Wow! Steve, I Agree on decorating. Good to have you. There are many men out there who are sparce on decorations but have no clue what they like- they just don't have anything out of lazyness. I'm impressed. I think if you ever end up learning the magic to get a husband to declutter, I'd like to know the magic secret. My DH is a great man and I'm lucky to have him. But he is a saver. He saves everything. Paper is his biggest downfall in saving. If it is paper, it must be important- even reciepts from McD's. Soooo- I admit it, I declutter behind his back. Right or wrong, it is survival for me. I can handle saving things when they are neat and put up in a place, if a place is made for the things you want to keep, then fine. Our problem is the place for things as far as my husband is concerned is where he put it last. For example, he's fixing a toy in the front room on the counter, he finishes fixing the toy, the toy belongs on the counter because that is where he had it last AND the tools belong on the counter because that is where he had them last AND the dead batteries belong on the counter because that is where he had them last. It doesn't matter if the tool box goes under the sink three steps away and the dead batteries go in the garbage two steps away. SO I pick up after him. And when he wants his tool box, where does he look? You got it, on the Counter. Everything goes "here for now" and then that is it's new home. SO I do declutter and get rid of behind his back. We dont' have the storage space for everything. We just don't. Five people in a 1500 sq. ft house, three bedrooms- we don't have closets. Clutter piles up quickly. I can't stand it and I can't think around it and I get stressed out around lots of clutter. So it's survival. When he is gone on trips the magazines and catalogs that are older than a year go away- unless they are nicely put up in a place where they belong. My belief being that if they are important to him, he will take care of them. But all to often what happens in our home is magazines (for example) end up in a sloppy pile on his side of the bed. Every so often I grab them and throw them in a basket in the front room waiting for him to take care of them. I'll tell him- they are there and if you want them, you need to put them in a good place. End of the year, they go away. My point is this-- I tell my DH if something/anything is important to him, we will find a place for it. I just ask that it be neat and look nice. I believe we can find or make a place for just about anything- A place where I can have my needs for neatness and cleanliness met and he can keep his stuff. If we need to buy bookshelves, gosh knows we have plenty of space for bookshelves, we can buy bookshelves and he can save tons of magazines. IF he doesn't want to put the time and effort into finding a place for something and doesn't take care of it, then it's fair game. I try to warn my DH that I'm reaching my limit- the magazine basket is full, or whatever, and I'm going to go through it and clean it out. After that, I think it's fair game. So, I guess my advice to you PJade is the same-- help him find a place for it that allows you to have them put up, out of the way, in a place you can live with, stored in a way you can live with... And that allows him to have his need to save those wires. IF he isn't willing to work with you, warn him and explain that you really can't live with it the way it is- then do what you want. Of course, this same advice would get several of my friends in divorce court. You and your dh need to do what works for you. You need to do what you feel comfortable with and what you feel that you can do. Too bad there is not a magic solution to this age old problem. Ginger

My DS and I have just finished cleaning out my dad's property so we can sell it: 2400sf house, two car garage attached to the house, another two car garage/workshop, attic and a large shed. All of these were FULL of stuff. We first determined things we knew we were going to keep, either for ourselves or to put in storage to sell later. We moved the larger things we were keeping out to make more room and to give us a feeling of some progress. Then we started with the obvious trash and got rid of it. That made it a lot easier to see what was left. Once thing that I had to be careful about was spending too much time with the sentimental things. We found a lot of old pictures, cards, and even letters between my parents right after they were married. I found very quickly that I would start looking at these things and an hour or more was gone. For things like those, you may want to put them aside until later. You can always go through a box of photos while watching tv. I found it helpful to focus on areas where I knew I could make fast progress. For you, that may be something like the baby clothes. You know you will never need those again. Unless there is a special item packed away in there that you'd like to pass on to your grandkids, you may be able to just take the bags/boxes that you know contain baby clothes and either put them in a pile to be donated or trash them if they are in bad condition. That will let you see your progress and encourage you. Yes, your kids will be grateful. My dad hung on to so much obvious junk: old catalogs, half empty containers of everything from motor oil to shampoo, old clothes, our old toys, etc. I am trying to really think about this for my own home.

I have been resisting getting a rug or decor for my formal livingroom until the new floor is in. DH does not want to even look at rugs until the sofa is picked out. It is really hard to hold off but it is better in the end. For you, I would not want to do anything until it is all done. That may mean staying on them until they get it done so you can clean and move back in. They may hurry because you are on them so much. If you read my post about our huge fireplace hole in the wall ordeal you will see I understand your lack of motivation. The weather this time of year slows us down a lot. I say draw you line in the sand and wait until you are ready. We set a goal of being done by Christmas and now dh is talking about starting on it this weekend.

I don't know how typical this is, but when the SO got home with a new knee joint, at the first visit the physical therapist did a quick walk-through of the house with me so we could get rid of any inadvertent obstacles. And the surgwon's office had a handout on what to do for house prep. Some things, like the step down from entry to LR couldn't be changed, but we had already had grab bars and a low-curbed shower installed after the busted leg incident. So ASK the care facility and the primary care doc what you really need to do.