More progress! . . .and a question

[honeybunmom]

I took last week off from work and my mom was in town. I got 2, 42-lb trash bags of clothes and toys out of my house!!!! All of dd's outgrown clothing is now gone. The crib set is gone. Our son is still in the crib, but who needs the bumpers and skirt? Not us.

I just accepted a new job and am in the wonderful position of being able to take one month off in between leaving my current position and starting the new gig. My goal is to get everything out of my basement that we do not use. I will take a before picture. The crazy thing is that our basement is finished. We moved in here in October and have not been able to utilize it yet because it's full of boxes. From a 2 bedroom apartment!

Question: Do you declutter (that is, get rid of) your partner's stuff? My fear is that the majority of what will be left will belong to my perpetually procrastinating husband. He has mounds of clothes. And does not work outside of the home. We don't go out enough to warrant all of those party/club/dine-out-at-night restaurant clothes. Every year, my mom gives him a couple of nice shirts/sweater. I give him jeans. And his wardrobe swells. Then, I fine kitchen garbage bags of unwashed clothes in storage areas. Seriously. Along side his grocery bags of unsorted papers.

And let's not start on his books. While decluttering my own, he took some of them out of the give away box! He's so immersed in his woodworking projects/books/dvd/tv programs and fathering 2 small children that there is no time for reading!

Anyway, let me stop rambling. I'd love some suggestions for getting rid of his stuff. Step 1) ask my mom to stop giving him clothes. Step 2) only give him new jeans for Christmas if he's worn out the others. Step 3) - I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks!

[doubledutch]

in the, about, 2.5 years that i've been on this board, i've often wanted to declutter dh's stuff, yet i've never run out of other stuff to work on, somehow! :embarrassed at several points though, i've been a good influence on him. he's culled his thousands of t-shirts and some CDs, and got rid of his entire childhood comic book collection. there are other things he's not ready to work on yet - but my point is, as he saw the positive effects of decluttering other categories of things around the house, the idea became less scary to him. so no, i wouldn't declutter someone else's things, but you might not be as "stuck" with his extensive heap as you think you will be.

oh, on the clothes . . . i've been trying to convince people to give dh hoodies and pajama pants. i'm like, "seriously, that's what he lives in. enough with the nice clothes, already!" so that's something to think about. what does he actually wear/use/feel good in.

[daytripper75]

I declutter non-emotional items of dh's. He tends to be a packrat and has a hard time letting go of stuff. So, I throw out his holey socks and stained t-shirts behind his back. (Shhh! Don't tell on me!) Other stuff I will pile up in an inconvenient spot for him. Like on his computer chair or his side of the bed so he can deal with it right away.

Far from perfect but it's hard to keep head above water when living with a clutter-er!

[Lucy Alden]

I'm wondering if you could help your DH purge and organize some of his items by gathering things for him? For example, what if you washed, sorted and folded all his clothes and placed them on the dining room table? Then once the kiddos are asleep have him go through the pile of jeans (or shirts, etc.). Perhaps, if the items where in one place and in a manageable pile he might be more motivated to tackle it. Sometimes my DH gets bogged done in the details of purging. Gathering, sorting, fixing, cleaning, selling, donating, discarding, etc., etc., etc. It just seems taxing to him. If I handle the nitty gritty he's great about plowing through the stuff. He just doesn't do well with all the little details.

[honeybunmom]

Originally Posted by Lucy Alden

I'm wondering if you could help your DH purge and organize some of his items by gathering things for him? For example, what if you washed, sorted and folded all his clothes and placed them on the dining room table? Then once the kiddos are asleep have him go through the pile of jeans (or shirts, etc.). Perhaps, if the items where in one place and in a manageable pile he might be more motivated to tackle it. Sometimes my DH gets bogged done in the details of purging. Gathering, sorting, fixing, cleaning, selling, donating, discarding, etc., etc., etc. It just seems taxing to him. If I handle the nitty gritty he's great about plowing through the stuff. He just doesn't do well with all the little details.

This sounds perfect for my dh! Thank you. I think I'll give this a try.

[Om Girl]

When gift giving season rolls around...for every new article of clothing for DH I weed out a similar piece that's stained/torn/worn, etc. That way he's got a replacement for the items and he doesn't miss the old one.

(BTW: my DH also does NOT de-clutter like I do...but, I always consult him first before totally discarding things. As I would want him to do with mine!)

[Katie T]

To declutter my DH clothes I pull them all out while he is in the living room and one at a time ask him goodwill or keep. It is a pain, but he would never do it and I don't know what he likes/dislikes, and fits/doesn't fit yk.

As for a big book collection, you said he is a woodworker, I think it would look really nice to have a built in bookshelf/game cabinet in the finished basement. Or nice shelves on one wall.

Way to go getting rid of so much stuff! I can't wait till city wide in my town, my basement will be almost empty! Hurray!

[elsie]

When I want to get rid of DH's extra, unused or worn out clothes, I make a pile of them. I ask him to go through the pile in the next week when I will either donate or toss them. I remind him a few times just in case. I give him a final reminder if necessary before I throw them out. He is totally not attached to the stuff, he could just care less to go through it. The last few piles he did not even look at more than a glance. He knows I will throw out clothes that have holes in them.

[zoebird]

i do not declutter my DH's stuff because i cannot effective evaluate it. what is important to him may not be to me.

what motivated my husband was a goal. for example, we had money for new floors and to have the walls in our home redone (paper down, patched, painted). we'd wanted it for years, he complained about it, and we had the money. so, i said "now, the only way we can really do this is to declutter so that the painters can come in and do the work."

well, while he did procrastinate, he was motivated to do it. i had to keep pushing/encouraging, but i was able to get him to let go of a TON of stuff. and, i organized the 'important" stuff he kept (even though it didn't look at all important to me). then, he knew where it was and it was safe in boxes.

we had the floors and walls redone while we were out of town, and came home to a clean, fresh, rennovated, decluttered house. DH loved it!

later, when i wanted to move furniture around so that rooms could be used more effectively, he was open to another purge because he was on-board with making the larger spare room into a yoga space (since i was teaching private lessons at home), and using the smaller room as a guest room (since we had a lot of guests coming and going.

so, we did another purge at that point, and while i still had to keep him working (he is terribly slow at it), he did do it, and we got rid of a LOT of stuff. and our move to NZ, biggest purge ever.

My recommendation is to think of the basement as a family project. Become excited about how to use the space, and all the great things that can happen there--if only there was less stuff!

create times where you and DH go through items in the same room. this helped. i was cleaning, so he was cleaning--kwim? and sometimes, i would have to shake him forward a bit. but overall, it worked.

So, if you have an idea for the use of that space--that would benefit him and the whole family, he might be game to help you out during your time off as a concerted effort to reach that goal.

[ASusan]

Huh. My husband appears to have been decluttered from my house and has moved in to yours. I see that he's also picked up a wood-working hobby on the way, which is nice.


I agree with the PP who said he may be inspired by your decluttering. And also PP who gets rid of holey/torn things on the sly.

[honeybunmom]

Originally Posted by ASusan

Huh. My husband appears to have been decluttered from my house and has moved in to yours. I see that he's also picked up a wood-working hobby on the way, which is nice.


I agree with the PP who said he may be inspired by your decluttering. And also PP who gets rid of holey/torn things on the sly.

LOL! Yes, but we won't even begin to talk about the ENTIRE bedroom which is dedicated to this new hobby (born out of our total gut-rehab).

Thanks to everyone for all of the ideas. I'll be washing these clothes and pulling out the worn/torn/damaged ones and disposing of them. The others, I'll have him take a pass at.

The basement is intended to be used as an informal living room and we'll make the upstairs setting more formal. We've already painted it and everything. We just can't use it!

[zoebird]

then the goal to convince him of is to make it a *useable* informal living room.

hopefully, it will work. obviously he is a generally motivated person (from what you describe he does do! ), and so if he is convinced of the value, i'm sure he'll act.

and btw, good for you!

[Delicateflower]

Originally Posted by Lucy Alden

I'm wondering if you could help your DH purge and organize some of his items by gathering things for him? For example, what if you washed, sorted and folded all his clothes and placed them on the dining room table? Then once the kiddos are asleep have him go through the pile of jeans (or shirts, etc.). Perhaps, if the items where in one place and in a manageable pile he might be more motivated to tackle it. Sometimes my DH gets bogged done in the details of purging. Gathering, sorting, fixing, cleaning, selling, donating, discarding, etc., etc., etc. It just seems taxing to him. If I handle the nitty gritty he's great about plowing through the stuff. He just doesn't do well with all the little details.

I'd do this, but before he's seen the piles, sit him down and ask him how many pairs of jeans, how many nice shirts, how many T-shirts, how many paintinf shirts etc he needs. Then let him see the piles.