Daisy Cottage Donegal: DECLUTTERING

Way back in the beginning when we were doing our renovations, we divided one of the downstairs rooms in Daisy Cottage into two rooms: one becoming the en suite wet room for the downstairs bedroom, the other becoming a walk in cupboard for the immersion tank and to store towels, cleaning products, spare dishes and glasses and all the other paraphernalia that are not “display items”.

I had the room shelved so that order could be kept. However, as the photographs here clearly show, that did most certainly not work! At the start of the past two seasons I vowed to have a clear out. But each time I came to Daisy Cottage with this in mind, I got distracted by finding much more enjoyable things to do, mainly getting out and about with my camera!

This year however, it has become vital to clear out and declutter the “glory hole” as at the end of last season I could scarcely get into the room and ended up buying new cleaning products all the, unable as we were to reach the pile I knew were in the “glory hole”. Practically the only neat thing in the cupboard was the boxes of white towels, all folded exactly as I like them and ready to go. Other than that, well, read on ...

BLOCKED!

So, last Saturday, despite blue skies tempting me out, I set to decluttering with a vengeance. The first job was to be able to actually get into the glory hole, blocked as it was by piles of boxes and other paraphernalia behind the door. Husband was duly called to help me obtain access so that I could see what had to be done.

Once in, it was even worse than I had suspected. The shelves were jammed with all manner of cleaning product and dusting cloths, all thrown in in a hurry as we rushed to finish our Saturday clean ups each week during the season. I decided that everything must be sorted out away from the glory hole and spent a couple of hours over and back between the cupboard and the kitchen table. In my head I was imagining one of those speeded up clips of film, taken from above, with me clutching boxes of clutter from the cupboard to the kitchen table ... cue the Benny Hill tune ...

The table in the kitchen/diner of Daisy Cottage is 12' long and the photograph below shows TWELVE FEET of stuff taken from the cupboard! I counted about half a dozen of such things as bathroom cleaner, window spray, hand wash, etc., boxes and boxes of dishwasher tablets, twenty full loo rolls, and what seemed like hundreds of dusters and cleaning cloths! The upside of this of course is that I might actually have enough cleaning products to last the entire season this year.

Another upside was I found all manner of things I had bought for Daisy Cottage but hadn't got around to using ~ lamps, lamp shades, little plaques, drawings and paintings ~ you name it!

12' of cleaning products!

So, whilst yes, I can be incredibly messy, once I set to sorting things I am a total demon and neat freak (although even in my messy state, I am paranoid about cross contamination and germs. For instance cloths used for cleaning bathrooms must be kept separate and used thus: pink for sink, blue for loo).

And so in sorting out, everything must be sorted properly and exactly. Cloths were divided into types and then each bunch put through the washer then dried and folded neatly, shelves had to be hoovered not just cleared and dusted, boxes opened and contents checked and either put back in the cupboard or taken home, and so on.

Hours passed by and blue skies gave way to night and the only photographs I took were off the cupboard and the clutter that came from it. And still I toiled. Towards the end I really wanted to leave it and finish it the next day but each time this thought tempted me I desisted and fought on. I suppose the thought of having to get up the next morning and face it a second day spurred me on.

Neat and tidy!

Later, much later, the cupboard was sparkling. Everything sorted: basins and other holders containing cleaning cloths and products for various parts of Daisy Cottage; fresh floor cloths and floor spray put neatly into a floor basin; garden feed into a newly bought green bucket; brand new cloths and sponges neatly stacked in a basket; and I breathed a sigh of relief and would have clapped myself on the back had I the energy left to so do!

The before and after photographs below gave me great joy and the joy of being decluttered gave me even greater joy ~ to the point that last thing I did before going to bed that night was to have a look into the perfectly organised cupboard and first thing I did next morning was a quick look in again.