It’s been almost a year and a half since we renovated the kitchen and most of the contents of the old cupboards are still in the shed.
At first it was a case of simple expediency, bringing in only what we needed to prepare the first meal in the shiny new space once it was reclaimed from the tradesmen.
There were a few trips to the shed in the following weeks to retrieve specific items: the blender, sandwich maker and a couple of extra glasses for a dinner party, but since then we’ve been able to cater for every occasion using a fraction of the stuff.
So the two boxes of mismatched Tupperware, the too-small and too-big saucepans, sherry glasses, brandy balloons, pie maker, rice cooker and almost the entire contents of the third drawer down, including the solitary knitting needle and three lemon zesters, remain in exile.
The kitchen is so much more pleasurable to work in and not just because it’s no longer burnt orange and mission brown.
Now you can put your hands on what you want straightaway instead of having to first grab a miner’s light and a canary before diving into some dark corner.
I wish the same could be said for the rest of the house.
Last week a nasty virus forced me to bed for three days. As I lay half-delirious reading the spines in the bookcase, I began to wonder if anyone had actually opened that copy of Blackstone’s Tricks Anyone Can Do since 1985, much less learnt or performed an actual magic trick, and wasn’t it time for it to disappear.
Could anyone’s life ever be long enough to fully appreciate Linda Barker’s seminal work, Napkin Folding? Was it possible to live without The Aquarium Fish Handbook given that we have not and have never had an aquarium or fish to place in it?
Wasn’t it going somewhat overboard to keep three copies of Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News?
And does anyone else out there have to circumnavigate a pile of Manning Clark’s complete A History of Australia in order to turn out the light?
The cupboards and filing cabinets are just as bad. As journos we’re hoarding enough newspaper clippings to fuel an apocalypse.
So much stuff! And we are not alone. According to a Newspoll survey commissioned by the Garage Sale Trail folk, two-thirds of Australians say they have “too much stuff at home and not enough space for it all”.
The survey also found that 86 per cent of people had either bought things they did not use or hardly used at all while 79 per cent admitted to buying things on impulse and later regretting it. A staggering 91 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement “as a society we buy far too many things we don’t really need”.
With spring upon us, it is the perfect time to declutter and join upwards of 350,000 Australians expected to take part in the fourth annual Garage Sale Trail on October 25.
This year householders are expected to list more than 1.5 million pre-loved items for sale, earning sellers an average of $323 each. Now, if I can just interest someone in the 1984 Guinness Book of World Records …
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