This I'll come in handy .

[Vitamin c]

Just finished taking apart a very old bedroom cabinet wood to burn skrews bolts and hooks stored away for another day .

When I went into my shed there it was 40 plus year's of hinges skrewdriver bits of wire bolts door handles and a million and one other bits and bobs .
The thing is yes it's all useful yes if bought from b and q it would cost a fair bit but the truth is I hardly used any of it in years .

Should I give up or keep calm and carry on.

And

Am I on my own here .

[jennyjj01]

Breaks my heart to say it. Get rid.
I have so, so much assorted 'treasure' acquired over the decades. But when I need that certain fixture or fitting, my big bunch of storage boxes has everything but, in every size except the one I want.
For everything that escapes the boxes, ten more things get put in.

[jansman]

I have a workshop with all sorts of fittings and fixings. They are organised- and that is the key. If you cannot find what you seek, then there’s no point in keeping it. Would I get rid? No. There’s not much I cannot fix around the property , and during the first lockdown, I was glad for my stash of ‘junk’ , which enabled the execution of various projects. In the past, when we were poor, that stash saved cash too. Got to be organised though.

[grenfell]

I'll admit i fall into the "it'll come in handy" brigade. Some stuff definitely does come in handy. That offcut of ply , the little tiny screws and the paint have all come in handy to help restore a utility kitchen cupboard i've just done. That reclaimed oak that has sat around for at least 35 years has recently been turned i to a medieval chest. The gallon of paint , even if it isn't actually floor paint and is probably as old as the oak and isn't really an attractive colour has served to paint the garage floor. The piece of stipolite glass has been cut and fitted on a job yesterday. The kingspan insulation i accrued over the years made it's way under the floor and into the loft.
Having said all that I have also been having a chuck out. For example i have a load of electrical fittings , sockets , switches and the like. Some were new but a lot were old and reclaimed. Probably very little point keeping the old stuff. Similarly i have some old plastic pipe fittings with equally old rubber rings and i wonder about them too.
I've come to the conclusion that I've turned into my dad. He would keep all sorts of stuff. He seemed to have the worlds biggest plastic bag collection and i've got a couple of dustbins full myself. When he died and i cleared the house i counted 26 shovels ( and that doesn't incude spades) which probably has a bearing on my comments on the equipping a vehicle thread. It seems to be quite widespread too. A friend has been clearing his parents place . His father was an engineer so there was quite a bit of metal but also boxes of bolts without nuts and boxes of nuts without bolts and even a bucket full of ungalvanised felting nails.
It can be quite therapeutic to sort out containers of mixed screws , nails and whatnots but sometimes it's better to pass stuff on. Either give stuff away , sell it or even scrap it. Along with the 26 shovels we had so.ething like a dozen lump hammers. Not something that generally wears out so i reduced the number.

[peejay]

I have developed an almost super-human skill over the years. It beggars belief, honestly, how extraordinarily readily my "skill" manifests itself.

The skill revolves around all the stuff I have "retained" over the years, and the skill itself is:

Whenever I can't find the "thing" I need, and I give in and order/purchase a replacement "thing", within one day (and 90% of the time within hours/minutes of laying hands on the replacement) the original "lost" thing surfaces.

I kid you not, I am being deadly serious - this is happening to me on an uncannyingly unexplainably frequent/predictable basis, to the point of ridicule.

Most recent event - I ordered some hozelock bits as I was wanting to do some stuff with hoses in the garden (splitter etc.). Whilst I was at it, I thought "won't hurt to have a couple of the hose end connectors handy/spare, I'll add a couple to the order". They arrived the following afternoon, and the morning after that I happened to be moving stuff around in the garage (to paint the internal walls white to brighten it up) when I happened upon a box, and on checking what was in said box, which I know hadn't been touched for almost 2 yrs) within the box was.... two hozelock end connectors!!!!

I shall make a prediction here and now - I've been looking for a roof-vent for about 8 months now - one that replaces 3 roof tiles to blend into the roof (to fit a bathroom extractor) but I can't find it. I KNOW it will turn up almost immediately. after ordering another so I can get the job done. I shall openly state that if I do so, the original shall re-surfac within 2 days *MAXIMUM*. So far I'm refusing to give in, I have the other side of the garage to paint yet which means EVERYTHING on that side will get moved/touched (even though I've supposedly searched through it already) so after I've done that, if it still doesn't turn up I shall end up ordering a replacement - I shall come back to this post when (not "if") my prediction proves true.

[Arzosah]

My sympathies, peejay, I know *exactly* what you mean ... it doesn't happen quite as regularly to me, but it really does happen, eg with those flexible metal rods for clearing drain blockages, I had three at one stage. Annoying as anything.

I'm definitely having a clearout at the moment - it hasn't made much of a difference yet, but its made some. What jansman said is the thing to remember: if you can't lay your hands on it when you need it, you might as well not have it. Some things are more useful than others, and I've been keeping hold of stuff that wasn't really up to scratch.

[Vitamin c]

Yep organisation is the key i too have bought stuff only to find it stuffed into a old ice cream tub in me shed.
So that's me bizzy during our rainy season.

Throw away advice ough that hurt but what am I going to do with 3 garden forks and 4 crowbars a good sort out is it and if I can manage it get rid of some of me bits.

[ForgeCorvus]

I thought I was the only one

I have stuff that I put away shortly after moving in (20+ years), and like Peejay, couldn't find when I needed it.

I had a horde of things that "Will come in handy".... Some of which I inherited from my Dad and some from my wife's Grandfather.

I recently upgraded my main shed, when I did that everything got sorted before it got put away.
In the process like got put with like and anything I'm unlikely to use in the next twelvemonth got ditched, the timber pile suffered a crash diet and anything that didn't make the cut got downgraded to firewood.
The horde is now half the size and all the stuff in one category is in a marked container (like the square lidded bucket full of hinges) or place.

Its traumatic and time consuming, but well worth it (thinking about it, being able to find stuff will probably save time in the long run).
I'm not cured, but I am managing my condition...... I still straighten nails so I can reuse them though

BTW. Does anyone want any square lidded buckets? I have a lot more then I need