Lifestyle / The Cozy Cottage

I Love Spring Cleaning

I can’t tell you just how much I love getting rid of things we no longer need and also organizing what we have. Spring is a perfect time to do that (but, I’ll be honest, I do this all year round). Spring cleaning isn’t easy for everyone, so I’m sharing what I’ve done in case it helps.

Donate what you don’t need anymore (especially baby and kid stuff!)

We are having just one child, which means that as he grows out of things, we can donate them to parents and families who could use them. We barely bought anything for Gus the first year because of all the hand-me-downs we got, and I’m very happy to do the same for other parents.

Some of his old things – like the baby carriers and swaddles – were taking up room in his closet. And my old breast pumps were taking up room on a garage shelf. I recently donated them all by posting to local parenting groups and am so glad that new families will use them.

Donating baby and kids items that are in good condition to families who could give them new life is wonderful, but there are some items that can be a little trickier to figure out. For the used breast pumps, I looked into local organizations helping moms in need as well as the brand makers of each pump to ship back for recycling, and either option would have been great.

Look into bulk garbage disposal

Let’s face it, humans are pretty good at accumulating waste. We don’t really have room for extra stuff at the cozy cottage but we have a large garage where things could easily go to live another life.

We use the garage quite a bit (see this post on Boss Bar, and I have an update on our garage usage coming soon), especially for storage. But we also use it as a way station for items on their way totally out of here. Stuff tends to accumulate in the garage until we can get rid of it in bulk.

There are ways to get rid of bulk garage, including ordering a container to set up on your property to load in large garbage and then the company will come pick it up. Our town has something called Container Day where one Saturday a month, April through September, you can drop off anything your vehicle can bring (with some exceptions). I love taking advantage of this because it’s free and it’s local.

Our town also does bulk garbage pickup for a minimal fee, which is cheaper than a company option, but not free like Container Day. So, again, I like taking advantage of what the town offers and I plan ahead for it every year.

This spring, I threw out scrap wood that I don’t think I will use again, an old rug that was destroyed and I couldn’t give away, our old bed that was broken, and junk that was too large to go into our weekly garbage pickup.

Get rid of what you don’t want to make room for what you do want

One thing that we have done repeatedly that we really need to stop doing is deciding we need or could use something and then taking the cheap option when we go to buy it. We almost always regret it because we’ll realize that the materials and construction are poor quality, it doesn’t look as good as we’d like, or actually isn’t the right fit.

We have almost no storage in our house, so we have created storage in our garage and years ago, we bought a storage unit that was cheap and regretted it immediately. The second we put it together, we knew it was flimsy and that we would need to replace it down the road.
I posted that item, as well as a charcoal grill, to local marketplace groups on social media because, while these things were fine, they aren’t what we want. We’d much rather save the space to either replace them or just have more room.

Getting rid of all of this, clearing up storage space and making room for things that would be better for us, has made me feel really good!

In other words, here is how I handle spring cleaning and organizing:

• Use local social and email groups to donate stuff locally, and easily, in a socially distant world.
• Take advantage of bulk garbage options that are free or for minimal cost.
• Give away or sell what you don’t need or love to leave room for something better (or just leave room).

Hope this helps get you going on your spring cleaning and organizing journey. And if you’re interested in organizing tips, check out what some organizing experts shared in this blog post. Happy spring cleaning!