Cutting the Clutter

I will admit that I am a mediocre housekeeper. I like to think I while I am not a neat freak or a clean freak - I think that I keep our home manageable and comfortable. But occasionally clutter takes over. Not usually the whole house... but sometimes a room or nook get over-run with miscellaneous stuff (or junk) that we don't need. In the past few months the room that has become the catch-all room was the music room - the room, the closet, it was stuffed full of big and little items that we didn't know where else to put or what to do with. This room used to function as a music room. But it gradually lost its purpose and recently has been reassigned a purpose as "future baby's room". So the time had come....While I have not been taking pictures to document the process (a little embarrassing maybe ;-) after seeing MoneySavingMom's clutter challenge I decided it was worth sharing. Over a period of a few weeks my husband and I have both taken part in purging unneeded items from this room. Here is a list of a few things that had accumulated that we no longer used or needed: two lamps (they are no longer needed since my hubby and a friend installed overhead lighting in the upstairs rooms), two bar stools, one wooden armchair, some old sewing stuff from when my college friends and I were into Renaissance fairs briefly, several picture frames, a couple artificial ficus trees, a foot spa (a gift from my hubby a couple Christmases ago... nice but rarely used - sorry honey, I'd rather spend the money to go get a pedi! ;-), several toys, some scrapbooking stuff that I no longer use, even my hubby decided to get rid of a guitar, etc, etc, etc. We are not done with this room but we have made a significant dent in the chaos.
Now I want to share the several ways that these unneeded items have been dealt with. There were a few items sold (the stools and scrapbooking stuff = $75) on craigslist.com, some was taken to Good Will, the toys were taken to a children's resale shop = $45 and a bunch was donated to a yard sale fundraiser for some friends who are adopting two brothers from Ethiopia (and any leftovers from that yard sale go to our church yard sale to benefit the youth group). I say all this to remind you to be creative when decluttering your own home. There is more than one way to get rid of stuff - er, um, I mean find a new purpose for your unused items. ;-) A couple other suggestions are: freecycle.org, find a local shelter and see what their current needs are, have your own yardsale, or send out an email to your friends and family see if anyone needs anything that you are getting rid of.
Please leave me a comment and let me know how you find a new home for your unneeded clutter items!