You Know It’s Bad When The Furniture Gives Up

Posted on September 14, 2007 by Melissa
Filed Under Household

But I might need this stuff! I think we finally got a sign that we have collected too much “stuff”. We have 2 cheap plastic shelving units that we use to store excess junk in a spare bedroom upstairs. They are jam packed. I couldn’t even tell you what is on these shelves. They tend to stay out of sight, out of mind.

We have been talking about doing a preemptive strike on this junk before the move. Since we haven’t been using it we might as well organize and box it up so we have one less thing to worry about. Well, apparently it is time.

When I tried to enter the room the other day I couldn’t open the door. The shelving units had fallen over and the contents were everywhere. I officially felt like I had way too much stuff. I couldn’t even get in the room due to the mess.

Even though it looked like a reasonable amount when neatly organized on the shelves, on the ground it looked like an incredible pile of random and useless junk. It was sobering to look at. When thrown together on the floor you really got a sense of the sheer volume of it all.

I don’t know how the shelves got knocked over. Nobody has been in that room and the door has been closed. Maybe the shelves just gave up and threw themselves to the floor? Maybe they accumulated one too many specs of dust and it couldn’t take the weight? Who knows?

Anyways, we must go through it all now. The shelves have spoken. It is time.

The Method

We are thinking of making three piles: Keep, Sell, and Give.

Anything we want to keep will have to go through a litmus test of worthiness:

Have I used this in the past year?
Can I put this to good use right now?
Does it have any real sentimental value?

For things to qualify as “keep” items they need to satisfy 2 of the 3 tests above. I will make exceptions for extreme sentimental value but honestly, if it was so special why did it get put on a shelf in a room we rarely use?

Moving is presenting us with the chance to take stock of all of our belongings and decide what comes with us and what doesn’t. We need to take advantage of that and really “clean house”. Simplify.

If it doesn’t get to make the move with us we must decide if we should sell it or give it away. Anything that is interesting and in good shape we will try to sell on eBay or through a garage sale. Everything else will be offered to our friends or donated to charity. Hopefully someone will want this “stuff”.

Obviously the shelves don’t.

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3 Responses to “You Know It’s Bad When The Furniture Gives Up”

Once Upon a Time, there was the 26th Carnival of Money Stories | I've Paid For This Twice Already... on September 18th, 2007 4:07 am

[...] He might be able to get a head start on the Christmas frenzy. But not too much shopping, because the shelves to hold it might just give up on you and the last thing anyone wants is for their stuff to kill them. After all, it is only stuff. And [...]
brip blap » Blog Archive » Carnivalsup on September 18th, 2007 5:04 am

[...] You Know It’s Bad When The Furniture Gives Up at A Penny Closer will be appearing soon on FOX as "When Furniture Attacks!" The great point of the post is that stuff that’s neatly organized on a shelf looks important and worth saving; in a pile on the floor it looks like, well, junk. [...]
Organize Your Life Carnival - Edition #16 on October 8th, 2007 9:17 am

[...] presents You Know It’s Bad When The Furniture Gives Up posted at A Penny Closer, saying, “Thanks for considering my [...]