Thank you for all the bed bug wisdom and sympathy! I deleted a few things here and have moved on to my own mess. The bed bug professionals are up in Salem today, taking care of business and my sister is here visiting. It’s a beautiful fall day.
You might be shocked to know that this disarray of fabric is AFTER giving away about 25 LARGE bags of fabric over the course of the last two years. Furthermore, the picture above shows only three of six shelves. Further, there are seven dressers with their drawers full and bins on the floor!!
This is to the right of the picture above. That glorious paper shelving was a garbage pick. Over the years I have found so many wonderful things on the curb, but this bed bug event of my sister’s may have forever changed my view on that, sad to say.
These shelves were thrown up the week we moved in as temporary storage. They’ve been useful for twenty plus years. But I had K remove these two so that I could move in a dresser from the garage. This killed two birds with one tiger saw — making more space in the basement AND the garage.
All empty!!! When did less start to feel so good?
There is the ‘after’ shot. Not a huge “TA DA!”, but something.
Enjoy the day! I plan to.This book will occupy some of my morning. Pad and paper the rest. We are going back to 1744 – the year of Eliza’s marriage to Charles Pinckney. Hmmmm, I wonder what she wore…
WOW! Don’t those empties feel grand?!! To see all of this cloth and to know what magic you create from it…ah, what an artist you are Dee. Did you see the file storage my sister posted on my FB page? Almost too sterile to get the juices flowing. Have a fun time in 1744. 🙂
empties ARE grand! I haven’t seen the storage file you’re talking about yet. will look later. Off to buy a heating pad for my sister. Not sure what happened to the existing one. And can’t find the spare.
Congratulations on a daunting job undertaken….sometimes that’s the hardest part for me.
I too, would like to know what Eliza wore. The embroideries of that time are so beautiful.
It’s hard to start and when there’s this much it can be hard to keep going, too.
Eliza married Charles five months after he buried his first wife so I’m thinking it might have been somewhat low key (but still silk with unbelievable embellishments).
a friend who grew up in South Africa said there was never any flotsam and jetsam left out on the streets like there is here in Australia, everything got used…
Well they changed the bins in my city so less is visible these days, but I have been astonished at what people throw out.
I was trying to ever so gently nudge this concept of decluttering into a recognition of this being such a first world problem… in the barriadas on the outskirts of the cities in so much of our world everything gets used & reused
Oh I get it.
We shop too much, buy too much, save too much, needing more closets and bigger houses and garages… it truly is obscene…. all the time and money and energy for stuff, stuff and more stuff — most of which we don’t need… while the rest of the world?!!
And the fact that it’s a first world problem, doesn’t, on a domestic level, make it LESS of a problem.
Congrats on your progress…in my world any inch of clean surface demands a celebration!
A few yrs back, visiting my sister in Boston after she had a bed bug scare, upon arrival she put the suitcase in a giant ziplock (I’d been instructed to bring my clothes in ziplocks) & made me strip out of my airplane clothes in the hallway of her bldg!
we are using giant black garbage bags — one use only! — and changing in her foyer, my garage.
7 dressers full of fabric! That sounds like one of my dreams where I discover a new room and it’s sometimes also filled with treasure. I’ll be dreaming about your garage tonight! xo
have fun!~ let me know what you find!!
Bravo for the great sense of bringing your sister away and letting the professionals get it done! Bravo for making a stab at your own accumulation. I’m sure you know I share the disease. I have the additional scourge of an aged rental apartment, no helpers, no funds to hire any one, much less energy and ability, and an unfriendly landlord who would be only to happy to let the place collapse around me or for me to just move on. Truthfully, if I could move on I would, taking less than 1/3 of what is still stored here in five small rooms and never looking back. I no longer consider treasure any thing on the street. Though decades ago we all furnished our apartments from there. Life is a series of letting go’s seems to me. What a relief each absence can be. Bless your good heart again, and your sister’s too.
I’m feeling your plight. My sister has ONE room, basically can’t move (I don’t mean apts., I mean her body), has no funds beyond rent and food except what my brother gives her, and, and, and…. the prep was A LOT. the spraying is quick and done by professionals. The fun news now is that the spraying has to happen at least once more in two week, which means she can’t really unbox her stuff yet.
One can never have too much in the pantry … though a periodic culling of expired goods does help to make the really good stuff more visible.
Oh and I do have fond memories of treasure hunting at the Shelter Island town dump … when still-useful goods were left on display to be picked up and reused (particularly rich pickings were always to be had at the end of the summer season as I recall).
Oh, the Vineyard’s town dump (Swap Shop, I think they call it) has been the source of some amazing silks!!!