Organizing and decluttering the homestead

[milkmansdaughter]

Bee, your shelves look great! I love the shelf above the door. So often that space is wasted.

This is not technically our property but we were cleaning the back property line, and removed tons of junk. In order to clear our line, we had to cross the line to cut back ancient grapevines that were taking down whole trees with their weight. And there's all kinds of old rusty fence line back there, and rolls of barbed wire so rotted it crumbles when you try to pick it up. So much of this wasn't actually on our property but cleaning it makes our property look so much nicer. I was tired of seeing this stuff every time we were back there. And we got some good stuff too (posted under Free is free...)
Stuff we cleaned out of the woods today:

Whew!! It looks soooooo much better! We've still got work to do, but a clear property line is so much nicer (and safer!) than someone's trash heap! There's still tin roofing material (with just corners sticking up), lots of old fencing (that has to be cut out of trees), old tires and more stuff out there, but we made a big difference already.

 

[tortoise]

I finally made a bit of progress here. I purged and organized my sewing stash. It's 2 filing cabinets stack one atop the other. I file my fabric over hanging folders. I have a friend who is into crazy quilts and art quilting. I gave her scraps from old projects I'd rather not be reminded of and cut down my excess useless stash. I just kept fabric I might actually use. There's still a lot of it!

 

[CrealCritter]

Maintaning a ample supply of different varieties of wood is NOT hoarding! I have a sawmill, so yes I have wood up the ying yang and lots of it.

 

[baymule]

I know that exact feeling. I've got spots and areas of clutter that are just waiting a good clean up and taking things back to their rightful place. That's what rainy days are for, huh?

Nope. That's for lying in a comatose state.

 

[Beekissed]

Winter is here and makes indoor time more frequent, so that means time to reorganize and declutter! All those little places where I try to contain my clutter always need thinning out and organizing each winter, so worked on a few of those lately.

Got the emergency kit changed to a tote with a handle and compartments so I could organize all the items there. Took the previous container and used it to organize all my grandkids' OTC meds, so that shelf looks way better.

Got Mom's financial papers organized into a binder so I can better keep track of things and help her thin down the clutter of credit cards and such. This will help her know exactly what she spends each month compared to her total income, all in one place, as I'm making her up a page that shows that. Will continue to organize and streamline that until, in case something happens to me, anyone can step in and know how to help her in the future.

Cleaned up the sheep paddock of tarps, CP and pallets that were sheltering round bales they have chewed their way through.

Winter is a time of putting things back in order, for organizing and also for learning. It's when I can catch up on sermons, articles, videos on things I need to know, etc. Oft times I can listen to these as I declutter and organize and kill two birds with one stone.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

My biggest problem: I flit from one task to an other, and set things down... so I can go back to them again... later... I really need to organize all of my "to do" stuff in appropriate containers.

 

[Beekissed]

We’ve done a lot of cleanup here too. Had stuff laying around outside, put on burn pile and hauled to neighbors dumpster. Then tackled screened front porch. I don’t know why we drop stuff on the porch, but we do. It was getting pretty bad. Over the last month, we have cleaned up the property and worked on porch. Yesterday I hit the porch at a dead run determined to really make a difference and it sure looks better now.

We tend to the drop thing also.....the shed porch, the picnic table and the carport are favorite drop zones for things we are using for various projects.

Eli was working on the tractor the other day and was asking where something was he couldn't find and I told him, "It's right back where you FOUND it in the first place....I spend most of my days putting things back where you found them." He's got a bad habit of just dropping things wherever he last used them and, if I want to find things ever again, I go around putting these items back where they belong.

Then there is me, who has a bad habit of leaving things in mid-project, with full intensions of getting to them "later" but then rarely ever get back to them for a few months down the road.....meanwhile, I'm having to walk around the mess of the half built object.

So, like you, I have to periodically clean up the property, making a big sweep of all the outside surfaces to find all the stray tools, scrap lumber, pieces of wire and fencing, etc. It looks soooo much better when I'm done and each time I swear I won't let it get so bad.....and then it just....DOES.

 

[baymule]

It can’t be all bad about not putting tools away. I leaned a square point shovel against the porch because I was too tired to take it back to the portable building. Then I proceeded walk past it 100 plus times a day, never picking it up. Then Paris and I found a copperhead on the porch! I grabbed that shovel I didn’t put away and chopped up the copperhead! And guess what? I leaned the shovel back up against the wall…..

 

[Beekissed]

After....

...that space before...

After.....

...that space before....

Tarp storage out of a scrap of cattle panel. The yellow tags are cattle tags zip tied to a grommet, showing the size of each tarp. Was tired of guessing the size, only to find out I had picked the wrong one for the job once I had it spread out.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Clutter.... Oh I can't even begin to talk about the clutter. My husband is a borderline hoarder and has zero attention span so stuff ends up everywhere. And my daughter is... Well she's 4. Sigh.