Saturday, July 24, 2021

Making Space...

Welcome back to another Making Space post.  This week's post is all about process, so you might just want to grab a cuppa and join me as I invite you into my home and my head for a few minutes.

This week it all started when I was flipping through Youtube and I came across a video that I only saw the title of:  How I downsized my cookbooks (or something like that).  Honestly, I lost it almost as quickly as I found it, and nothing I watched after that was all that inspiring, but just seeing the words "How I downsized my cookbooks" - I instantly knew that's what I was going to tackle this week.  I was so ready!

I've mentioned Dana White's Container Principle in various other posts, so I won't reexplain here, but I instantly knew that not heeding this principle is why my cookbooks are out of control (for me). 

I've always kept my cookbooks in the desk section of this bookshelf/desk piece of furniture:
Excuse some poor quality pictures,
but blurriness aside I'm sure you're thinking this doesn't look bad.

Long ago, I started out with just a cookbook or two, and slowly I added to my collection.  For years I only had a few cookbooks, and the little desk space (that is closed above) held them all very neatly and conveniently.  But after many library booksales, and cookbooks being a favorite type of book I liked to bring home, I ended up quickly filling the desk area:

And overflowing cookbooks onto the shelves above the desk.  In case you can't tell, the cookbooks inside the desk space are double parked. It was impossible to get to any cookbook in the back without pulling out a couple of cookbooks in front.  It was a sad state of affairs.

And keep in mind...  I had already purged a bunch of cookbooks sometime in the recent past.  Yep... here's that post!

So the first thing I did was to pull out every cookbook and anything recipe related:
When I did that, I discovered a constellation map thingie on the top shelf that somehow had made its way behind the cookbooks - just like it looks on the top shelf (I left it there for the picture).  That was kind of a cool find.  I'm sure I have a post in me about all the cool things I find as I declutter that I'd completely forgotten we had, probably didn't use in the first place, but now that I'm rediscovering them and seeing how cool they are, I'm waffling over whether I should keep them or not.   I know...  crazy, right?  

That post will come another day.  Maybe.

With all the cookbooks and recipe boxes removed from the desk and the shelves, I set as my goal to only keep as many cookbooks as could fit single file inside the desk space.  Before going any further, I found it interesting and worth noting that the easiest cookbooks to get rid of were my first and most used cookbooks:


The things is...  Even though these were my most regularly used books, I only really used a handful of recipes out of them.  So I copied those pages, slipped the copies into sleeve protectors, and I'm going to recycle the books themselves - because they are very stained and one is somewhat falling apart.  


T
hose two books along with 23 others are no longer going to reside in the cabinet above.


But let me back up...  Before I started, I knew I wanted to make as quick, but still sensible a work of this as I could - so I set some parameters. They are as follows:

At this point in life I avoid most desserts and sugar-laden treats.  Not that I don't enjoy them from time to time, but I don't make them very often anymore - certainly not often enough to keep several books dedicated to them.  That said, I did keep one Hershey's Chocolate recipe book.  For nostalgia's sake, probably.  

Next - While most diets have some worthwhile principles in them, I'm not interested in going on a strict, or severely restrictive diet anymore, and I don't need cookbooks full of recipes devoted to such various (and sometimes opposing) food-styles.  That doesn't mean I don't sometimes go on sugar fasts, stop drinking diet pop, or pay more attention to the carbs I'm consuming.  I just don't need cookbooks to guide me through that at this point.  That said, I am keeping a No-Salt Cookbook 😝 (for the time time being) on the chance that it may come in handy.

What was left, I flipped through and if the pictures were unappealing I didn't look any further.  The book went immediately onto the get-rid-of-pile.  I might have gotten rid of some perfectly good recipes, but I wasn't likely to spend time perusing them because the pictures were a turn off, so why keep them?

The cookbooks (and magazines, eventually) that are hard for me to get rid of are those from Taste of Home.  The only reason I can figure is that these cookbooks and magazines make me think of a favorite time of life - when I was raising kids.  The magazines were a nice thing to get in the mail, and I enjoyed looking through them, imagining all the wonderful things I'd make for my family.  Truthfully, if pressed, I could probably only come up with a handful of recipes I've actually made from the magazines - I'm sure fewer than 20. 

So I went through the books, and will eventually go through all the TOH magazines and copy the recipes I either made and liked, or that still look like keepers.  I've done that already for the TOH cookbooks and they are soon leaving:

I think it's worth mentioning, that I, personally, understand the appeal of collecting cookbooks.  I maintain that collecting cookbooks and cooking magazines purely to enjoy perusing them is a valid thing to do, so I have no regrets picking up inexpensive cookbooks through the years, and subscribing to various iterations of TOH magazine in years past, but that said, I'm also ready to let them go and free up the space they have taken up in my house, my head and my heart. 

Finished (for the moment), culling through cookbooks, I'm happy to report that I met my goal.  Everything fits, single file, inside the desk!

Nothing cookbook or food related is on the top two shelves. 

Moving on...   I thought I'd stick with the cooking/kitchen theme, so I also emptied out and unstuffed a stuffed linen closet.  Along with having a thing for cookbooks, I have a thing for towels.   

I have amassed a large number of kitchen towels over the years and I like to change them out seasonally. I gave myself the goal of only keeping as many seasonal towels as will fit in the kitchen drawer (that's assigned to towels and dishcloths) at a time. 

I counted and learned that about 24 towels fit in that draw at one time.  I know...  even that number is probably ridiculous, but it's what fits in the drawer!  So I counted out 24 towels for each season (if I had that many) and I removed the rest of the towels.  For the record...  I just counted and I ended up only saving 74 towels.  Yes, I know that's still a lot of kitchen towels for one household, but they fit very neatly in the space allotted in the linen closet, so "Yay, me!"

These are the ones that are leaving:
They are still nice enough towels to have a fair amount of use in them, so I'm taking them to our church's kitchen where they can be used to clean up all manner of stuff and they'll get to looking shabby in no time, I'm sure.  I've never understood why or how church kitchen towels get so bad looking.  

Also, in this linen closet are kept tablecloths and some cloth napkins.  Now, I've whittled these down before, and doing this was a little harder this time around, but I pulled out four tablecloths to rehome:

Yep, one is brand new.  But I've got another one that's almost identical that I'm keeping. In my defense, I have bought very few table cloths over the years.  Tablecloths were a favorite gift of MIL's to give, so there were many Christmases I was presented with a new one.  Even though I had barely used ones in storage.  

The bright red one above was always pulled out for birthday meals when the boys were growing up. I hesitated slightly about getting rid of it, but honestly, I think it only fits our table when the leaf is out and most of the time anymore when we're all together, the table is extended, so I'm not sure it's going to be getting anymore use anyway.  The other two cloths are vinyl - handy when you've got kids or messy crafts, but I don't care for them anymore and have so little use for them - they're outta here!

Being close to my goal of 60 things, I started looking around for things that sort of go with the kitchen theme and I came upon this:
What is it, you ask?   

It's a pillar candle that I wrapped up to keep the color from coming off onto other candles, and just look at how the color has been soaked up into the paper towel!!!

I unwrapped it, and saw that it had 3 or 4 layers of paper towel around it.  And just handling it, the color came right off onto my hand!
Yuk.  I don't need a candle around that is going to stain anything and everything.  So it's getting chucked.  Several of these are being donated:

The short blue-green one is similar to the tall one so it's getting culled due to guilt by association.  The pale green one would be kind of pretty, but it's faded and yellow on the back side.  The red candle is supposed to be scented, but it's not a scent that I like so why keep it?  It smells slightly of coffee, I'm sure someone else will love it.  The glass globe-shaped candle holder I've had for years, and it's kind of pretty when lit, but it hardly ever gets lit and I'm okay with letting it go.  I think.  I'm waffling a bit seeing it in the picture...  sigh  Just being real here.  The other container is a small hydroponic planter that didn't work well for me, so it's definitely taking a hike.

All in all that's at least 62 more things leaving the house this week.   It's amazing how much lighter a space feels once the excess starts leaving.

And just because I know you're curious...  I've taken a close-up of all my keeper (for now) cookbooks: 

It's a little dark in there, but hopefully you can see enough to satisfy your curiosity.  

And three of these recipe boxes are full of recipes (one has recipe cards only).  You can see we're not going to starve around here 
for lack of knowing how to cook something. 
😉


I'm thinking of sticking with books for another week.  I could easily remove 60 books and it not make a dent, but I'm not sure I have the stick-to-it-iveness to stick to it with books for another week. 

I could tackle the game closet.  What do you do when you own (and love) games that no one else wants to play with you?

Or the furnace room...  all manner of odd stuff lurks there.

Check back if you're interested in seeing what gets purged next week!




Making Space Week 40:  424 things gone!


29 comments:

  1. This is a model of how to do it. I've found often that a cookbook only has a couple of recipes I want to use. I copied those pages, gave away the books to happy collectors. If someone else is going to enjoy them, that makes it easier to part with them. Good for you!

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    1. Thanks, Liz. I love cookbooks, but when I think about it, it is kind of crazy that we hang onto big cookbooks - and for only a few recipes we find we like to make out of them.

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  2. Cookbooks are a hard one to cull out. You did so well with it. Candles were an easy thing for me to get rid of. I prefer my waxie warmers for adding lively smell to my house or 'electric candles' for ambience. Is the family photo of your lovely family when the boys were little?

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    1. To be honest, every time I cull out some candles, I like them less and less. I hardly ever light a candle anymore. Really, it might be time just to let them all go. If I do, you're my inspiration. ;^)

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    2. I didn't answer your question about the photo. Yes, that is a picture of our young(er) family - probably in 2001.

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  3. When we were married I didn't have a clue how to cook and I learned using the good ol' Betty Crocker "red cookbook". Wore the first one out and got a second. It's still the only cookbook I would seriously keep out of the ones we have. The only candle I have is a battery operated one that never gets turned on, but looks nice. Might be used when the power goes out once in awhile. Never been a fan of tablecloths so only have one that might get used at Christmas if we have guests....no placemats either (just one more thing to have to wash). You've reminded me though that there are several cookbooks I know we could get rid of and not miss them.

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    1. Tablecloths aren't something I would have started using, but when MIL started giving them to us, that's when it all began. And the tablecloth collection grew... I think since hubs grew up with a table cloth always on the dining room table, that's what we did, too. Kitchen table, no. Funny how other people can influence our lives in a way we look back on years later and wonder why?

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  4. Oh, I am definitely interested! You inspire me!

    Since returning from my time away, I have tidied up several areas of my home and I took one large bag to the local thrift store. It feels so good to purge the space-eaters! I am slow . . . but I continue to organize and sort and weed out.

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    1. Good for you, Cheryl. I often find that big life events, and sometimes being away from home and coming back are great for looking at our stuff with new eyes. It's like clarity takes hold - and when that happens one does well to go with it before it passes. :)

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  5. You did so well. I'm not ready to cull my cookbooks yet, but when I do I will remember this post!

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  6. Wow fantastic progress made there, what is it about cookery books that attract us so much, I had dozens and so many pages clipped out of magazines slotted into them too. When I moved I got rid of nearly all of them and do you know I haven't missed them one little bit. I do believe that I could even get rid of some of those that I kept. I'm so impressed with your progress. Have a lovely week. xx

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    1. That is really good to know. I have a feeling, a year from now I'm going to wonder why I copied the recipes I have. I'll keep that in mind when I going through the TOH magazines and maybe I'll just not copy many at all. :)

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  7. Amazing to see how much dye from that candle! Cookbooks, check their value before donating. There are or use to be places that will sell them for you on ebay.

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  8. I liked this post. As you know Becki, I'm a cookbook gal...and Taste of Home is one of my faves, I can't get rid of any of those, I only have a few though. I looked at every cook book you kept and the Hershey's one intrigues me!!! I don't think I'd be able to downsize my collection!!

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    1. It would be fun to see your collection of cookbooks, Rain! :)

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  9. Cookbooks and seasonal dishtowels could have easily been my post. I have amassed far too many seasonal dish towels and cloth napkins and tablecloths:) I just recently put 3 tablecloths in the donate pile. I really only have two that I use on a regular basis and I held onto one more because it is frilly for a shower but I think I am really past that stage. I still need to cull my cloth napkins. I just went through some of the dishtowels and did as you said...one part of a drawer for them. I moved some in to the regular dishtowel drawer and put some ratty ones to rags. The seasonal ones will be in use not hanging out for cuteness. Cookbooks touch that sentimental thing for me. Oh yea....really hard to get rid of. I have two shelves. I really need to whittle it down to one shelf. Maybe I will try again. Thanks for the inspiration and I enjoyed reading.

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    1. I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes dishtowels. Hubs thinks its crazy how quickly I'll declare a dish towel or cloth "dirty" enough to wash, but I'm thinking I'm saving us from all sorts of potential illness not allowing used kitchen linens to be used over and over again before washing. Or shudder... that a hand towel will be used as a dishtowel! I'm a bit compulsive about washing dishtowels and dishcloths. Having a bunch makes life easier - I'm never in a situation where I don't have a clean dishcloth available. :)

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  10. I love these 'making space' post. For me it is an on-going battle, clutter keeps sneaking back in.
    Amalia
    xo

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    1. Oh boy, I know that problem. In fact, when I don't remove the outgoing stuff right away, some of it has a way of making its way back into my life. I've culled several things more than once. lol

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  11. I thought I was doing good but you put me to shame! 62 items!?!? You're amazing! I have bags stacked in my living room to take to the Salvation Army and more in the basement. I hate to make an 1 1/2 trip but I guess that's the only way I'll get rid of them. I've got Jan Karon's cookbook. I didn't know that there was a Madison County cookbook. I read the book and visited there so I might have to see if there's one on Thrift Books. Good job!

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    1. Thanks, Sam. You are my inspiration. I still remember (was it a couple of years ago now?) how ruthless you were with your closet. I wish I could be THAT good at this.

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  12. The candle issue is one I have had. Change that to remove "had." It's an ongoing thing.

    Kitchen towels...I love tea towels and they last such a nice long time. I use up to seven a day so I am sure they can be justified that way.

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    1. Have I already said somewhere here... I'm just about ready to get rid of all my candles. I'm growing less and less fond of the scent of burning candles.

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  13. Well done, you really are making great progress but the number of kitchen towels has me puzzled. Are these a mixture of hand drying ones and dish drying ones? It seems so many I figure they must have different uses that come under the heading of kitchen towel? And then someone has commented they use up to 7 towels a day, I am puzzled. Anyhoo well done on the recipe books, I cleared loads of mine and transferred the recipes to index cards kept in a box but it just occurred to me I have kept one cookbook that the only page I ever look at is how to boil an egg! It is an ancient huge book and I should write up the egg size and egg consistency instructions out on a card and donate it.

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    1. I know, it does sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it. I think I can solve the mystery, but I've decided to post my response in my next Making Space post. More people, who are also wondering, may see it that way.

      The egg timing thing... I always have to look it up online - every single time. lol

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  14. Belt the family came over I tidied up my kitchen racks, one part being using a smaller spaced shelf to put cookbooks there as they were unnecessarily taking up space in a shelf that could store bigger items.

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    1. I find it fun when I realize I can store things more efficiently.

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