Des, are these vase that came with fresh flower arrangements?

In my case I had 25-30 of these florist vases because my mother received many arrangements. I finally realized that the space was had much more value than the vases, which as it turns out were a few $$ each at most.

Along the line of your original question, I had to do SOMETHING about an overstuffed dish cupboard. Since I live alone and seldom have company, I decided that 4 of any one thing was enough. Extras could go elsewhere - where they were not in my way and mesing up my daily chores.

Just because I HAVE 30+ dinner plates in my Corelle pattern doesn't mean they all have to be up front. 4 is enough.

SO - maybe set a number for the up front vase collection, and then any extras can go into grand storage..wherever THAT is.

grins

Vicki

No, not florists vases. Anyway, just used that as an example. Say you have five cut glass dishes that you really like. You think that is all that you have, so you put them in a cabinet on a certain shelf, etc. You clean out somewhere else, and lo and behold, there are two more. No room to store the extra two and you want all of them!

What I'm asking is - where do you temporarily put stuff until you go through everything and organize. When I do that, my kitchen looks like a bomb hit! LOL

The only thing I can think of to suggest is that you designate a "staging area". Of course this means you have enough room for a staging area so I realize this may not be that helpful if you truly are maxed out with no space left.

The need for a temporary holding area is one reason I've starting trying to clean out our spare room first even though that is not the most visible problem in our house. If I can get it cleared, I can use it as a staging area as I clear the rest of the house. Then when the other rooms are organized, I go back to the staging area and clear it out.

But our house is quite a mess (though better than it used to be) and if you saw it, you'd wonder how I'm giving anyone advice, LOL.
--Alice

I'm pretty much doing the same as Alice. My dining room hasn't been remodeled yet, so it doesn't actually function as a dining room. I use it as a staging area, mainly to hold boxes of stuff I've packed up for charity until they're picked up.

But, I don't think you can leave but so much stuff in an area like this before it becomes a real nightmare to deal with. Using the vases as an example, this is what I do: I decide that I need & will use three vases. I find a place & store them. Then I find two more. I've already decided that three is all I need & will use. So I decide from the five I now have which three I really want & let the other two go.

Greta

I actually find it a good idea to put them where I will eventually store them. I don't have that much space, so if the vases are going behind the bottom right door, then if I discover two more, it doesn't MATTER whether I *want* to keep them, I can't. I have to get rid of some.

Also, I cannot afford to have stuff sitting out until I can figure out where to store it.

I can CHANGE where I store stuff--Just because in early May I decided to put vases behind the bottom right door doesn't mean that at the end of May I can't decide they should go somewhere else.

But in my life, I HAVE to pick a place to put them now. I cannot function w/ stuff 'not quite put away.' It make sme cazy, because I'm not really done. And I have to worry about breaking them, etc.

I've been know to say, "some vases go behind the bottom right drawer; others go on top of the cabinet."

And as I write this, i'm realizing I need to get rid of several vases. Anybody want one?

sometimes the round up of things is incomplete and then ouch the extra item pops up. so maybe when initially finding a place to store things you might anticipate that a extras will come out of hiding and leave more room initially than you had. I have been doing a major clear out of extras because I chose to move my private practice into the home and was essentially merging two setting. ALot of things had to go and there were alot of duplicates that I donated. But once all the dust settled I love just going into my home consulting room, shutting the doors and being at work. (plus I can be doing laundry upstairs while I spend a session with a client) Hang in there, you'll get it organized.

Not a stupid question at all.

I wish I could provide some advice based on what I do in this situation. I think I'm a bit more anal than I realize... I just almost always put every like thing together.

The best thoughts I can come up with follows:
= do you have a place you can put things 'for now'? A sorting room for instance? I use my garage right now as a place to put things 'for now'. So if you said, I'm goign to clean my kitchen drawers and you find 5 vases but expect there are more- can you put the vases somewhere until you round them all up? Then you can decide- trash, save, good will. etc.

- Failing that, Can you put the items where you want them to go and when you come across more you can make some decisions at that time- trash, sell, goodwill etc? When you find five vases and put them where they go and you find six more- you can say -that is too many and make some decisions.

- I have a sortof memory that can picture other items... I lose things and I can picture where they are... can you do that? You find five vases adn say to yourself= there are three more in the upper cabinet on the left. IF so, I'd say stop what you are doing and go get them all together even if it is out of order and make decisions right then.

Just a few thoughts.
G

Organizing is a really fluid activity -- keep finding things and keep finding places/way/means to store to them!

Anyway, not a stupid question! I gather all the similar objects to one place -- and then sort and stash the ones I wish to keep. If more items appear (as if by magical breeding!!! LOL!!!) then I re-sort-- and decide on another storage idea.

In this house -- we are at the limits of each storage section -- so items MUST be sorted -- so that the entire number will re-fit back into the same space. Really hard to do -- but (sigh) some things simply have to go!

Do you have a card table? They're pretty small and don't take up much room, but seem to hold a good deal of stuff while sorting is going on. I put one up in the garage;DH used one in our bedroom. This one was supposed to be a temporary arrangement 5 years ago and we're still tripping over it, so be warned.

For Vicki.....

I don't have as many as you but I keep my plates, etc. in hatboxes. I have very little storage so I just leave the boxes sitting out.
No one has a clue!

Wings

Luv your site too

I rearrange things periodically because not only might I find those extra two vases somewhere down the road, but I might even buy 2 more vases -- not that I need them but just because I want them. So, today, I put the three vases in a certain place, and in a month, I need to put those vases elsewhere so that they all fit. And in 4 months, I might need to move them again. Or move something else I was storing with the vases to make room for the extra ones. Or, if one breaks, now I might need less room than before thus necessitating further reorganization at some point, although that is less urgent.

So, yes, organizing is definitely an ongoing process as you add or subtract items to your inventory.

There is no possible way I could ever keep things in some kind of limbo as I reorganized the entire house. You just have to figure the best place for something, and if that doesn't work later for whatever reason, then switch the place. I don't think it's a stupid question at all.

I like putting things on the kitchen table (for temporary storage) because having to eat at the table forces me to clean up, plus when the kitchen looks cluttered, it reminds me not to forget the tasks at hand.