Our flooring was already messed up last week when rain filled up the septic tank and water seeped out from under the toilets. It ran under a bathroom wall into the kitchen, where a previous leak had already buckled some of the laminate planks. (I've been telling The Husband, "We've got to replace this flooring before one of us trips and breaks a hip.") Nearly every room has some kind of issue.
The office/craft room where I now work is the worst. It has a hardwood flooring that was ruined when a cracked window leaked water into the room. That happened years ago, but the room is PACKED FULL of junk - er, craft supplies - and will be a pain to empty so that installers can work.
Yesterday morning, I started emptying the china cabinet, which is full of nothing but cheap dishes and "keepsakes." I acquired these dishes 20 years ago, a few pieces at a time, when our local grocery store was giving them away with purchases - plates one week, cups the next, etc. Even bought all of the extras, like casserole dishes and pitchers. Next the store did flatware. Got a bunch of that, too. At the time, son #2 was engaged to be married, and I had the crazy idea that he and his new wife might want/need them. Crazy, I know. Anyway, in the china cabinet were at least 18 place settings of those grocery store dishes. I kept a dozen of everything. The rest is boxed up and in my car. Tomorrow when I go to the office, I'm donating them.
But where to put the ones I kept? The 35-year-old dishes in our kitchen cabinets were chipped and crazed. They're in the car, too, along with random cups and glasses we never use.
The next thing to tackle was a big, triple-door cabinet full of fabric and home-canned goods. Made room in the kitchen for the canned goods and bagged up all the fabric - 8 kitchen garbage bags full, plus some plastic tubs.
The bookshelf was next.
I posted all of this stuff on social media. "Free! Come get it THIS WEEK if you want it!" Saturday, what's left is going to the dump.
When The Husband found out I'd emptied the china cabinet, he asked if I'd kept Granny's pepper sauce jar - really just a cruet. I had forgotten that the cruet had belonged to his great-grandmother. It was in the car with the other dishes. We went to the car to find it. In the boxes were a set of mugs that don't match anything we own. They're big, and they take up lots of space in the cabinet. I replaced them with 12 of the grocery store cups. When he saw the mugs in the back of the car and started to snag one, I asked him to step aside, closed the hatch, and said, "NO!"
With all of this stuff out of the cabinets and in bags/boxes/tubs on the floor, there's only a path through the room to the utility room. Once everything is donated, I'll have to pack up the stuff I'm keeping and put it somewhere until the flooring goes down. Then we have to do the old office - the one with four bookcases FULL of books, multiple ukuleles, amplifiers, and computer equipment.
If I hadn't already started this process, I might just take a chance on breaking a hip. ;)
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