I was eager to get started this morning on planning the steps involved in moving the bookcase full of books from the spare room into the garage.

Step 1: Make space in the garage

This wasn’t going to be easy as the only wall I could put it against was crammed with ‘stuff’ including items that I was in the middle of selling or sorting out.

Even though I’d created space by donating the ten charity bags this week, there wasn’t enough room for a bookcase to be moved in, let alone putting it against a free wall!

Feeling frustrated, I started moving things in an unorganised way and piling up items up that I’d seen a hundred times before in different rooms and different parts of the garage. This felt like a waste of my time, so I stopped, sat down and rethought things.

I got some empty charity bags and started to put things directly into there; items that I really didn’t have the energy to photograph, sell and store in case anyone wanted to buy them ‘one day’. I felt proud of myself filling three charity bags and putting them by the garage door ready for my next donation in two weeks’ time (as mentioned earlier in the week, I’ve committed to filling ten more by 13 October).

I got a tape measure and measured the space where I thought the bookshelf could go and moved everything else out of the way. I then had to shift the other cabinet to the left and sweep the area. Step 1 done.

Step 2: Remove books out of spare room bookshelf

After lunch, I started removing all the books from the bookshelf. There were hundreds of them. There were also books and other things on top of the bookshelf. The stuff filled half of the floor when I was done. I started to sort them into books that I could give away and ones that I wanted to store back in the garage in the bookshelf for now. As it involved decision making, I didn’t do as thorough a job as I could have done; however, I did end up with about 20 books for charity.

Step 3: Move bookshelf to garage

This sounded easier than it actually was as the bookshelf was heavy and tall. I removed the three loose shelves. As I’d been doing all of this on my own up to now, I thought I’d ask my daughter for some help. We got as far as moving it to the top of the stairs and then I panicked about getting it down the stairs as I had no idea how to do this (our stairs have a turn half way). I felt like one of us could get crushed by a falling bookshelf! She seemed confident about moving it and got a bit fed up with me that I didn’t trust that we could do the job together.

My husband was having a nap and when he woke up both of them took it downstairs and made it look so easy. Sometimes we have to leave certain jobs to other people!

The next hurdle was getting it out of the front door and past the cars. I had to move my car back and then three of us moved it into the space I’d cleared in the garage. It fitted perfectly and you just don’t know how happy I felt. It was such a big achievement.

Step 4: Move books from spare room into garage

I took a break before I started this step and had some me time in the conservatory. Tea, biscuits, feet up, calming music in my tidy space.

As you may have realised, I’m not very good for asking for help so I did the next step of ‘moving the books’ by myself. I must have made about ten trips from the spare room to the garage and filled the bookshelf with the books that I am either keeping or need to make decisions about.

It all looks tidy in the garage and some other time I can spend some focused time sorting through the books.

Step 5: Remove clutter in spare room

There’s a lot of stuff in the spare room on the floor now that I didn’t move into the garage. I’m going to focus on that tomorrow. I’ve also kept some books back to put in the conservatory. Mainly my self-help collection.

It’s been a long day but extremely productive.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra