What I Decluttered & Sold This Month: Doggy Diaper Inspired Decluttering

Each month I pick one area in my home that has gotten re-cluttered since I did 52 Weeks To A Simplified Home and give it a good go-through, then I share what I did with you.

I am also challenging myself to resell a certain amount of items each month and I share my progress with that goal in this post too.

Why This Post Should Be Called “When You Get The Dog Diapers”

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I made an incredible discovery this month–reusable doggy diapers! These are going to help eliminate dog urine accidents in our house due to having a senior dog that we love, but who has bladder control problems. I had no idea they even made such a thing as dog diapers.

Since finding these reusable ones, I also found out that they sell a disposable type too–so I ordered a package. I am not sure which ones we will end up sticking with as both have positives and negatives. I guess only time will tell what type we like best.

You might be wondering–what does this lovely discovery of mine have to do with decluttering?

Well, you see…Fancy’s “old age” problem has ruined all of our rugs and an entire room full of furniture. Thank goodness we have laminate flooring and not wall to wall carpet. We can toss the inexpensive (thank goodness I don’t buy designer rugs) rugs and live rug free until she passes.

We could not put off replacing the sofas any longer as “dog smell” is not a pleasant home fragrance and before we know it, the cold weather will be back, making it too chilly to open the windows and air things out. That and the in-laws are coming to town. Nothing says hospitality like “welcome to our home; please take a seat on our dog damaged couches.” Plus Fancy sadly is now unable to jump up on furniture without help. So as long as we don’t leave something near the couches that will give her the boost to get up on them, we should be able to keep the rest of our furniture odor-free.

After we threw out all the odor offenders, I took the couches from the other sitting room and moved them into the TV room. Fancy was never allowed to climb on this set, so they were not damaged by her bladder problems.

My original idea was to leave the other sitting room that these couches were in sparsely furnished. But then I realized we had seating for only three people and there isn’t much space in this room to add any additional furniture. Where would we hold conversations with guests?

That realization led to me emptying the yellow sitting room of the little furniture it had left. I then replaced it with a new Labor Day special six-seater sectional from Big Lots.

That gave us seating for five people comfortably, but I knew I could make it six if I kept my desk with its comfy wooden desk chair in the opposite corner so that it could be turned around and used for a sixth guest. However, the desk I was using for that chair was too big to fit in the opposite corner, so I had to switch it out for the table that we keep all our fresh fruit on.

Now the fresh fruit was homeless. So I put it on the dump table (you have to read this post to understand what a dump table is).

I put all the paper from the dump table in a big box that I am currently working through–shredding some, keeping some and recycling as much as I can (if you are looking for a paper shredder, I have had and used the older model of this brand for several years now with no problems).

But now I had two more problems–where do I put our key bowl and the black cabinet that once fit so well in the corner at the bottom of the stairs? The cabinet now made the stair landing feel squished because the new sectional stuck out so much farther than the old couch and chair set.

I fixed the place for the key bowl problem with some shelves we had stored in our attic, placing them where the black cabinet once was.

And I put the black cabinet along the wall where the old fruit table–now my desk –was sitting.

See that box of stuff in the bottom corner of the picture –that is the stuff I am still sorting through that was sitting in random piles on all the furniture I moved. But I am not done with this very busy Labor Day decluttering session that was all inspired by the discovery of doggy diapers.

At this point, I stood back to take a look at what the rooms look liked after all my hard work and gasped! The color of the curtains in the yellow sitting-room were clashing something horrible with the new couches. So I marched up to the attic and got out the black curtains we sometimes use in our minivan camper.

That fixed the problem, but I forgot that I had the same shade of sheers over the windows of our front door, that is also in that room. Plus all the moving of furniture had left me with a few random items that needed new homes.

So I hopped on my laptop and headed straight to Amazon using my Amazon prime membership to get things shipped to my home within 48 hours of ordering it.

In these smiling Amazon boxes were:

A pair of black sheer curtains
Two long leather-look storage benches with lids to hold our coats and to act as seating for two more people. We live in Indiana where you can start your day in a light jacket and end it needing the warmest, thickest coat you can find–and we do not have a coat closet. These bins should help the overworked coat hooks we have look much neater. They also look much more stylish than the big plastic container with no lid that they were previously stored in.
Two small leather-look storage boxes to hold our socks–long story, but I gave up giving individual people their own socks years ago. Instead we store all our socks close to where we put on our shoes. These small boxes can also act as foot-stools for those wishing to put their feet up while sitting on the new sectional. I have warned the family not to leave them near the couches –I do not want Fancy using then as a stepping stool to get on the couches.

So in review, discovering doggy diapers made me declutter and redecorate three rooms! Thankfully it wasn’t just me that did the work, my family all pitched in and helped, one son worked most of an entire day with me.

I still have to deal with all the stuff in the big storage box in the dining room, but it is tiny in comparison to what got done.

What I Sold This Month

I sold five listings on eBay; most were numerous items of the same kind, so I sold them as a lot–including a stack of well-loved comic books that I pocketed $16.12 for. I was shocked by how fast they sold. I was honest about their poor condition, sharing photographs of the ones missing covers, or that had half a cover. I priced them on the high side thinking I would drop the price a bit later if they didn’t sell –and I didn’t have too! SWEET.

I also sold the Creative Memories album as NIP (new in package). I am finally admitting to myself that I will not get back to doing this type of craft. I am hooked on making Shutterfly albums on my laptop using free product codes, or close to free product codes, and paying for the shipping with gift cards earned through various point programs.

In total, I pocketed $80.60 in August for my reselling efforts–bringing my 2019 total to $785.71. It looks like I am going to hit that national average of $1000 worth of stuff to sell in my home by the time the year ends, but I don’t think I will be out of things by then.

If you want to join me in reselling your clutter, read this post.

What I Donated This Month

This month’s box is full of clothing from my boys’ closets–making ten boxes donated in 2019. The house rule is if you want new clothes, first you have to let mom go through your closet with you. After we discard what is ripped or stained and donate what doesn’t fit or isn’t getting worn, we make a list of needs and then go shopping.

My boys usually pick online shopping over in-store shopping, so I made them aware of the 40% off everything sale Old Navy was having a while ago, and they both picked out things they needed and I got to use my Rakuten cash back browser tool to save an additional $13.25 off the order–I love browser tools that save me money.

What did you declutter this month?

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Stop Feeling Like You Are Drowning In Clutter And To-Do Lists

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