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2011: Less is more

 

2011 was a really busy year for me. Between landscape projects and travel, I have been working diligently on getting our 1907 early Craftsman house cleaned out. Let’s just say we had a lot of stuff we didn’t need.

In July we had (5) dump trucks worth of “stuff” removed from under our house and taken to the dump.  There was a 100 year accumulation of building materials (80 rusty paint cans, crates of rotten books, a parade of old furniture, cat poop, etc.). The front lawn looked like an episode of Hoarders for a few days as we sorted through all this stuff. The neatest thing we found was a dog permit from the 1930’s. I am happy to say we got rid of about 98% of it.

St. Vincent de Paul has come out (9) times to pick up furniture and boxes of household stuff (see photo of one pile above). It has gotten to the point I have them on speed dial on my phone.

Then we had a garage sale to get rid of some bulky items.  On top of that I have posted well over (50) items on Craigslist this year. There was a tandem bike, building supplies, lap tops, routers, servers, endless amounts of furniture, weights, clothing, plants, etc. I even got some guy to come dig all the rose bushes out of our yard – for free on Craigslist.

I still have a few more things to get rid of but I am 95% done clearing the place out. Now we get to focus on the fun stuff — the garden and landscape in 2012!