This weekend I pretty much slept. For three days. And read when I wasn’t sleeping. I didn’t do much. But, a few weeks back we did unload some furniture that we really didn’t need.

I had been thinking about Francine Jay’s article about 15 Pieces of Furniture You May Not Really Need, but people think we are supposed to have for whatever reason. We are taking a hard look at everything in our home to determine if we really need it, and that includes furniture.

By eliminating furniture that isn’t necessary, three things happen:

1. You open up extra space in your home.

2. There is one less thing to clean and maintain.

3. You either earn a few extra bucks by selling it, get a tax deduction for donating it, or just feel good about giving it away on Freecycle.

Extra Chair

When we moved into our house five years ago, there was a period of a few days when we didn’t have much in the house while we waited for furniture to arrive from storage. Our neighbor set this chair out in bulk trash and we picked it up to use it in the interim. Except, it wasn’t an interim. We kept it.

We don’t need it, so it got donated to The Family Place. Along with the pillow.

Playroom Furniture

In this room, we started with easy wins. The sofa that was in horrible disrepair. We also sold a few items on CraigsList.

Our sunroom, which is currently holding all of our furniture while we do our remodel, used to be a playroom for the kids. Now that they are getting older, they don’t play with big, bulky toys. We’ve relocated what they do play with to their bedrooms, essentially negating the need for a dedicated playroom. (I say this knowing full well that a playroom is not a necessity to begin with.)

Playroom Furniture

Several years ago we bought these storage pieces from Ikea. Only they didn’t have the white in stock, so we bought the pine ones. I had these grand notions that I would paint them white, then cover them with cushions to make them like window seats. Me and DIY? Not great friends. I started priming them, my back started to bug me, I got bored, had to go to work on Monday, and I quit. I never finished.

Bad Mommy. Bad.

The kids and I have been working on weeding out the toys in the playroom for literally two years.

Two. Years.

Finally, age and time have given all three of us wisdom. “Nah, I don’t play with that.”

We were able to donate 80% of the toys in there. I was so incredibly proud of both of them.

We also sold a kid table and 4 chairs. The kids used it when they were younger and smaller. We no longer regularly use it, so we sold it. Another $30.

The Boy’s Room

Since we were on a roll, we moved to the kids’ bedrooms. The Boy has a closet with built in shelves and drawers, in addition to hanging space. We were able to relocate all of the clothes in his dresser into his under-utilized closet.

For. The. Double. Win.

He gained extra space in his room and we pocketed $160. Thank you CraigsList.

The progress made in The Girl’s room will be documented another day. But let’s just say that divesting our home of these unused items has caused a bit of a shift in our non-thinking.

Question and Answer

We’re really asking ourselves:

1. Do we use this piece of furniture?

2. Do we need this piece of furniture?

3. Do we need what is inside this piece of furniture?

4. If we do need what is in it, can that stuff go somewhere else? Where?

When we start bringing furniture back in from the sunroom, we’ll be asking all kinds of questions. I suspect a lot of furniture will be exiting our home. Which is good for a lot of reasons.