Yard Sale!

It's that time of year again...fall! During the spring and fall, we always try to have a yard sale to get rid of clutter that we could live without. It's amazing how quickly things can accumulate.

Today, I forced myself to being sorting through Lindsay's and Zoe's things. Lately, I've just been taking peeks into their rooms (including Sydney's), rolling my eyes, and closing the door. They have cleaned it, but it has been their version of clean (throwing everything under the bed and dressers). Last spring, I didn't make myself sort through their toys, so really, nothing has been culled since before we moved here over a year ago. That is exactly how much I dislike the task.

BUT...

It has to be done. Imagine about a years worth of McDonalds toys X 3. Those little things really get on my nerves, lol. They serve no real purpose and the girls never play with them. Today, I removed all of them except for their Hello Kitty collection. They won't even miss them. All in all, I have about two garbage bags worth of toys for the yardsale and two garbage bags of trash (worthless toys/old books) to toss. That's alot for a room their size!

Next, I'll be moving on to Sydneys room. Goodness, talk about a mess! Clothes everywhere! I'm really dreading what it will be like in 3 1/2 years when she's a teenager! Clothes and paper and books...that's what her room is full of right now...

I've gone through my clothes already but I need to sort through Jeff's. That shouldn't be too hard.

As far as knick-knacky type things, I won't have too many of those. I've been really good about not buying accessories like that. I have a design plan for most of the house and I'm waiting to buy most of the accessories after everything else has fallen into place. I am getting rid of my glass-top, metal tables from the Bombay Company. One, my current coffee table, is already painted white and distressed, but I think I'm going to repaint it a solid white and then paint the matching sofa table and side table white as well. They will be fresh and clean and will hopefully sell. I have my farmhouse style coffee table and sofa table to refinish and will be using that instead. They fit the cottage style better.

I'm not sure, but I'm thinking about selling our entertainment center/armoire, too. It has been stored in the garage since we moved here. It needs to be primed and painted and would make a nice piece, but we have no room for it. We were going to use it in our future family room, but we aren't pursuing that project right now because of the $$$ involved ($30,000!!! - doesn't even count finishing out the interior...we need to get more estimates, but still, that's more than we want to be responsible for right now...). The armoire is too big for our living room and it's a shame that it isn't being used, so we may just sell it. I'll have to ask Jeff what he thinks, though.

Hmm, what else. I'm going to sell my martini glasses. I love those things and bought about 12 of them several years ago. They have blue stems that look like bubbles:) I bought them to use as cool dessert dishes, but I think that I've only used them for that purpose once. I will occasionally have a martini, but not often enough to keep the entire set. Getting rid of those will clear up one entire shelf from my cabinets, so it will be worth it.

I have all the girls clothes to sort through, plus I need to wash any fall clothes that didn't sell in last springs yard sale. Most of Lindsay and Sydney's clothes we'll keep in order to pass them down, but anything that Zoe has outgrown, we'll be selling. That will be hard for me because some of the things she can no longer wear are things that Sydney wore when she was three. It's silly, but I'll miss some of those cute little dresses:( But no point in holding on - someone else will benefit from them and hopefully enjoy them as much as I have.

I have tons of decorating magazines, Architectural Digest, House & Garden, Traditional Home... and others I can't even remember. They're boxed up in the garage and they're also really hard to part with. I'm still undecided about them. I may go through them and clip out any pictures for ideas to keep in a design file.

So lots of things to go through. We're having our yard sale on October 16, so hopefully I'll be well prepared for it by then. It really makes me great when I purge this house of unnecessary items, so the process is enjoyable for the most part - just not the part where I have to clean out the girls' rooms:(