You know all those times over the past couple years when I said I was decluttering? It appears I may have decluttered a little TOO much. I am trying to find stuff to use to stage my house and it appears that we own only a very small number of trinkets tchatchkes crap that has no purpose beyond sitting around collecting dust decorative items.
So for the past few days, I have been shopping. I swear, I am actually hemorrhaging money over here and it isn’t really that much fun. And still, there are more things I would like to have. For example, why don’t we own any coffee table books? Shouldn’t we have a couple with pictures of China or San Francisco? And why don’t I own any flower pots? Answer: because when the flowers died in them, I threw the pots away.
I even went scrounging around the basement and all I found there was an ugly buddha statue (no), some Cambodia wedding dolls (no), a wooden mask that I think is from Hawaii (no) and what appears to be an ashtray carved from some kind of rock (Uh, no.) I had to suppress the impulse to give all those items away to goodwill too. Actually, I am going to give most of that stuff away, but right now I have bigger priorities.
As for the food challenge, we are still plugging away at it. We are mostly out of fresh fruit (except for apples), but we have some frozen stuff. We are down to a head of cabbage, two heads of broccoli and a ton of carrots in the veggie drawer. And a bag of potatoes. We still have a bunch of meat and some canned and frozen stuff left that should probably help us make it at least another week.
Breakfast: Coffee. Based on what is missing from the fridge, I am guessing the girls ate banana sticky rice.
Snacks: L ate goldfish crackers and raisins. M ate some goldfish too. Tonight I made cookies, so we will have some tasty but unhealthy snacks on hand tomorrow.
Lunch: L would only eat part of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I had that and some canned ravioli.
Dinner: Turkey sandwiches (from the turkey I made about a month ago and froze), canned beets, cooked carrots.
I’ve shopped for many a useless staging item at Homegoods lately. Steinmart works too–they were my throw pillow connection. Both were considerably cheaper than Target. I’ve sewn a little too, and have repurposed everything lately. You can always get coffee table books at the library–no one will look closely enough to see that they aren’t yours.
Our realtor pays for a staging consultation for houses in our price bracket. I’ll pass any pearls of wisdom on.
I love the vintage category on Etsy for trinkety crap. And I would try thrift stores for coffee table books if you don’t care what they’re about.
I can send you some coffee table books (that I am trying to declutter in my latest spring cleaning effort). I’ll send them media mail later today if you like. I can even send you some (gulp) loathsome ART coffee table books if that would help in your staging efforts.
HA! I had to smile right now — it’s only at times like these that being a pack rat and having a lot of stuff is helpful
I do give away TONS of stuff, but it’s usually mostly usable stuff like small kitchen gadgets, bedding, clothes, baby gear, clothes, etc. In fact, I love giving away so much that I’ve never done a tag/garage/yard sale (we HATE them too — K loathes old stuff from other people and ours too). Anyway, this year we might have some dear friends do a yard/garage sale for us because moving to an apartment won’t be very easy…
Good luck with everything. And let me know what you thought about the photos (before/ after, renovation)…
If you want to own some coffee table books, do you have a Borders near you? I just quit working there in January, and they always have those kinds of books in the bargain section for great prices. There’s a great Klimt one there now for $19.99. Also, reading this made me think of the library on the last base we lived on…they had these framed works of art that you could rent. No joke. I wonder if other libraries do this? Might be worth checking out, unless you really just want to purchase wall art for yourself (which is also nice, and I suggest Etsy.)
You and Dawn have inspired me to meal plan, btw. Not sure how it will go, but here’s hoping!
For my version of the challenge, once I run out of produce, I’m allowed to buy more produce but nothing else (no dry goods, no sauces or condiments or spices, no other items at all)–and only enough produce to make specific meals to use up the stuff in the cupboards. Maybe that would work for you too as an extension if you still have more stuff you want to use up?
I think you should splurge and get a nice book about China or San Francisco, or whatever interests your family. I don’t think they are really that expensive, especially if you find one on sale or on Ebay. I remember being entranced with my parents’ art books and looking at them over and over, so they are worth the money.
Do you really need to stage your house?
Our realtor never mentioned doing anything like that. She had us move some furniture around and, obviously, clean up, but nothing involving “stuff.” Granted it was almost two years ago, but the market was already pretty bad in MI at the time.
Good luck with the move–hope everything goes smoothly!