It's good to have backups of some things but after decluttering my house, now I'm doing another sweep and getting rid of the duplicate items. I'm down to one stapler, tape dispenser, scissors, hairbrush, measuring cup, watering can, etc.
Is there an advantage to having duplicates of most things?
I have a theory about this.
I have one pair of glasses (I need them for distance.) I always know where they are and I take excellent care of them. DH uses cheap reading glasses. He probably has 25 pair and can never find them. Half of them are broken. I think if you have one and it is of good quality and you take care of it, duplicates just complicate matters.
That being said, there are circumstances when and where duplicates make sense. We have a toilet brush next to both of our toilets. I have my own office supplies, DH has his own.
I have to have duplicate scissors so I can hide my pair and let my partner destroy the public pair cutting metal screens and bits of wire and prying bits of molding out of old plaster.
I like to have more than one measuring cup because sometimes you can't do all the dry things first and then you have a wet measuring cup that isn't good for dry ingredients (like making a cake and then the frosting). But I just keep a half-cup measuring cup inside each of my dry goods containers, so I only need on multipurpose measuring cup in my cupboard, really.
The others, I don't see any reason to have duplicates.
I don't have many duplicates, but we have several pairs of scissors. Hair scissors, fingernail scissors, paper scissors, utility scissors, sewing scissors.
I needed more duplicates when I was still married - my ex rarely put anything back, so having multiples was the only way I had a chance at finding things when I needed them!
My craft room is overloaded with duplicates, since I teach craft classes and must have multiples of many tools in order to run classes smoothly.
My wardrobe is well duplicated, too. Flowy pants in lengths for various heels abound, even though they all look alike on the hanger.
Like Rosa, I have multiple measuring cups. Bowl scrapers, and spatulas, too. I'm often making 5 or 6 dishes at once, and it's easier to have multiples.
Yup, i have multiple pairs of scissors, for all those uses and in different sizes. DH is left handed, so he has a
LH pair in his desk, but he also uses allthe others. I have uncluttered my measuring cups as well. Rosa, you will get more accurate measurements if you use glass measuring cups for liquids. Gone too are half my wooden spoons and the duplicate measuring spoons. We each have our own office supplies as our desks are on different floors.
I have a lot of duplicates, but not on purpose! I've been decluttering for about 2 months now, and I've found so many duplicates. 5 pairs of regular scissors, for instance. 3 vegetable peelers. More pens and markers than I can count.
The frugal side of me wanted to keep everything, but I have donated or given away almost all the duplicates. If it's something inexpensive and your original item is durable and functioning, then there's no reason to keep an extra around to waste space.
I have about 4 pairs of scissors, 3 tape measures, 2 sticky tape dispensers, 2 staplers, several rulers, multiple glue sticks and glue pots, several measuring cups and probably several other duplicates. I have arty crafty thieving children who never put anything back, so this way I stand a chance of finding at least one of what I need, though I do try to have certain homes for them. I also have 2 pairs of glasses, I swap them round when I get bored and I have a spare in case one pair gets broken on holiday, wearing glasses every waking second gets boring when it's the same pair for 3 or 4 years on the trot. My dh chucked a fit when he saw how much I spent on them, but they probably work out at 25p a day which seems pretty cheap to me :) I also usually have lots of extra medication if it's something I need every day, I don't want things to expire but also don't want to be running to the pharmacy all the time.
I think that for certain items, duplicates can make your life easier. If you don't use them all or have bought extra because you're so cluttered you can't find or forgot you had it, then that's probably not good. For me, the advantage of being able to easily find something when I need it outweighs having multiples of something. If I really need to measure something and I need to spend half an hour finding the measuring tape, chances are I'll give up and then forget about it.
I think duplicates in the kitchen are justified if you use a dish washer. There is no point in washing up by hand as well as using a dish washer in parallel, at least imo. Either you have duplicates and run the machine once it is full (which would happen only every other day in a household of two, the reason for us not having one and also due to space limitations) or you wash everything by hand, more often but fewer pieces.
I don't know how is it possible to have so many pens and pencils at home. It is not even duplicate, because there are so many. Seriously, I think they breed or something. Everytime I get rid of a few... I find a few more. Grr!
As for advantages on having duplicates, I guess it depends a lot on the object. Having two books exactly the same isn't as pratical as having, for instance, two pairs of scissores.
Only keep duplicates if you actually need two at the same time or in different places. I could see keeping an extra pair of scissors in the hobby room if someone sews or crafts, or a different kind in the kitchen for use with food. Keeping backup items 'in case the first one breaks' is just wasting money and space.
As for duplicate dishes, we occasionally run out of cups since I've been getting rid of mismatched extras, but it is nice to be able to wash everything at once in one dishwasher load and one sink. We usually have plenty unless the sink is full of dirty dishes already.
Ana_A, I'm with you on the breeding pens and pencils.
I have gone through the boxes where we keep them more than once and only kept a representative sample, but still the boxes fill up. Yet the pen in the holder on the memo board is always going missing.
Scissors are a special case, upstairs and downstairs general purpose ones, 2 pairs of kitchen ones as you may want to use them for things you don't want to mix. Sewing shears, embroidery and craft ones are banned from general use. Nail scissors are doubled up as left and right handed versions, as this makes cutting the nails on your right hand so much easier, but we do have his and hers kept in different places!
i don't feel the need for duplicates of many things, but i am sure some have sneaked into the house!
one can always go out and buy a new tape dispenser.
scissors: i have different sissors for different functions, just as i have different knives for different functions.
i wouldn't cut bread with a vegetable parer, and i don't cut paper with hair trimming scissors.
i've got a huge savage heavy all-metal antique pair for the kitchen....they could chop kindling, almost.
i've got a pair for hair.
i've got a couple of small cheapies for paper, and for cutting snarls out of the skogkatt's underarms!
on a tangent....if low-tech things break these days, i am much more inclined to check out vintage items online to replace them.
i picked up a beautiful old patinated maple wood rolling pin that weighs over 4 kilos and is bigger than any modern thing.
it looks older than dirt and i have no doubt that it will see me out.
i love the idea of never ever having to replace it.
i love the idea that it arrived scratched and beat up, so any mark that i might put on it isn't wrecking it's pristine surface.
it takes off pressure.
Duplicates are one area where I've decluttered thoroughly as well, but some do remain. I have 4 pairs of scissors: one is nail scissors, the other 3 are identical all-purpose scissors: one pair lives in the kitchen, the other 2 in the office. Still not sure why I don't donate one of the office ones. I did have a reason for it, just can't remember now. Hmmm, maybe it is time for one of them to go...
Ana_A, I can completely relate on the pens! During the last move I collected all of them, weeded out the ones that were broken/dried out/empty, and got a container where all the rest should live in harmony. So far so good; the occasional pen or two still float around the house, but not as bad as it used to be!
I remembered that a local newspaper columnist wrote on exactly this topic:
Here's the gist of it:
"Far from the metaphysical, my question will be one that has plagued me my entire life and has become the great unknown mystery in my household. Where did all the scissors go?
Where indeed? It is a constant cry in my humble abode, and it is often followed with the standard imponderables, "Who used them last?" "Where did you leave them?" "Why can't you people put things back where they belong?" and, my favorite, "Well, they just didn't get up and wander off all by themselves."
To declare my innocence, let me just say that I rarely use scissors. I am more of a rip and tear sort of a guy. If God had intended us to use scissors, why did he give us teeth? Ooh, I am going to add that to my list of afterlife questions.
My wife and daughters are the scissors users in my house. So it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that they are also the scissors misplacers. At least, for the time being, I always know where my teeth are.
A few years ago, I became so fed up with the scissors situations that I increased the scissors-to-household-member ratio to 3-1. I found a scissors bin at a local drugstore that was having a scissors sale. Three pairs of different sizes for a buck. So I stocked up. Yep, three pairs of scissors for each person in our house. Since I don't use scissors, that left an extra three pairs as floater scissors. I placed a pair in every known drawer in the house, hoping I would never hear the scissors question again.
It worked. For a while. I didn't hear the scissors question for months. Then, one day, the cry of, "Has anyone seen the scissors?" came from the front room.
Seriously? Fifteen pairs of scissors in this house and you can't find even one pair? I helped look. Sure enough, there were none to be found."
LOL, susanintexas! Thanks for sharing that!
I'm a big fan of duplicates. Having the items in the various places I regularly use them saves a lot of time running around to gather materials and then to put them back. It also prevents proscrastination, because I have what I need right at hand and can't use having to gather supplies as an excuse for putting off whatever needs to be done. And it prevents things that need to be returned to their homes elsewhere from piling up. I have scissors in my office, in the kitchen, and in my studio. I have a watering can upstairs and another downstairs. We have bathroom cleaning supplies in each of the bathrooms. There are paper recycling bins in my office and in the studio. Bottles of hand lotion in my bathroom, at my desk, and on my beside table. A stash of cleaning rags in the mudroom and in the laundry room upstairs. And so on. I have made room for these things that make my life easier, so it is not clutter.
I have a few duplicate tools -- I have a hammer in my toolbox on the second floor, and another one at my workbench in the basement. There are also duplicates of my most-used tools, particularly #2 Robertson (square-head) screwdrivers, Phillips (star-head) screwdrivers and needle-nose pliers.
Saves me from having to trot up or down 2 flights of stairs to grab something.
Ha, I need to count our scissors.
1 smallish, fine-point scissors that lives in the tool drawer - used often.
2 kitchen scissors: one is extra-heavy duty that can cut apart a chicken. The other I suppose I could toss except there are times that I use both during dinner prep.
2 general-use scissors. These live in a desk drawer. The 2nd one my son used in art classes in high school. I should put it with his stuff.
1 scissors in the wall cabinet in the bathroom. The guys use this.
1 surgical scissors. I keep this hidden and use it only for those rare occasions that someone has a larger injury that needs to stay dressed. I like it because of the flat tip that glides between the wound dressing and the skin.
3 scissors that are mine only: one is strictly for cutting fabric, and two small ones. One I keep by the machine and use the other when I hand stitch. Gun to the head, I suppose I could part with one of the small ones, but what's the point.
That's 10 scissors total, which I don't consider a problem. I think my love of specialty scissors is my mother's fault. There were 2 scissors in our house: one crappy all-purpose scissors that tore paper better than it cut, and one sharp fabric scissors. Mom could tell if we used the fabric scissors on paper, so we'd have to listen to her go on and on about why we should not use her scissors.
We have lots of duplicate kitchen stuff, for several reasons. One, we have a dishwasher and it takes a while for two of us to fill it up. Two, I like having multiples of things like measuring cups, for the reasons listed by others above. But mainly we have duplicates because my DH and I have different preferences for cooking utensils, and I'm going to do everything I can to encourage him to keep cooking!
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