We sold off our old clothes

Several reason led up to our house cleaning plan. I’ll highlight 2 main considerations.

First, since the arrival of Baby2, we started to feel that our house needs more “space”. Well, truth be told, we’ve already started feeling the clutter since Baby1′s toys and equipment started piling up. Therefore, we decided that it’s time for a proper house cleaning and create more living space for our new family of four.

Second, our quest for a new house turned out to be a tough one. With property prices at all times high now, we are not comfortable with spending our hard earned savings just for a property. It’ll be putting all our eggs in one basket. After a “future of our family” review with Dear2, we decided that we will not be headstrong on getting our second property. We will continue to observe the market and wait for a downtrend. So, we’ll instead focus our efforts on infusing our current 6 year old home with new life.

Cleaning and throwing out things will be a start.

Since Dear2 is currently on maternity leave, she started doing some cleaning around the house. This includes cleaning the many surfaces and the floor. For the floor, we’ve found a simple solution – buy a Roomba. We’ll have another post our Roomba at another time.

For the surfaces, the solution is to reduce the exposed surface and hence reduce the clutter. To achieve this, we decided to give away 2 pieces of furniture – our beloved Ramvik coffee table (which was functioning as Baby1′s play table) and the smaller of our 2 Galant study tables. It will be a pity if we had thrown them away. Luckily, Dear1′s parents were willing to take them in and they were transported away to Dear1′s parents’ house just last Saturday evening.

We had another low chest of drawers on rollers (from Vhive) that had 2 of the 3 drawers damaged. We had intended to throw it away but Dear1′s parents took interest in it and decided to bring it back to their place last Sunday.

Coincidentally, our living room standing fan broke. We was not sure how to repair it. Luckily, Dear1′s parents were willing to take the fan to a repairman they know and they will keep the fan once it is working again. And we don’t intend to get a replacement. They will come to pick up the standing this weekend.

Next was our Seahorse mattress. We had bought 2 pieces of the 3-fold Seahorse mattress. One of it was used as Baby1′s play platform where she would play with her Megabloks. It also acted as her step to climb onto our sofabed when she was younger. The other one was laid out on our master bedroom floor for Baby1, but she never got used to sleeping there. Dear2 had used it during her pregnancy with Baby2 instead. We decided and managed to convince Dear2′s mum to take one of the mattress while we kept the other one as a spare. I brought the mattress to Dear2′s parents’ house earlier this week.

Then it was the wardrobe’s turn. We were slowly running out of wardrobe space and hangers due to our ever increasing pieces of clothings. Although I seldom buy new clothes, I would still periodically receive new clothes in the form of run t-shirts, overseas gifts, event gifts, etc. Dear2′s clothes accumulated slightly faster than mine. But the fact is, we need to throw out clothes that were old, those that we would not be wearing anymore, and those that simply won’t fit. Last Sunday, I brought down 6 big packs of old clothes to our nearby market to participate in the Cash for Trash Programme. Lo and behold, we managed to sell off 21 kg worth of old clothes that paid us $4.20! We were amazed that we had that much unused clothes.

The next items to go were the miscellaneous items that began taking up space around our house. There were boxes that contained items that we don’t even know was there. There was this hamper basket that we retained from Baby1′s birth hamper. There were mooncake boxes that we kept because they looked pretty. We gathered up all these items and brought them to down to the void deck. As I was there, an old lady who was collecting useful items from the neighbourhood refuse caught my attention and expressed interest in the items we were throwing away. I gladly gave everything to her. I hope that she’ll be able to use or sell them off for some money.

Another big stash of items that had to go were study materials. These range from Dear1′s undergraduate study notes and textbooks, Dear1′s postgraduate materials and various thesis revisions, and Dear2′s textbooks from her ChFC diploma. We intend to bring these down to the Cash for Trash Programme again this Sunday. If they will not accept it, then we’ll just throw them away.

With much of the big items removed, our house is much more spacious now. There is more room in both our living room and study room. With the additional space, we intend to buy a table and chair set for Baby1 and Baby2 where they will be able to play, draw, read and write. A few days ago, we had already bought another large plastic box to organise Baby1′s toys. But we have to be careful not to buy too many new furniture that will end up cluttering our house again.

This is not the end yet. There are at least 2 more places we have to clear – our shelves and our storeroom. No doubt these place will yield yet another big pile of unused items that can be thrown or given away.

Phew! We’re not done yet, but what a ride. It was amazing to see the amount of things we have accumulated in our house. 6 years ago, we moved in with our bare essentials. Today, we have so much. I’m the type of person that keeps things, for keepsake, for they may become useful some day. Yet, having to evaluate and reevaluate my needs and wants while going through all these items, I feel liberated. I feel that I have the capacity (literally!) to look forward and be ready for what will come in the future.

Perhaps we should do this house cleaning thing more often.

16 Dec 2012 Update: We sold off a bunch of old magazines and lecture notes for $4.40. Each kilogram of clothings is worth 20 cents while each kilogram of paper is worth 10 cents. That means we just cleared 40+kg of paper from our house. Phew! We also received a frequent recycler rewards card – collect 1 stamp for every 10 kg recycled, collect 50 stamps to exchange for $8 cash. :)

-Dear1

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