Bye Bye Books

This post was started several days ago and then life got in the way.

Last week we went through our two Ikea Expedit bookcases. Our goal is to move the larger 4x4 in to the kids room and keep enough books to fill the smaller 2x4. This will free up the long hallway wall for C's collection of model cars and a few movie posters.

Picture the larger one below completely empty. It's almost ready to go in the kids room. The angle is kind of weird due to the other hallway wall and the living room.

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And what we have left is the smaller one which will be placed on its long side behind our couch and used as a sofa table. We literally went from 18 of 24 cubes full of books to 8 cubes full of books. The brown tubs you see in the above photo hold some household files and scrapbooking supplies. I will reserve one or two tubs for household files and go through all the rest to be stored in another space.

Scrapbooking was a hobby that I started after so many of my friends got in to it. I was never organized enough to get much accomplished and made my best effort. However, the way I do scrapbook pages I just spent way to much money for something that is going to sit in a book on a shelf for most of its life. I would rather have a digital photo frame where I can see photos all the time. The hobies I have decided to stick with are knitting, sewing and gardening.

What we have left is this tower of books to be sent to Amazon so they can post and sell them for us. Anything that hits our PayPal account we will put on our credit card debt.

It's hard for me to get rid of books. The criteria for me to keep books was even harder to come up with. I have "pretty books" that are really just full of photos of great decorating ideas that I am getting rid of. I took a few photos of some ideas I want to remember but the are going. Some books I have re read and will again that I am keeping.

C here: While K has a hard time of getting rid of books it's a bit easier for me. I'm not the reader that she is. Not that I don't like to read. I just can't concentrate. Very difficult for me to stay focused.

It is hard for me to get rid of books (and other personal belongings) for the fact that they are mine. What if I need to refer to them one day? What if there is some amazing fact that is in those books that I know that helps me win a radio contest or a game show? What if I need what's in those books as a conversation filler at a cocktail party?

None of things are going to happen. I'm not likely to be on a game show anytime. I could win if it came down to useless knowledge though.

This is a pretty big step though. This means not only reducing the amount of clutter, but it means gaining some space in our place which is the most important thing to us.

It's difficult if you're not prepared

As K will contest, I'm a total possession whore. Sometimes (not often) it's easy for me to say something like "ok I'm ready to get rid of this (insert item here) and let's just put it with other donate items and get it out quick before I change my mind".


Other times it's not so easy.


Well recently I've had to part with something that I had not intended to part with, but now have no choice.


Being a "car guy" I've collected a number of small cars of varying sizes throughout the years. In recent years I've learned to curb that appetite and actually get rid of quite a few that I really don't need.





Until this last week I had a scale model of a 1973 BMW 2oo2 tii that was Inca Orange.

Beautiful car, no? Yeah I think it's a damn sexy car myself.

And here's the rest of the story...................

So we have a 5 year old nephew. He's obsessed with cars as well.

We had hosted the Father's Day dinner this year. An amazing feet in itself considering we live in 812 sq ft.

Nephew M is always trying to touch my cars at some point when he's here. K or I are always telling him to put the cars back because they are for looking not touching.

Why don't I move the cars you ask? Well this is after all my home and I don't think that it's my responsibility to child proof my home when at 5 years old nephew M should know that he can't touch things that belong to him and honestly it's his parents job to monitor and correct their child's behaviour.

Well apparently on Father's Day no one was monitoring nephew M and he got ahold of my BMW. I know it's just a scale model and all and it doesn't do anything to add to my life. It did mean something to me though. I did briefly own a 2002, although not a tii model.

I hadn't planned on getting rid of it in our decluttering, after discovering the other nite that it was broken I've had to throw it away.

This is what's left of my poor Inca tii. The door was torn off at the hinge and the trunk was torn off at the hinge.

When I confronted my SIL about it, I wasn't prepared to not get any kind of closure. Instead of addressing me about it, she had nephew M ask me about the car. When he did, he asked "what car did sister J break"?

I was truly amazed. He was blaming his little sister who is going to be two in a literally another week.

I told him with no uncertainty that I believe he broke it as he had to be told four times to put it down.

So with that I marched him back outside and to his mom. NO apology from nephew M and no prompting of an apology from SIL.

I did let her know that as of that day that I had started researching sites that carried this particular car and it was discontinued through all vendors.

The prices are just skyrocketing as well since this car is no longer available. It will cost more to replace (should I find one on ebay or Amazon) than I think anyone should pay for a model car.

If it had been any other car in my collection this would not be so hard.

The good thing is that it made me look hard at the others and decide that they need to go as well.

Less clutter is the name of the game.

Thank you nephew M.........I think.

Our Story

Enuff Stuff is about decluttering, minimizing, repurposing , simplifying and living debt free. We as a couple have spent years as consumers buying up stuff and letting it sit in our home, cluttering it up. Well, no more!


Enuff Stuff is the brainchild of Chris & Karen Townsend, high school sweethearts who went their separate ways and found each other again. For the past nine years (6 of them married) we have been renovating and updating a 812 square foot condo in the greater Seattle area.



We have a four year plan in place to get out of debt, graduate two teenagers from high school and move to Southern California for the weather and the opportunities in the film industry.

We each have our own personal blogs as well. You can find Chris at the Kilted Travel Agent or Karen, the Paisley Penguin by clicking on the links.

Join us on our journey.