It's here! It's here!

[Ajax]

My wife's she-shit-shed was delivered today!

We are finally going to clean out the sunroom and the garage of all her precious possessions that she moved in with, but didn't have room for.
God, I am STOKED!

[Tigger]

Marie Kondo is right about at least one thing--it does feel good to organize things neatly.

Is 'Lady Lair' the feminine equivalent of 'Man Cave'?

[Ajax]

Marie Kondo is right about at least one thing--it does feel good to organize things neatly.

Is 'Lady Lair' the feminine equivalent of 'Man Cave'?

I heard it's She Shed. That's why this is a she-shit-shed. It's for "her shit." I get no space in it and that's fine.
Marie Kondo also advocates getting rid of crap that doesn't bring you joy. Unfortunately, *everything* brings my wife joy.

[BeauV]

I have to say, my Admiral showed up with damned little junk. However, that didn't slow her down at all, Within a year of living together, MY(stuff) is a tiny percentage of TOTAL(stuff). But, that's just fine, she's worth it.

I have a habit of hanging on to all MY(stuff), thinking that I'll need that 3" long 1/2" diameter bit of bronze bar stock someday.... someday.... Really I MIGHT need it....

The Admiral looks at HER(stuff) and tosses anything she hasn't used in 3 months. (I keep my mouth shut.)

[Chris Chesley]

Since we’re currently in packing mode for our imminent move, I’m finding a lot of he/she/it shit and tbrowing it all i to boxes. Despite having accumulated a lot of stuff over the last 8 years in for a 4000 sq ft home, the new place will swallow it easily. I also get a really nice shop in 1/3 of the BARN! I pray only my heirs will be moving it all in the future!

[SemiSalt]

I don't want to be blowing my own horn, but I just threw out a folder of boat-related receipts, insurance policies, work orders, etc from before we moved to Stamford in 1976. And I threw out the Manila folder, too, not just the contents.

[Chris Chesley]

I don't want to be blowing my own horn, but I just threw out a folder of boat-related receipts, insurance policies, work orders, etc from before we moved to Stamford in 1976. And I threw out the Manila folder, too, not just the contents.

Oh...maaaan! You coulda re-used that manila folder!

[LarryHoward]

I don't want to be blowing my own horn, but I just threw out a folder of boat-related receipts, insurance policies, work orders, etc from before we moved to Stamford in 1976. And I threw out the Manila folder, too, not just the contents.

Oh...maaaan! You coulda re-used that manila folder!

What would Greta say?

[kimbottles]

I don't want to be blowing my own horn, but I just threw out a folder of boat-related receipts, insurance policies, work orders, etc from before we moved to Stamford in 1976. And I threw out the Manila folder, too, not just the contents.

You are going to regret that some day Salty.......

I always run into the house and announce to Susan when I am using something that I brought up with us from Altadena, CA in 1977.
It does happen fairly often.
(I tell her so she doesn’t make me clean out the valuable stuff in my garage/shop.)
Some of you have been in that space and know I have a LOT of valuable stuff in there.

[Olaf Hart]

Dont know where to start, I have tools I bought in the sixties and a complete set of Woodenboat Magazine that have survived multiple moves.

I am good at buying things, but lousy at selling them, so we have a lot of stuff I bought for pennies but I just can’t stand the frustration of answering hundreds of silly questions and tyrekickers involved in selling, so I generally give things away, it’s much easier.

It’s a fairly constant topic of conversation in this household, and definitely has to be actioned if we eventually downsize into the Playhouse.

I have seen Kim’s shed, mine is much worse...

[kimbottles]

I now have the full WoodenBoat archived online.
Finally freed up that space.
Same for QST (The ham radio magazine.)

(For the record I dispute Olaf’s statement, but I would be most glad to accept his collection into mine if he wants to ship it up here. What do you think Olaf, one small ocean container?)

[kdh]

I've gotten a lot better with clothes, but I have to do something about books. My school textbooks have to go for the most part, and I have to get rid of books I've read or will never read. I just refused Ann throwing out all my CDs. I still have a player and the quality is still best from the disk. I saved all my vinyl and now I'm glad I did as Adele listens to it a lot. Well, except for the prog rock--Rush, King Crimson, Yes, Asia, ...

[Olaf Hart]

I may have to donate them at some stage Kim, if Sweet Hart knew you wanted them she would be shipping them over tomorrow...

We have discussed bringing the Valiant home to meet Bob for its fiftieth anniversary, and leaving it over there for the kids, but I doubt that is going to happen, The Wooden Boat collection could come over as cargo.

More likely, we are thinking of hosting a a rally of Perry Boats on an anchorage somewhere in Queensland to coincide with the 2024 Rendezvous, and FaceTiming into the tent in the evening. We could link up with V40’s around the world, an appropriate event considering how far afield these boats roam.

That is, assuming we all make it to 2024...

[kimbottles]

I meant the entire contents of your shed Olaf!!

[Olaf Hart]

Oh, now that’s a challenge.

I have been gradually setting up my workshop in the single garage under the playhouse, and happily accepted the gift of three Brownbuilt shelf units from a friend. Managed to refurbish the original workbench, organised some timber storage racks, and am now about to fit 120’ of 18” shelving along a 6’ wall deep under the house.

Don’t seem to have any problem with enough tools to set up a new workshop and keeping the old one working as well..

Should be able to find room for the table saws, band saw and router table in there. Still have my wood plane collection, although I gave the cabinetmakers set to a nephew who has a high end furniture making business.

There is a lot more usable space to dig out once we are settled in, I will have plenty of projects and lawn top dressing for a while.

Once we sell the Adams things will pick up, I have three sets of laminate race sails in sausage bags, multiple spinnaker poles, a spare engine, two spare saildrives, a couple of anchors, spare fuel containers and an Aires to go with the boat.

And two sets of sails and four spinnakers for the Elliott...

And a lot of dinghies...

I guess a 40’ container would do it.

[Jamie]

If you move every 18-24 months it keeps detritus at bay, mostly.

Sentimental value, arbitrage opportunity or hard to find/replace or it goes. Sentimental value sometimes gets stretched....I couldn’t get rid of my bent turbo oil pan as a memorial to an epic failure. So does hard to replace - I still have 3 outboard motors in my parents basement.

Finally got rid of my grad school notes...still have the text books. My wife is ruthless.

[BeauV]

I don't want to be blowing my own horn, but I just threw out a folder of boat-related receipts, insurance policies, work orders, etc from before we moved to Stamford in 1976. And I threw out the Manila folder, too, not just the contents.

You are going to regret that some day Salty.......

I always run into the house and announce to Susan when I am using something that I brought up with us from Altadena, CA in 1977.
It does happen fairly often.
(I tell her so she doesn’t make me clean out the valuable stuff in my garage/shop.)
Some of you have been in that space and know I have a LOT of valuable stuff in there.

Kim, I'm happy to vouch for all the VALUABLE stuff you have in your garage! Geeesh, what is Susan thinking???

[H B]

I am hoping one of our "social distancing" projects is to go to the storage shed we got before the move to go thru stuff and maybe thin it out. We got it as a way to 'stage' the old house while selling. I have a couple of nice (Gill) duffel bags full of clothes, but I don't miss the clothes...I just want the $$ bag. I already got the sewing machine in the house, and the only other thing I can think I am missing is my golf clubs. Nothing else in there I will ever miss. It is only a 5 x 10..but it is chocked full, and there is NO room in the 'new' house for any of it except the duffel and golf clubs!

[Ajax]

I think I may have gone overkill buying this shed.
We cleared nearly all of her stuff out of the garage and it's barely made a dent in the new shed.

Granted, we still need to move a bunch of her stuff out of the sunroom but I'm pretty sure there's going to be room to spare.

[Steele]

I am one of those people who don't like clutter and have never purposefully collected anything. My wife is from a long line of pack rats and if left on her own would cover every horizontal surface with stuff, and then start stacking more crap on top of the first layer. Despite this we have hit a kind of happy middle ground. She has a room or two full of her stuff, we keep the rest of the house pretty neat. Interestingly she is not too attached to her belongings, but is just not motivated to do much about them. If I help her and try not to be an ass we can thin things out pretty good, but left on her own it would never happen.

It also helps that we have had go through mulitple episodes of cleaning out her relatives homes as they age and can no longer care for themselves. I have been in Kim's garage, these places are on a whole different plane. 60 years of mostly worthless junk stacked to the ceiling, entire rooms that are just pathways through mounds of belongings. These are Japanese second generation, their parents came to this country with nothing, lost what they had in the great depression, built it back up and had it all taken from them when they were imprisoned in WW2. They were not horders, no rotting food or bug infested junk, but having been through all that they are very reluctant to let go of anything. They also are very conservative financially, and everyone of them had more than enough savings to support themselves even to very advanced ages. All told we are lucky.

[slap]

I think I may have gone overkill buying this shed.
We cleared nearly all of her stuff out of the garage and it's barely made a dent in the new shed.

Granted, we still need to move a bunch of her stuff out of the sunroom but I'm pretty sure there's going to be room to spare.

But not for long........

[H B]

Steele, My Dad was (is) a packrat and I vowed never to be one. I am a bit like Kim & Beau in that I think, "Ooooooh, I might need that someday!" but I am still trying to get better. I am not as bad as my old man, but when we moved, my buddies helped me move a lot of shit I had not used in a LONG time. Now, stuff sitting in a storage unit for 18 months suddenly becomes undesirable. Stuff in the house every day, I just try to keep re-organizing to keep the chaos organized.Out of sight out of mind does wonders. I am just trying to remember that. Baby steps for us pack-ratters that were born into it. One upside, I did get to see some fabulous dusty old Playboy magazines that were from the 60's in my youth that my Dad horded.

[Steele]

It is interesting how these things are passed down from our older generations. My mom was very clean, as kids if we left something sitting out for a day or two we clearly did not care enough about it to put it away, so it disappeared forever. I hated that at the time, but now I am more like her than not.

[BeauV]

I believe that a storage locker is a great way to deal with stuff. We put it in the locker, if it hasn't been touched in a year, I try to toss it. The Admiral is great about that. I'm the problem. I have a box of my mother's PhD thesis notes. Her bound thesis is on our bookshelf at home, but her notes??? I should toss them, no one will ever read them. First, they are written in cursive, which is rapidly becoming an old person's code. Second, mom had terrible handwriting. My sister and I are the only people alive who could read it. It should be tossed. Then there are my dad's college textbooks... (this is getting embarrassing).

[LarryHoward]

I think I may have gone overkill buying this shed.
We cleared nearly all of her stuff out of the garage and it's barely made a dent in the new shed.

Granted, we still need to move a bunch of her stuff out of the sunroom but I'm pretty sure there's going to be room to spare.

Room for cats?

[kdh]

I believe that a storage locker is a great way to deal with stuff. We put it in the locker, if it hasn't been touched in a year, I try to toss it. The Admiral is great about that. I'm the problem. I have a box of my mother's PhD thesis notes. Her bound thesis is on our bookshelf at home, but her notes??? I should toss them, no one will ever read them. First, they are written in cursive, which is rapidly becoming an old person's code. Second, mom had terrible handwriting. My sister and I are the only people alive who could read it. It should be tossed. Then there are my dad's college textbooks... (this is getting embarrassing).

If you have the thesis why have the notes? Having said that, there's a bit in mine which goes, "it is a straightforward but tedious calculation which shows that something = something else." "Left for the interested reader" as we say in the biz, as if anyone is interested.

We have a 36' x 48' barn with a loft that is nothing but storage. Here's a pic when it was being built. Everything in it should be tossed out, well except maybe for the scrap wood that always seems to come in handy.

[Ajax]

Room for cats?

Pfft...I wish. We put the female to sleep weeks ago, shortly after her 18th birthday. Major brain disease. The lights were on, but no one has been home for about a month.

The male (brother from the same litter) is WAY to spry for his age and shows no sign of slowing down. I'm his best buddy, now. He is ON me, whenever possible. He vocalizes a lot. He's what Seinfeld calls "a close talker." He's all bony and his fur is knappy. It's like petting a bag of sticks. He's such a nice guy that you just can't be mean to him.

Rangers has done an excellent job of reducing and consolidating plastic tubs, making very efficient use of space in the new shed. The garage is finally, officially clear of her stuff. Now I have room to sort, dispose and organize MY stuff. I may actually have a friggin' sheltered vehicle workspace soon.

Her next step, is to keep transferring her stuff from the sun room to the new shed. There is PLENTY of room. We're going to get that room back and finally start using it for humans, and enjoying it.

[Ajax]

Oh- My mother has been joking with me for a year now about installing a "Granny Pod" for her at the house.
https://www.familyhandyman.com/smart-ho ... ranny-pod/

I sent my dad photos of the new shed with the following message:

"Tell Mom her Granny Pod has arrived. No windows but we poked a couple of holes in it for air. We'll put some wood chips down and some lettuce before we put her inside."