKINLAY: Declutter is my middle name! Okay, technically it’s Dee but so much more accurate if you add “clutter”, as in Deeclutter. LOL.

My parents were keepers, which is why I think I’m a pitcher. I remember their mail taking up our whole counter and spending an afternoon sorting it for them because it drove me batty.

My home aesthetic is “let’s make it look as if no one lives here”. My favorite hobby is loading up my truck and dropping off gently used things to the local thrift shop.

The problem - Hub is a collector. His weakness – books and guitars. Hard to argue with either of those.

Save me!!!

LUCY BURDETTE: I would say I fall in the middle, a little closer to hoarding than decluttering perhaps. If I was being honest!

When we arrive in Connecticut, I’m often on a tear. And this year we did take several boxes of books to the Scranton library friends donation box. I also tore through my closet and loaded up a huge bag of clothes that I felt certain I wouldn’t wear again.

That encouraged John to rip through his belongings too. But we still have too much stuff.

Probably as it gets closer to time to head south, I will go through the same drill. The problem is, if you have one experience in which you threw something out and you needed it later, that discourages you from clearing things out. For example, if I had gotten rid of this heavy bright sequined top, what in the world would I wear to the Motown party we are going to in July??

JULIA: Lucy, if you can replace something for $25, out it goes. Pretty sure you can get something Motown from Goodwill for a fiver.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Let's put it this way. If you find something, and you didn't even know it was there, how are you going to miss it? Old games with missing pieces, instructions to appliances you don't have any more. Do I need a breadmaker? Gone gone gone. It is so much fun. And there are things we have that don't seem like things, but they take up space. For instance, we just recycled one million brown paper bags. I kept 20. How many can anyone possibly need?

I think it was Hallie's wonderful pal (and now, mine, too) organizer Kathy Vines who showed me the way. She held up a brown handbag, one of maybe five brown handbags.Would you ever use this, she asked? Maybe, I said. Sure.  She then asked: Would it be your first choice? Hmm, I thought. Nope, not my first choice. She held it up again, and said--if you donated it, it would be someone's first choice. It would be a gift to them. 

I stopped in my tracks.TAKE ALL OF THEM, I said. I'd love to make people happy.  

I just gave a box of costume jewelry to a shelter, and they were thrilled. And I donated a lot clothes. And listen to this. A shelter volunteer called me to say one of her clients had a job interview, wearing clothes I donated, and got the job, and now says she's sure it was the suit.

Talk about donation incentive!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Hank, I love that. "It would be someone's first choice." That helped me get rid of SO many of Ross's books - I'm never going to read the 600 page history of one ship of the line in the Napleonic wars - but somewhere out there is a man who will be THRILLED with this book. 

Right now, I'm - not downsizing, but repacking Youngest's stuff to make more space in "her" room - and I'm about to start the shoveling-out-the-remains part of the program for the Maine Millennial's room, now she's taken what she wants. Let's face it, when it's your stuff, it's potentially valuable treasure. When it's someone else's, it's junk.

Soon to be a guest/sewing room!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I did a huge clearing out of books in the spring. The shelves in my office are still full, but at least books aren't quadruple stacked now! I tackled clothes, too, but I still only wear a fraction of the stuff that's left. (Of course, barely leaving the house for two and a half years has something to do with that...)

I do like getting rid of stuff--a good thing, since Rick is a "saver." Most of his treasures are electronics and tools, and I have to admit that they do sometimes come in very handy. I needed an o-ring and some silicone grease yesterday for a fountain pen project. Did he have the exact thing? You bet. 

HANK: And lately I've also been thinking: if I die, someone is going to look at all this stuff and say--whoa. She was such a pack rat. That is so distressing, it makes me toss SO much stuff.  

Lucy, as for needing it later. Hmm. I wonder how much that REALLY happens? What do you all think?

HALLIE: An excellent question! And doesn't it seem that the minute you throw something away is just before you're going to need it?

How are things going in your household? Are you giving it away, selling it to the highest bidder, or hanging onto your lifetime's accumulation while someone else tries to loosen your grip?

Are You Moved Yet?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We Reds have been chatting amongst ourselves about moving these past few weeks because Rhys and John have recently bought a house in Arizona and have been going through all the attending pains (while Rhys is, if I recall correctly, working to finish five books. I may be wrong about the number, but it's still something insane.)

It's been making me think about my own housing situation and plans. When Ross died, lots of people asked me if I was going to sell our 200 year old house out in the country. Truthfully, the two of us had discussed it in the context of growing old together - should we move closer in to Portland, where we wouldn't have to worry about driving everywhere? Should we plan on certain renovations to the old house, to enable us to "age in place?" Or should we take a lesson from Lucy and her husband John, and winter in glorious Key West? (Ross REALLY liked that third option.)

Once widowed, I decided to NOT make any plans for a while. I committed to staying in place during Youngest's undergraduate years, giving her the chance to come back home every summer and every holiday if she wanted. But there's another aspect to my decision - I HATE the idea of moving. Not "leaving my home" - the whole process of moving.

In the past four years, I've helped at least two friends sort, toss, pack and clean houses to ready for the big move. I dog-sat another friend's pup for almost two months when a job change required her to move asap, and Ross and I hosted friends for a few weeks when their house sold SO fast, they didn't have a replacement selected to move into!

Then there's the period before putting you old house on the market. Your real estate agent will tell you every flaw you've lived with for 10, 20, 30 years has to be fixed. You'll patch, paint, hire an electrician and a carpenter, and then, just when everything is perfect... it's time to list the house. Where's the sense in that?

If you're in the early years of expanding your space and your family, you'll find yourself in a larger home with one sofa and two chairs that look like doll furniture in your new living room. At the opposite end, when you're empty nesters downsizing, you have to figure out how to get rid of the accumulation of twenty-five or thirty years of child-rearing. (I admit, there can be an upside to this - when my parents downsized to a couples-friendly condo, my mom got rid of almost every piece of "kids-can't-wreck-this" furniture, and bought herself beautiful new pieces for every room in the new place. Which had pale fawn wall-to-wall carpeting. Talk about NOT kid-proof!)

The more I think about the sheer grunt work involved in moving, the more staying put begins to appeal. What say you, Reds?

LUCY BURDETTE: You get no argument from me--moving is a beast! When John and I married and I sold my little single girl cottage, it took weeks and weeks of carting stuff in our cars. And more weeks of borrowing a van and trundling a lot more junk to the Salvation Army and Goodwill. 

Our last move was a lot closer, but ditto all the stuff. Plus the moving van fell into the hole where the natural gas tank had just been placed. And then I was depressed for a year--even though the new place was glorious. John's explanation for this was that I have a deep taproot. Moving disturbs the root, no matter how careful you are....






HALLIE EPHRON: My tap root must go all the way to China. I moved into this house 40+ years ago from a 2-bedroom apartment and we're still here. I dream about moving and I'm always miserable. I miss my kitchen linoleum. Right now it's nice having a place that's big enough to accommodate visiting kids and grandkids, not to mention Jungle Reds on book tour. Having said that, if I couldn't afford to have a wonderful house cleaner (she comes every other week) I'd be much more likely to move to smaller quarters.



RHYS BOWEN: the crazy moving lady chiming in. Darling Red sisters, remind me never to move again. We decided that our condo was too small for guests, too small for us both to have work space, and we did not like the way the current management company was running things. 

So we have bought a house. This should not be a huge, stressful move. It's 2 miles and only our winter home in Arizona, not like 40 years in our big house in California with accumulated junk. But it seems we've been carrying across boxes for weeks. There was a major electrical glitch ad we're waiting for the main box to be replaced. The closet doors wouldn't close over the washer and dryer so a man is coming to rebuild the closet. And we are currently like squatters with our two arm chairs, no kitchen stuff, using up food for meals and hoping Ito schedule the movers soon.  And writing to deadline. 

So if you ever hear me say move again, you are to restrain me!



DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, I'm sure it will all be worth it, but, oh, what a pain. We've been in our house twenty-three years and I cannot even contemplate the horror of moving--although there are days when I'm freezing or roasting in this old house that I'm a little tempted. If I could do it by magic!! Just out of this house one day and everything all organized in a new house the next! Ha. But my taproot is deep, too. I love our house, I love our neighborhood, and I don't really want to live anywhere else. 

I suppose downsizing would be nice--everybody is supposed to want to downsize, aren't they?--but we actually use all of our space. I don't want to give up a guest room (Wren's room when she stays over now) and we both have home offices. Not sharing office space with the hub, just not. So for the moment, I'm just working on decluttering.



JENN McKINLAY: Hub and I are still in our starter home -- bought 20 years ago next month. It's a small, three bedroom, two bathroom brick bread box with a big backyard and a pool. We think about moving and then do nothing. We can not seem to get it together enough to relocate. Maybe when the hooligans leave, maybe not. We are a lazy people and I like my neighborhood and my neighbors ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ so here I stay.


 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I love our house so much sometimes I worry that it's a problem.  It's too big for us, but it's...perfect. My best move ever was from Atlanta to Boston in 1983. My new employer paid for the whole move. I didn't do one thing, except open the door.  When I arrived in Boston, everything was already put into my apartment. I DID have to unpack some of the boxes, where I found carefully and individually wrapped open ketchup bottles, old newspapers, and half-empty cereal boxes. But ,whatever.  SO I am never going to move gain unless someone else does for me. 




JULIA: What about you, dear readers? Are you game for a move? Or are you staying put till they carry you out? Share your moving stories in the comments!

Does size matter? Relax, we're talking houses.

JENN MCKINLAY

Rainbow over my house!

Hub and I bought our starter home, well, when we started eighteen years ago. We picked it because it was in a good school district, although, at this point the hooligans were still a theory and not a reality, and it had a pool, which was critical for this New Englander in the desert. It's a modest three bedroom home with a good sized yard, but if I need someone I can pretty much yell and be heard on the other side of the house. Yes, this is a plus point for me.

After ten years, we fully intended to sell and move into something larger, not much bigger but with an office for me since I was a paid writer at this point, but then the recession hit. The newspaper where Hub was a music editor folded, and the library where I worked part-time as a children's librarian slashed everyone's hours. Good times. Not. We decided to hunker down and ride it out.

The hooligans thrived and life got crazy busy, hectic with activities for them, deadlines for me, and gigs for Hub. Years passed. We debated moving on and off but something always came up and, quite frankly, Hub and I are both kind of lazy in the whole sorting and packing -- ye gad, we own a lot of stuff! -- department, so here we sit.

But now, we know it's time to get ready to do...something. In a few years, the nest will be empty. Since we move with the speed of a glacier (the ones that cruise at one meter/day not the swiftly melting ones), we figure we need to start fixing up the abode now and we might be ready to sell and make a change when the youngest one escapes us. Why the change? Well, we're both longing to live near water, so we're hoping for an oceanside or lakeside location. But here's the new dilemma - what do we buy next? We have no idea.

Darth Vader bathroom.

We like to rent VRBOs when we travel because you can try on different houses for size, like hats but with beds and junk. On our recent trip to Oregon, we rented a riverside house that was, frankly, ginormous because I got a smokin' good deal on it and we wanted a river view. We're talking three car garage, vaulted ceilings, a hot tub, three decks, a master bath that included a lounge chair, jacuzzi, and a ceiling of skylights that was pretty rad. Oh, and it had another bathroom that looked like it came right out of Star Wars so we made everyone hum Darth Vader's march when they went to the can because why not?

View of the Deschutes River from the deck.

There was a lot to love about the house, like the windows overlooking the river, but there was a feeling that whoever owned it had their self-esteem tied up in it. You know what I mean, those houses that say "look at me I have pots of money" instead of "welcome home". Personally, I will take light and airy, cozy and comfy, over showy and ostentatious every time. Truly, just the thought of walking up and down two flights of stairs to do laundry makes me tired. Needless to say, Hub and I knew right away that while this was a fun house to play in, we have no interest in owning anything this cumbersome. I think deep down we might be Hobbits.


While we fix up our house and get ready to launch the hooligans, we'll keep renting houses to check out places we think we might want to live. So far, Maine and Oregon are in the lead even as we'd like to keep a foot in Arizona. After this last rental, I think the size of the house will have to remain simple, environmentally friendly, and without a toilet that requires a sing-along.

What about you, Reds? What are your thoughts on house size? Are you a the-bigger-the-better type of dweller or a just-enough-space-to-get-away-from-my-people-when-necessary sort?

Rhys on Downsizing

RHYS BOWEN: Hallie's post on Monday, on tossing out spices, herbs from her pantry touched a nerve with me. I am not planning to move or downsize or anything but I know I'll have to some day.
I have a good friend who has just moved into an upscale retirement community. She has a large apartment, gourmet meals, plenty to do, from lectures to yoga to concerts to trips to places of interest. I have to admit it does have its appeal. So I'm thinking... someday. If I were on my own, I might well do that.

And I have recently become fascinated with that show on tiny houses. I've tried designing a few tiny houses in my head but I'm always put off by having to climb a ladder to get to my bed. No way I'm going to do that in the middle of the night!

But then I look around my six bedroom house, each room filled with--well, stuff. And I ask myself what I would want to keep if I had to move to a small space. And the answer is "Not very much." Photos of the family, definitely. A Queen Anne writing desk.

A glass topped table filled with little boxes.

 My pride and joy that is a Gaugin numbered print (and I was thrilled when I saw its brother in the Gaugin museum in Tahiti). A couple of other paintings, but that's about it.

I have become less attached to things as I get older. I could easily give away all my furniture. Many of my clothes. Most of my books (except for my Agatha Christie collection and one each of all of my books). I'd probably have a hard time parting with my Agatha teapots, my other awards.

We were at our condo in Arizona this weekend for my grandson Sam's graduation. One of the reasons I love the condo is that it is only stocked with what we really need. Furnished from scratch. Nothing superfluous! While I was there I sat looking around me, thinking "I could let all of this go, apart from my adorable ceramic man from Mexico and a couple of Native American pots. But then would the Native American stuff even look right outside Arizona?

So I've vowed to start eliminating as soon as we return from vacation in Europe. I've already weeded out boxes and boxes of books but now the time has come for pictures and ornaments. My collection of paperweights that has not been taken out of a box for years. Ditto my Indian elephants. I will keep weeding out until I will become an Eastern sage, living with the minimum around me and meditating..... well... not quite.

So how about you? What would you hang onto if you had to downsize?