Comments on: Overwhelm yourself

By: Lina

Lina — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:10:50 +0000

We have Reidel wine glasses (with stems) and love them. We use them at least 3 times per week and always put them in the dishwasher. We got the glasses more than a year ago and haven’t broken a single one.
Great glasses add to the pleasure of drinking wine.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:06:05 +0000

FYI on the stemless Reidel wine glasses…we just has one break in the dishwasher!

By: Lori

Lori — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:50:44 +0000

@Dee: Can you try it one cabinet — or even one shelf — at a time, rather than doing the whole kitchen at once? If you’re like I used to be, that can be enough to overwhelm you.

By: Lori

Lori — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:48:59 +0000

I’m with anon. We do entertain, so it makes sense for us to have a couple dozen wine glasses and other barware, but the majority live in a storage box, come out for parties, and go right back in the storage box after the cleanup.

We purged the coffee mugs when we last moved, but we still have too many. Problem is, I went through a 10+ year pottery phase…

By: verena

verena — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:37:19 +0000

Yep, I could have written this… We have been married almost 9 years too…. Had our first yard sale last summer, made $950. Obviously, the stuff we sold was worth far more than that…. I am do my best to stifle the demon inside me that wants to keep filling the spaces.

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:43:22 +0000

I bought a dozen cobalt blue wine glasses at an auction because they were cobalt blue (a weakness of mine)–and I don’t drink wine at all. They’ve sat in my china cabinet for three years now, unused. When I can *get* to my china cabinet (there’s a bike blocking it at the moment–long story) they might be the first things to go, because I also have a nice set of cut glass wine glasses that are much nicer. They aren’t cobalt blue, but I can’t have everything.

Earlier, I did go through the glass cabinet, and I did get rid of some of the glasses I’ve collected from Goodwill over the years. My biggest problem is mugs! I got rid of a dozen mugs at Christmastime (I put sample tins of loose tea inside a variety of mugs for my coworkers’ Christmas presents) and I still have too many. It doesn’t help that when I do go to Goodwill, I see pretty handmade mugs and feel I have to ‘rescue’ them. *sigh*

By: Katie

Katie — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:36:46 +0000

I think all of you who are preserving your good stuff should go ahead and use it! You can’t take it with you, as they say.

By: Narelle

Narelle — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:25:33 +0000

I use the ugliest glasses, plates and mugs for day to day use, in the hope that I’ll break them and then can start using my nice stuff. I can’t bear to throw/give things away that are still functional, and there seems to be some universal law that says if something is ugly, it will never break.

By: tazistanjen

tazistanjen — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:12:15 +0000

I have some beautiful crystal wine glasses too, but the ones I *use* are fairly thick blue glass, because they go in the dishwasher. The crystal ones sit in the cupboard so long that when I finally do bring them out I have to wash out the dust.

I think I know what I need to do, but I’m not sure I am ready yet.

By: Anon

Anon — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:46:22 +0000

We like to entertain, so we have TONS of wine glasses. But after breaking too many of the good ones, we bought 40 identical wine glasses (Vina) from Target for a big party. Now we keep all but 8 of them boxed up out of the way to pull out for our next party. Of the original 8, I believe about 6 of them have survived so far.

We have accumulated a number of freebies though – and I’m going to gather them up this weekend to give away. I prefer using nice stemmed water glasses (that match our Vina goblets) vs. glasses with logos on them or orphans from other sets.

By: Dee

Dee — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:39:30 +0000

So I have a question for you professional organizers and anyone else who has experienced this – I’ve tried the pull it all out and sort it BUT I run out of time, life happens and I end up stuffing the remainder of my piles into laundry baskets or closets.. . then I’m stuck with a disaster. What to do if you just don’t have the time or space to pull it all out? Even a few drawers of stuff could potentially turn into chaos if not done during the right time for me.

Thansk,
Dee

By: Liane

Liane — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:29:20 +0000

All I can say is have you been in my house? We have lived here for 25 years. And glassware is a big problem. Many years ago I found this kitschy book Catch Up In The Kitchen, by a couple home organization pioneers, Pam Young and Peggy Jones. With their blessing I created a Yahoo group to discuss the book and the methodology. The first time I dragged out all the stuff in my lower cabinets, I put it on the floor behind me, only to discover that I trapped my self in the corner. Using this book helped me decide what to put where and also how to figure out if I wanted to keep it or not. Some of the stuff in the book is endearingly corny, but I have been using their method for 30 years with a fair amount of success.

By: Adrienne

Adrienne — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:44:51 +0000

I have wine glasses coming out my ears and I’m an alcoholic and so obviously don’t drink. What’s up with that!!

My favorites (I use for water or fruit drinks)?? My dollar store glasses.

By: Becky@FamilyandFinances

Becky@FamilyandFinances — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:56:40 +0000

I used to live in a 679 square foot house with no closets. One of the things I liked about it was that I couldn’t bring anything in without getting rid of something.

Last summer, I got married and moved into my husband’s 1650 sq. ft. house with TONS of closets. We had a huge rummage sale and got rid of a lot of “doubles”, but I still feel like I have too much room to accumulate stuff.

How do you get the ambition to declutter when your house is more than big enough for your stuff? We have empty drawers and shelves as it is! We don’t want to downsize because we’re hoping to have kids in a couple of years. Any advice?

By: Michele

Michele — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:50:25 +0000

I love the idea of taking everything out to see it all. They seem to do that consistently on organizing shows and it works well for me at home too. One added benefit for me is that seeing everything together once I’ve purged it is that it helps me figure out what, if any, storage aids I need.

By: amy

amy — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:02:19 +0000

My parents have, oo, if I said 300 glasses that would be a conservative estimate…

They do entertain a bit but still! 300! Ye gads…

By: Jacqueline

Jacqueline — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:58:54 +0000

Ah, moving into a smaller space is such a great way to force yourself to declutter! Two years ago I moved to a small apartment in a city where space comes at a premium and I definitely had to cut down on the amount of stuff I had – and now I have a nicely organized, uncluttered apartment, and since it is tiny, I really can’t bring home tons of new stuff unless I start getting rid of things. It keeps my inner packrat in check!

By: Stacey

Stacey — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:42:46 +0000

I love my Riedels, and have a large set of them, when they break, we have backups. We also have the large imprinted Riedels they give with the cover charge at the Holiday wine-tastings.

We recently decluttered our glass hutch. We did the “removed and look at all of it” method. From that little hutch, our glassware and barware covered the entire dining room table, and overflowed onto the kitchen counter. Fully half of it was cheap, small and free, left over from single life (10 years ago!) and wedding gifts from people we don’t know. The stacking was really quite creative!

Now, we still have a nice selection of wine glasses and barware, but we can see all of it at a glance, and there’s lovely space in the hutch, which we will NOT be back-filling.

There is hope for a packrat like me.

By: Katie

Katie — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:47:26 +0000

The nice thing about excess glassware is that you know it will be a great find for someone at Goodwill.

We have those giant, delicate Reidels, too! I found peace with the situation a couple years ago after cracking one like an egg and breaking another completely off its stem. I told my husband I’d be happy to wash them, but I didn’t want to hear a word about it if I broke one.

The owner of a nearby wine store told us he uses the stemless Reidels so he can wash them in the dishwasher.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:45:41 +0000

The problem is, if I had emptied my entire kitchen onto the dining table/floor, I would have been thoroughly overwhelmed – and as a result, I would have given up, and the stuff would be there still!