Saturday loft challenge

I've been wanting to get up in the loft and sort it out for ages. It was on my jobs list for our week off in December, but we couldn't quite fit it in with all the other things going on. As we didn't have any football on this weekend and no firm plans we decided now was as good a time to start as any.

Ollie devised a plan that would involve minimal disruption to the rest of the house, namely we (I) would create a space in the loft by throwing some very obviously rubbish large things away. I could then put the things we were definately keeping that didn't need much sorting out in the created space, creating more space to sort more stuff out (following so far?)

So I started by passing down a load of random bits that were quite obviously things that should have just been thrown in the bin in the first place (rusty tins, old accounting textbooks long out of date, the shower attachment for bath taps, the attachments for the exercise machine that got thrown out 3 months ago, 8 old used lumpy pillows!).

Then we started on duvet mountain. I had 5 duvets in the loft plus the 2 boxes for the duvets that are currently residing on our bed and the spare bed. That included 2 very old and cheap 12.5 tog duvets and a 13 tog duvet. Now I can't remember the last time we went higher than a 7.5 tog duvet and I think the 7.5 only stayed on the bed for 4 days when we had a particularly heavy frost. 3 duvets went to the recycling along with the old spare bed and matress that had bits missing.

After duvets was backpacks. I really should throw the old broken ones away when I get a new one rather than sticking it in the loft. I think I found 8 old ones up there.

Then it was the turn of the empty box stash. We keep all the empty packaging boxes for pretty much everything we buy because you don't know a) if you will need to send it back and b) if you upgrade and sell on ebay you get much more for it (and it's easier to post) if you have the original packaging. Still, we managed to fill the whole of my car with empty boxes (after i broke them all down) for things that we either don't have anymore or we aren't going to upgrade or sell in the future.

3 trips to the tip later it was 4pm and I finally have a walkway down the centre of the loft with a large section that has been sorted. Unfortunately there is still a LOT left to sort out but it's a start.

The evening was met with a well deserved G&T, I cooked tapas including green sauce and canarian potatoes and we watched the Edge of Tomorrow which was really just Groundhog Day with Tom Cruise and aliens instead of Tom Hanks and a groundhog.