Week 2 of decluttering: The mess under the stairs

I know it doesn't look like much in this photo but believe me when I say that The mess under the stairs (with a capital T) has been a problem area for a long time! We don't have much storage space so under the stairs has become a bit of a dumping ground for old toys or toys that we don't have anywhere else to store. I have been avoiding sorting out this area for awhile (particularly because we've had mice in the house recently and I was dreading what I was going to find buried under all these toys - ewww!)

I cleared out everything from under the stairs to start with, throwing out all of the toys/other bits that were broken or not of any use anymore and then sorted out what toys I wanted to keep, sell or giveaway. I vacumed and cleaned the area (thankfully I didn't find any mice!) I put back the toys that we will still use. I ended up with only about 1/4 of the amount of toys that we had in the first place so I was quite happy with that.

Everything cleared out and cleaned up.

I now have a pile of toys and other things to list on ebay. I hate listing things on ebay as I find it so time consuming but I'm hoping this pile will earn us a little bit of money. Especially since it's things the kids aren't really interested in!

The pile of toys for ebay. Yes, they are being stored in our old shower. If I didn't hide them the kids would want to play with them again and then I'd really have trouble getting rid of them ;)

And this is the end result: a much reduced pile of toys under the stairs! I'm quite happy with this weeks efforts! All the things that don't sell on ebay are going straight to the op shop too so I don't have them hanging around for ages.

Bliss - a much smaller pile of toys now stored under the stairs!