A good, if somewhat stressful, start

 Well, that's the dining room decluttered, other than a 2-drawer filing cabinet which we haven't tackled yet.  It took us nearly all day to take everything out of the big so-called 'Welsh dresser' cupboard, drawers, side shelves and double wall cupboard above, sort through it all, clean out the cupboards and put back the things we're keeping.  Then we cleared off the big shelves that are in the space where the condemned old Rayburn used to be, and the boiler/airing cupboard (why it was built in downstairs and not upstairs I don't know, practically every house we've lived in before had the airing cupboard on the landing upstairs).  We've filled 2 boxes of crockery etc to take to the charity shop, another 2 boxes for the tip.  The old wonky baking tins are stacked in the utility room for the scrap metal man to take, when we get him to come and take away the broken tumble dryer and anything metal from the garage.

I've now got several small electrical kitchen items we no longer use, to photograph and list for sale - halogen cooker, sandwich toaster, very old big Kenwood mixer, smaller food processor, large slow cooker, bread/meat slicer.  If it's not used more than once or twice a year, if that, then it's going - I'm not hanging onto equipment just because it 'might' get used at some far-off time.

Things got a bit fraught now and then - for a start, husband's habit of walking backwards and forwards carrying ONE item at a time frustrates me.  And he puts things down in a space I've just cleared, rather than putting it where it's actually meant to go.  He took out a small box from the big cupboard, it was filled with all sorts of odds and ends - corn on the cob spike things, oddments of cutlery, a few stray plastic bags, batteries (who knows whether they're new or old when they're not in the packet?), screws, nails and other small tool items, etc etc.  He said "Oh I'll just put that there for a minute" (a favourite expression of his late mother, whose house was the most cluttered I've ever seen) and put it in another cupboard!  I took it out again and said no, we'll sort it out now - otherwise it's just moving the problem from one place to another. 😒  At this rate I'll be tearing out clumps of my hair by the end of the week.

Kath, I went on the Council website to see if they would take the old fridge and freezer - erm yes they will, but they'll charge £61.80 for just those 2 items!! 😲.  We'd rather take them to the tip ourselves, even if we can only fit one at a time in the back of the car.....we'll no doubt be making several tip trips over the next few weeks.

We've decided we'll get rid of our big 3-seater sofa, 2 of the 5 armchairs we have (they're not all in the same room) and our old upcycled oak dining table and 4 chairs.  I'll try selling them first, if nobody wants them then I'll see if a charity shop will come and collect them, as per Kim's idea.  That's assuming that the lounge furniture has fire safety certificates still on them, I'll have to check, as the charity shop won't take them if they haven't.  In due course we'll look to buy a 2-seater bed settee for the new home, as we'll have one bedroom less and will need somewhere for occasional guests to sleep.

This morning we're going shopping, and taking the filled boxes to the tip and the charity shop - they're all roughly in the same area.  After lunch we'll start on the kitchen cupboards - not the foods, the saucepan and bakeware cupboards.  I've also got a big plastic tub filled with all manner of Tupperware and plastic boxes, some of which probably don't have lids anymore, so they'll all need sorting out.

It's feeling satisfying already, albeit somewhat stressful.