The Sport of Ultimate Purging

With this move, we were faced with the ultimate task – to get rid of enough belongings for our downsize from a 3400 sq ft house into something half that size. I am not one to get attached to “stuff”, but I still tend to accumulate more than needed. I knew this would be a monumental project for our family to decide what goes with us and what we needed to get rid of.  But, it was a project that I was up for and excited to begin.

The purge started with the easy stuff, those pieces of furniture that we had found spaces for but really didn’t have a use for – that old breakfast table that now only had 3 chairs that had found a place in the gameroom, the baby glider and ottoman, an old recliner that was slightly busted up and had started smelling like dog(thanks to Nico treating it as her perch), the list goes on. We put together a quick garage sale to get them out of our house. Success!

Then, the moving companies came in to inventory our stuff and give us a bid to use their service. As I walked the house with each representative to let them know what goes and what would not go, I came to the sad conclusion that we still had too much to take – way too much to take. How did we accumulate this much? Our house seemed so empty when we moved in, and now we were busting at the seams. Even AFTER our garage sale.

So, the second stage of purging began. It started with a list(I LOVE lists to keep me organized) labeled “The Ultimate Purge”, and I named each room and area that needed a purge. Each time I completed a room, I would check it off. Obsessive? Maybe. Did it help me see how much I had done and how much was left? Absolutely! 

Room by room, drawer by drawer, and cabinet by cabinet, I combed through. Suddenly things that even I had wanted to hold on to just no longer seemed so important.  We sold some, gave away some to friends, and donated quite a bit. It became a game of sorts. How much did we really even need? Could I clear out that entire entry way table’s drawers and decide that nothing in there was really even needed(the answer to that was yes)? The real surprise for me were the bags of things that we threw away – for example, the expired medicine(an entire trash bag full!). I’m sure the trash pickup just loved us over the past several weeks. Each trash pickup day, we had a multitude of bags, boxes of stuff, and broken furniture on that curb waiting for them.

It took quite a bit of time, but at the end of it all, I feel so liberated that we were able to get rid of so much.  I mean, really, we don’t need that much when you really get down to it. And you know what? We still filled up most of a moving container on loading day. Somehow I think a third purge might happen when we start unpacking in Napa in July. I can’t wait!