Our housing development has an annual yard sale. It is a big deal. Primarily because ours is a big community (something like 12 subdivisions) with a bunch of rules, including one that says something about not allowing yard sales except on the appointed date. And since a large percentage of the 700 or so households participates in the sale, it is a big deal for the larger community of people who come to our neighborhoods and shop. Yard sale junkies, this is your paradise.
We have decided to participate in the sale this year, and we are going all out. Introducing a baby to the household really helps put your storage priorities into order. In addition to selling off excess furniture that used to inhabit our living room (furniture that has been replaced by toy boxes and miscellaneous baby stuff), I've been cleaning out closets, the garage, and pretty much any place I can think of to find more sale-worthy items.
The problem is that even as I sort and price piles and piles of sale stuff, our remaining junk seems to spread.
Part of my objective here was to clear out in preparation for a future baby #2 (not in the works yet, but remember, there's only one yardsale a year!). There's a chance we will have moved by then, but there's also a strong chance that we'll still be in this house when we decide to expand our family. And honestly, I'm not sure where we are going to put a new baby.
I've been thinking through this over and over. There's only one logical place, because a new baby CANNOT inhabit the same room as Olivia...at least not immediately. She needs sleep, and new babies do not sleep consistently, and I'm not going to fight that battle with two cranky children, thank you very much.
A new baby also cannot stay in our room for long. I know it works for some people, but co-sleeping didn't work with the first one, and I have no reason to believe it would work for our next baby.
Which means that our future second child would need his/her own room at least until he/she learns to sleep through the night consistently.
So that leaves us to our third bedroom, currently acting as our office. This bedroom contains two very full bookcases, a small entertainment center/TV stand (which is also jammed with books), a tall filing cabinet, and an old office-style desk with matching cabinet. That's a lot of furniture for a 10' X 11' space. It also has a small closet (not walk-in) that is stuffed, STUFFED full of miscellaneous items. And this is AFTER I cleaned out this closet for the sale.
Stuff just seems to grow to fit the space available. I don't want us to be the kind of people who are forced to buy a new house simply because they can no longer house all of their stuff. Ditto for storage units. If it can't fit in our house and we don't really use it, then why are we keeping it?
Gah! I'm completely ready to get this stuff out of the house. Maybe then I can start dealing with the remaining stuff. Did I mention, GAH!
2 comments:
I have the same thought about storage units. I see no point. Someday though, I'd like to have an attic or a basement to store the Christmas decorations.
My husband is a musician (musicians have lots of BIG stuff, like guitars and amps and an entire drum set - even though he doesn't play drums. I still don't understand, but that's okay), and we are in a 3 br house with two babies. Our compromise was that baby #2 gets a nursery, but the boys can share a closet. The nursery closet is his for the taking. Once both of our kids are in beds though, we're planning on them sharing a room. But we had to get rid of a lot just to be able to make it all fit in the closet. Good luck.
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