Thanks everyone, I was starting to think I was just here by myself, lol. This is getting addictive...I am trying to figure out why I have been hauling around that bookcase since college days. It's outta here.. Last week the "church lady" came by with a horse trailer and took the armoire and two French chairs, window treatments, all that fireplace equipment, some Christmas ornaments and myriad of other stuff. She was so excited she and her husband carried that heavy armoire down the steps by themselves. I have never seen a tiny woman carry that big of an object!! It was superhuman strength I guess when you want something that bad it pumps you up!! So I open the armoire and there is even stuff in there! OMG, I have always prided myself on being the anti-clutterer. It was some sort of denial. No wonder! It is all behind closed doors. So anyway, she took all of that stuff too and the fake ivy!!! There were pillows, yet even more Italian linens and some tassels from who knows what. They would have taken more stuff but it started pouring down rain. I told her about the drop leaf table in the basement that needs fixing and she said her husband could fix it and the two matching chairs. In the meantime I finished the kitchen cabinets and got rid of about 20 lids to tupperware/grocery store storage containers that have no bottoms probably my dogs chewed them up. Of course I almost got away with getting rid of more lids but my husband was there getting them back out of the garbage saying he might need those for something. I even cleaned out the "junk drawer" that everyone has, that scary kitchen drawer full of old curtain hardware, errant screws and picture hanging apparatus from days gone by. Even telephone hook up stuff that probably doesn't exit anymore to some fossilized princess phone. There was another cabinet with these special diet mixing devices that whir up fabulous healthy drinks that you never end up making and has been in the cabs since the '90's. Gone! Remember the lady with the horse trailer is the chef from church so she brought me dinner for that night. Some wonderful herb pork chops with these twice baked potato things that were heavenly, guess I better give away those tiny clothes because this isn't helping that cause and not to mention another whole batch of her special jalapeno pimento cheese. Nirvana!! I could get used to this. This might be moving along faster but I have to sneak and give some of this stuff away or my Archie Bunker husband is standing there saying you're giving that away? That's worth something and having a running repertoire going on the whole time with hands on hips watching things go by: YOU'RE GONNA NEED THAT@#$%!! He doesn't look like Archie more like Gerald McRaney but his personality is eerily similar these days. What's up with that? Do all men turn into Archie Bunker after about 25 years of marriage? FYI: I don't look a thing like Edith, not that there's anything wrong with it. Anyway, I have to schedule these sneak horse trailer hauling soirees when he's out of town. My neighbors are getting nervous seeing all of this Sanford and Son going on over here and think we might be moving, the height of all insults moving from the neighborhood. But I assured them I was just doing spring cleaning so all is well on "Wisteria Lane" for another week.

LTL (the op)....I totally 'get' you and what you meant. I, too, have the pretty gift bottles of lotion that are too pretty to use or I don't like, yet continue to have a home in my bathroom for fear of a lotion emergency....lol. That one made me laugh. And I have a dear friend, my neighbor, who loves to thrift. To the point that she is a hoarder. So she's begun to buy me things that she thinks I will like (mostly cats.....cat plaques, cat statues, cat ashtray, etc.). Funny thing is, I don't decorate with cats normally. Yet I feel obligated to display them. In her defense, I must say she did just bring over a beautiful cat mirror that matches perfectly with my color scheme in rememberance of my kitty who I just lost. But mostly, her taste just isn't mine. What to do, what to do?? LOL I have small beach cottage and beach decor and love old and found things, as so you can imagine....EVERYTHING I have procured for myself has some sort of sentimentality attached to it. But my house is neat and most people call it comfortable and homey. Yet, no one ever seems to notice the collection of antique aqua bottles on my shelf, or the antique glass insulator on my dresser in the LR. I found two really nice faux mercury glass vases after Xmas, also on my shelves and as of yet, no one has ever noticed them. Why? Because they're mixed in with too many other knickknacks. It's just way too busy...and I know it. (I agree with a prior poster who said you need to rotate your collections....I just don't do it because I have no place to store them without them getting put away and forgotten....lol). And I didn't think you were talking about not being clean as being dirty. I 'got' what you meant. When a house looks cluttered like mine, I often feel it looks 'messy'. And 9 times out of 10, there is plenty of dust because who has time to dust around all that crap? Every so often I do purge my collections. Mostly tho, because I've found something new I want to display. One of these days I WILL get around to really thinning things out. But until then..... Thanks for the article. I enjoyed it !! Bonnie

I have several lovely, sentimental things. But by far, the most sentimental has to be my mother's ugly, seriously hideous and HUGE cast aluminum dutch oven. I'm of Cuban descent. This thing makes enough food for 15 people. Seriously. It measures about 20-22" in diameter. I can only use it on the middle burner of our Lacanche because it is so huge. It's ugly (did I mention that?) but so help me, food tastes better when it comes out of it. Enormous vats of Cuban chicken and rice and black beans to feed an army. I keep it in the walk in pantry because there is simply no room in any kitchen known to man to store this thing....

I would never paint cedar, but then growing up, we had a very large cedar closet that was used for everyone's off-season clothes, sweaters, furs (my mother's and grandmother's), etc. Only cleaned items went in there. It was not an everyday closet. The point is that the cedar will repel the insects, moths included and painting the cedar would ruin that. If the cedar loses its scent, a light sanding will restore it. We are starting some renovations this spring and I am going to figure out where I could have them add a cedar closet for me.