yard sale prep
a week from today i'm planning on having a yard sale. (that's saturday, june 23.)
i'm going through each room in the house and trying to evaluate each item i see. is that thing worth the cost of transporting it across the country? or could i get $10 for that at a yard sale?
since the moving company charges by the pound, i'm trying to be pretty aggressive. books i haven't opened in years go straight into the yard sale pile. i have a huge collection of VHS tapes that i haven't watched in ages... into the sale pile.
already i've made a couple of passes through the living room. on the first pass a lot of decorating books made the "move to oregon" pile. then on the second pass i thought, "hell, i can get most of that information from HGTV," and i moved them into the sale pile.
it's weird looking at my life this way.
posted by christa @ 6/16/2007 08:40:00 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
you should have seen the dumpster area the weekend we moved.
it was MADNESS. Baby beds, chairs, tons of crap.
Good luck, good luck!
I've been steadily purging for four years (having done a variety of occasional purges/accumulations from 1987 until then). It can be slow. I don't envy you for needing/trying to do it quickly.
For some people (like me) and some items (anything that I ever loved or hoped to love having), a little bit of ceremony can help make parting easier. "Dear pile of LPs [or box of Japanese laquerware, or closetful of camping equipment]. Thank you for being with me for all these years. I will keep some of you in my memories. And I am happy that all of you are now going to a new home that will love you, too - perhaps even more. Mwah! Farewell!"
For other items, it's more like, "Augh! Why did I EVER acquire you? And why are you so damned heavy?!" That's when friends (and yard sales, and dumpsters) come in happily handy, I think. Oh, and lots of time. That's handy, too.
By the way -- if you discover you need to put your hands on a bunch of cheap labor, last minute (for cleaning, carrying, or cleaning), ping me and I'll point you to the right folks at Urban Ministries of Durham. Their last-minute-labor has saved my ass several times (and the asses of some friends who were moving out of town, too.)
Need help? Call your friends!
I have to agree with Phil...Parting with certain stuff may need a ceremony (or an exorcism!) From my own knothole, moving from a 3 BR 1750 Sq. Ft. house to a 41-foot boat made see what's important and what isn't. Yes, I do have a storage unit for the irreplaceable family heirlooms, and even half of those are now history. But Christa, you're not moving to Portland for your STUFF, you’re moving there for YOU. That being said, yes, there is certain 'stuff' that you can't buy at Goodwill or Target, or the local antiques shop, so by all means do hang onto that. Just don't lose sight of you! (BTW...you ROCK! - Hang in there)
After Fran, I decided to clean out my closets. I must have taken about 9 boxes to the dumpster, and about 3 more to Goodwill. I saved a few things to pass on to friends and family. It still cracks me up that when I was going through all this stuff in October 1996, I came across 2 boxes that were still taped up from my move across the country. In August 1993.
BTW, if you have any plans to sell a dresser or chest of drawers, let me know!
Reading Cat and Jenni E's posts, I'm getting a clearer memory of one reason I had so much stuff: I lived by myself in a 1600 sf. house. There was space to fill (empty closets look weird to me), and no reason not to keep stuff.
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