selling home and simple living question

[Major Tom]

youbet, I think the hobby stuff CAN become a problem if you hoard. I have 8 oscilloscopes....6 of them I have not even turned on in three years. Most people don't even need one oscilloscope (most people don't even know what an oscilloscope is!).

I only have one 'scope - a Tek 465 that was gifted to me a few years ago by a benevolent local ham. He was looking forward to seeing what use I would make out of it. I feel that I have let him down, as I have barely used it. The only piece of test gear I need for my simple home-brew projects is a $25 manual DMM.

I'd quite like to pass it on to someone else who can use it (I know the guy who gave it to me would be OK with that) but then there's the "cool" factor of having a 'scope on the bench and the nagging feeling that if I got rid of it, it would guarantee that I would need it shortly after!

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I bought mine in hardcover from Amazon for $8.59, daylatedollarshort, because I wanted to write in it, highlight it, turn down the corners, hand it off to my husband.

I am glad you like the book. I still buy hard covers, too, because I do the same with dog earring and highlighting them. I love books. I might buy it if I like the library copy. Currently I have an assortment of books from library book sales on topics like Feng Shui and decluttering, so I was waiting to see if this had unique to me content.

 

[Katsmeow]

Of course, nothing is static, and stuff continues to flow into the house. We are getting ready to apply the principles in Marie Kondo's "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" to reduce the accumulated clutter. Like karen1972, we found that when we only had what we really loved, we appreciated it more and it felt new and even luxurious.

This is a wonderful book (I bought it on Kindle). I got a lot from it and did a few posts about it on my blog. I don't think I can link to those posts here (I could link to a post on someone else's blog, but not to my own) but I can show how my closet and drawers looked like after I was finished.







Note that when I started, the socks alone took up one entire drawer and were always hard to find anything. Storing items vertically rather than horizontally saves a huge amount of space and you can see everything.

One of the key things in the book is to not declutter by room, but go by item. So, when I was doing papers, for example, I went around the house and gathered papers from everywhere and did them all together. Same for clothes, etc. For the kitchen, I took everything out and put it all on the counters and island and table and put like things together. When I was finished decluttering, then I organized everything.

When I was done we went from very overcluttered drawers and cabinets to having a couple of cabs with nothing in them.

Also, the concept in the book is not to keep something unless it sparks joy. This was a big help for me for clothes and decorative items. I had to think how to apply it to functional items. For them, I thought of sparking joy as to how well they served a function for me. Something I never use, doesn't spark much joy because it does no function for me. Something that does it function poorly, sparks no joy. But, some utilitarian items do things so well they become very satisfying to use. That is also a kind of joy.

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[Sarah in SC]

Kats, I'm frankly most intrigued with the socks. A) you have very colorful socks B) what are the lone rangers at the top and C) looks great!

 

[ArkTinkerer]

One thing you could do hobby-wise is make a project out of organizing your hobby in a compact manner. If you have a place for everything and everything in it's place, you might see some "extra" stuff that just doesn't fit in, and feel more comfortable downsizing that bit.

....

ARRGH! Now I need to build a bigger, better brewing setup! I was happy with just a couple big pots and a 5 Gallon glass water bottle!

 

[ArkTinkerer]

I only have one 'scope - a Tek 465 that was gifted to me a few years ago by a benevolent local ham. He was looking forward to seeing what use I would make out of it. I feel that I have let him down, as I have barely used it. The only piece of test gear I need for my simple home-brew projects is a $25 manual DMM.

I'd quite like to pass it on to someone else who can use it (I know the guy who gave it to me would be OK with that) but then there's the "cool" factor of having a 'scope on the bench and the nagging feeling that if I got rid of it, it would guarantee that I would need it shortly after!

If it is working, you might try and teach a kid to use it! Easiest is to see if there is a Boy Scout working on a merit badge. I think they still do a ham radio badge and maybe one on electricity or electronics?

 

[ArkTinkerer]

Or maybe see if the high school could use it for either a technology or physics class?

 

[harley]

Yes, but what about when the "stuff" is "hobby stuff?"

We're fairly well under control with day to day living "stuff," but hobby activities take up a LOT of space in our smallish home.

Here's the problem list:

1. DW is a quilter and sewer. Of course I can't see the value in any of it , but she's given me the tour of the quilting table, sewing table and three cabinets she occupies and insists it all adds valuable entertainment to her life. Her quilting girlfriends militantly back her up 100%.

2. I'm a ham radio operator and have been for 50+ years. I have a small collection of vintage gear which means a lot to me (3 cabinets). And my electronics workbench and modern station setup take space too. My hobby buddies think my pile-o-stuff is pretty modest by their standards and can't comprehend why DW complains about it.

3. We both like outdoorsy activities. There are a kayak and a canoe hanging from the garage ceiling and totes full of paddling and camping gear stacked along one wall. Racks of fishing rods occupy another garage wall. And the shelves of tackle boxes and misc fishing doo-dads add to the cluttered appearance. We just barely get two cars into the two car garage in the winter and leave one car out in the summer when "stuff" spreads out a bit since it's being frequently used. We pay to store our camper in a nearby storage lot.

We'd like to have less clutter. But neither of us have any intention of dropping activities (quilting/sewing - her, ham radio - him or fishing/camping/paddling - both) in the near future.

What to folks do when the stuff that's cluttering their lives is the same stuff that supports activities frequently engaged in?

If you use it to enrich your lives, it's not clutter. It's just your stuff. And if you can fit two cars in a two car garage, it's not cluttered. You could sit around in a staged home with lots of open space and neatly displayed nick-nacks, and you'd be miserable. Quit worrying about it and enjoy your life. I swear, I've never seen such a bunch of obsessive-compulsives as the people on this forum (which is why I fit in so well). I can promise you, on your deathbed you aren't going to be thinking "why, oh why did I keep that extra kayak paddle?"

 

[daylatedollarshort]

One thing I have done that has helped me is to set aside a mental "replacement fund" of $1K or so. It is worth $1K to me to get rid of clutter, so the replacement fund allows me to donate all the stuff we might need "just in case". In the last 5 years of my mental replacement fund I think I only spent $20 buying a new kettle after I sold the prior one for $3 at a garage sale, because I started using a French Press for coffee and I needed the kettle for boiling water. I think it was worth $17 net loss to get rid of a whole bunch of other stuff we never did end up needing.

 

[Dancer373]

I also am a "ham" and realized I needed to downsize a bit. I recently bought a 30ft class C motor home so I've transferred some things to it. Hmmm, do I need to run HF and it so now what to do about a HF antenna for the motor home..........

 

[FIREd]

"Hobby stuff" is tough to downsize. Since we live in a small place, we try to keep it under control. What we do is avoid any kind of permanent setup, like a dedicated sewing station for example.

For each one of our hobbies, we try to keep equipment to a minimum. And we put the equipment away after each use. For that, I have created bins. For example we have one bin with our sewing supplies, one bin with our terrarium supplies, one bin with our writing supplies, one bin with all of our arts and crafts supplies, etc... When DW wants to saw something, she pulls the sewing supplies bin out and the dining table becomes a sewing table. When I want to work on my terrariums, I pull the terrarium supplies bin out and the dining table becomes a potting bench. And when I want to work on my fountain pens, I pull the writing supplies bin out and the dining table becomes a desk. This system has worked well for us to keep the clutter under control.

We also try to avoid large, specialized equipment that eat up our limited storage space. For my bookbinding hobby for example, a guillotine paper cutter and saddle stapler would make my life easier, but these are too bulky and specialized to justify purchasing. I just learn how to make do with smaller and more versatile handheld tools.

 

[athena53]

DH and I are in the middle of this process now. I retired a year ago and we started organizing/de-cluttering/donating then. That gave us time to donate to the church garage sale, take things to our community recycling event, sell on e-Bay- whatever worked. In the end, Craigslist was great if you don't want the money- just list it under "free stuff" and provide an address, put it at the end of your driveway, and it goes. I couldn't believe the things I could get rid of that way. It included furniture that needed new upholstery, etc. but was 50 years old and very well-made. Junk King was also good although they charge to pick things up.


So- we've accepted an offer on this house and their inspection is today (fingers crossed). We plan to stay in the area but in a smaller house and what's been a bit of a disappointment is that a good-quality house with nearly everything on one floor and not out in the middle of a cornfield 15 miles away from the nearest supermarket costs nearly what we're getting for our McMansion with pool! I suspect McMansions are going out of style. The ranch styles seem to get snapped up very quickly.


If (please, God) the sale of this house goes as planned DH and I will make an immediate offer on a house we drove by yesterday and are visiting with our realtor today; it's lakefront, but still small enough to manage. We spoke to the owner (he came out when he saw us looking around) and our realtor has already told his realtor our intentions. We've looked around a lot and this is the only one that both of us are really excited about.


It would be 1/2 hour from our current doctor, dentist, my favorite bike paths, the nearest Costco, etc. We'd just need to consolidate our trips "into town" and find substitute grocery stores, libraries, etc. in our new area.


So far- no regrets. Seeing the decreasing marketability of big houses with swimming pools in our area, I know that waiting as more baby boomers age and look for smaller places would only hurt us. We also seem to be doing quite well without all the stuff we gave away and the house looks a lot less cluttered.


ETA on hobbies: I knit, and my rule is that I never buy more yarn than I can stuff into a plastic bag in the closet. I make chemo caps for the local hospital so there's an endless demand (sadly). I go yarn-shopping when I've knitted down my stash sufficiently.

 

[haha]

ETA on hobbies: I knit, and my rule is that I never buy more yarn than I can stuff into a plastic bag in the closet. I make chemo caps for the local hospital so there's an endless demand (sadly). I go yarn-shopping when I've knitted down my stash sufficiently.

This is very kind of you. I imagine that a woman undergoing cancer chemo and losing her hair would be very cheered by a colorful, warm, and cute cap.

Ha

 

[Katsmeow]

Kats, I'm frankly most intrigued with the socks. A) you have very colorful socks B) what are the lone rangers at the top and C) looks great!

The lone rangers are the ones that I couldn't find a mate to. If they don't turn up by the time I finish the whole house, I'll toss them.

Actually, I'll give them to my daughter who likes to wear mismatched socks....
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[UpAnchor]

youbet, I think the hobby stuff CAN become a problem if you hoard. I have 8 oscilloscopes....6 of them I have not even turned on in three years. Most people don't even need one oscilloscope (most people don't even know what an oscilloscope is!).

Too many oscilloscopes is a bad sine. Time to phase them out...


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[NW-Bound]

youbet, I think the hobby stuff CAN become a problem if you hoard. I have 8 oscilloscopes....6 of them I have not even turned on in three years. Most people don't even need one oscilloscope (most people don't even know what an oscilloscope is!).

Are you going to haul all that stuff in the motorhome you are building?

I hear you. I have a pristine Tek 7104 1Ghz BW...

Darn, that's a nice scope. The one and only 1GHz analog scope that was ever produced, I believe. I have the slower 7704.

I still remember reading the announcement of the 7104 in EDN or some such trade magazine, in 1980 I believe. This mainframe was still in production in 1990, and cost $50K in today's dollar, and that's without any plugin.

 

[tps7742]

Any regrets?
Well we have a buyer & should close soon for the house my wife designed and decorated from the ground up a few years ago. We are having some serious sellers remorse but it's gone too far to back out now. We are both retired and are in good shape to build or buy another once we decide where that will be. WE have property and an older house we are going to "light" to see if this is for us. We are going to be 2.5 hours away versus 30 minutes from the grandkids. This seems difficult also at this time. Getting rid of stuff isn't too big of an issue.


How's it working?
We are still in the wait and see mode. I just retired March 1st and should have waited a while longer prior to putting the house on the market. But it's a good time to sale so we will move forward and see how it goes.