The biggest project me and my boys worked on the past two years is to clear my and Miggy's childhood home. Oh boy, I honestly did not expect that Mom kept a lot of stuff. Some were from way back in the 60s when I wasn't even born yet. A lot of people lived in our home. I experienced having different sets of relatives who lived with us and they did leave some stuff.
Our decluttering coach, Ally Canita, observed that my Mom somehow organized her things. She already weeded out her clothes, turned Dad's closet into a craft materials cabinet, and she got rid of a lot of older stuff. She already curated what she left, but probably forgot about the gazillion of things she stored in the upper cabinets.
We're honestly not done yet and our living room is still full of boxes for sorting. We just transferred everything since work is being done already. Anyway, here's a breakdown on how we managed to clear out my childhood home.
Step 1. Make a list of all the rooms and take note of what's generally in all the cabinets/closets/drawers etc.
Step 2. Contact a decluttering coach or a organizer company that can help sort and box everything for you.
Step 3. Prepare a list of categories on how the items should be sorted. Here's roughly what I had listed:
- craft materials
- books
- clothes
- bags
- linens/beddings/curtains/covers
- personal items like jewelry, wallets
- decor/statues/mementos/frame photos/paintings
- papers/documents
- kitchen items and appliances
- gadgets
- furniture (list per room)
Step 4. Buy materials: a lot of used boxes (cheaper than buying brand new balikbayan boxes), sticker paper for labelling boxes, Pentel pens, scissors, packaging tape.
Step 5. Schedule dates for the decluttering/organizing team to sort and box items by room. It took 8 sessions for our team to work on the house, and another 2 days a year later to complete the outdoor storage and forgotten cabinets.
Step 6. I made the mistake of sorting craft materials first. It took a lot of time because Mom had a lot of beads scattered around her things! It's better to start with things you can easily send for donations first like books, clothes, bags and linens/beddings. Start there so you can donate them immediately. Do things you'll likely keep last. Sort by having three boxes beside you while you go through everything: dispose, donate, keep.
*We shred old papers that have PII and no longer needed.
Step 7. Our decluttering coach coordinated all the donations. We probably donated over 150 boxes of books and +100 boxes of other items. Old unusable appliances were sold to the junk shop. We only sold a few working appliances. Proceeds went to paying for donation delivery and decluttering services (last 2 sessions).
Step 8. Make sure to label things you are keeping in boxes. Some of the things we set aside will be shared with relatives.
Step 9. Identify big items that you will keep, give away, or sell. We're only keeping a few key pieces and have started to offer some furniture to relatives. We managed to sell some furniture that's still useful.
Step 10. Clean up when you're done! I'm honestly not sure when we'll actually finish! Hopefully, by end of October!
I honestly don't know how we could have managed clearing out our childhood home without Ally and her team. She had previously helped us combine all our homes (SG + Manila) when we went home. Things really pile up and if you have a hard time decluttering, get a coach! It's the best thing we did and I can't imagine how we could have emptied the house.
Be ready for surprises! We thought all the cabinets were already emptied and was so surprised to see my Mama Lola's cabinet still full of stuff! Mom's stuff! So that means I have a box or two of craft materials to sort. I'm still hoping to find my Mama Lola's frog figurine. I used to play with it when I was a child. And we're still finding odd stuff even though we thought everything's been cleared. Just found Dad's K of C sword. I wonder where that was hiding, hehe. It's hopefully the last thing we pull out from the house.
#BeKind #StaySafe
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