Exposed!!

Most of us, at one time or another, have seen an episode or two of the show "Hoarders."  Watching it always makes me feel a little bit better about my own house.  It's certainly not THAT bad!  There have also been times when I have been witness to real life examples of a hoarder's home, and it makes me want to pat myself on the back.  I could never let things get to such extremes!

Having lived in the same house for some 40+ years now, I have often told my husband we should just pretend to move, without actually moving, so we could purge some of our accumulation of "stuff."  With a sunroom addition underway, we reached a point this past week where I was informed we would need to empty out some rooms prior to the point we tear into the existing house to connect it to the new part.  That's when the real truth was exposed. . .we ARE hoarders!

Although not quite yet worthy of an episode of the show, I am finding out there is an overabundance of, shall we say, "unnecessary items" in our home.  But when it comes to weeding through them, and making the hard decisions of whether to keep, throw, or sell, there are far too many things I want to keep.

In the past, I have often called myself a "sentimental saver."  Added to the challenge in our home is the fact my husband and son both fit the category, as well.  An item may have no current purpose, but "It used to be Grandma's" or "I remember when Dad used it," and the next thing you know it has been stashed away in one of the "save it piles." 

Yes, piles.  As in plural.  Lots of piles.  Some of them are orderly, and some not so orderly.  Every once in awhile we get inspired and decide to organize our "keeper places."  The main one is a room we call the "freezer/storage room."  It also houses our electrical box, the water heater, and the workings of our central vacuum system.  Over the years, it has become home to all those items we feel we can't live without, even though they haven't seen the light of day in decades.

It used to be we would store all of our Christmas décor in this room, under the basement stairs.  In later years, however, I learned it was much easier to store some of the totes and boxes in the guest bedroom closet, and leave the rest in a more accessible area of the "freezer/storage" room.  Over time, shelves have been added on all available parts of the walls, and now there are also rows of boxes in front of the filled shelves.

Did I tell you we still have most every toy our children had growing up?  Our daughter will turn 39 tomorrow, and her brother is 36.  But now there are four grandchildren, and it wouldn't be fair to break up the collections of Barbie dolls, GI Joe sets, and miscellaneous odd toys which fill the toy box, which happens to have been build by my carpenter husband.  (Who could part with that??)  There is also a "kitchen set" with stove, oven, sink and cupboard in one unit and refrigerator in another (also built by him).  These are treasures.  But more often than not, they are so buried under the rest of the "stuff" our grandkids don't get a chance to play with them.  Besides, the Lego collection seems to take first place at capturing their attention on most visits lately.

Getting back to the reason I am blogging about our accumulations, our sunroom project is requiring we clear out some areas to make room for the electrician and plumber to work.  This means the Christmas things can't be in either the guest room closet OR the "freezer room."  Because of this, it is currently taking up a huge corner of our TV room.  When it's all piled in one place, you realize how much of it there is! 

Then we move on to the "office" where photo albums and books need to be boxed up for the time being.  Lots of photos, and lots of books.  It was like the "Fibber McGee's Closet" of another era. . . layer after layer of things in need of a new place to hang out. 

It actually has been kind of fun.  I've discovered lots of things I haven't seen in a long time, and lots more I didn't even remember we had.  I've come to the conclusion we have so many memories stashed away, we could live another 40 years and still not get through them all!

Someone recently asked me why, after our kids are grown, we all of a sudden decided to add on to our house.  Truth be told, it was either add more space, or get rid of "stuff."  And you know how I feel about that!