7/15/08

To toss or not to toss?

I was down in my basement last week and stumbled upon my boxes of saved magazines. Boxes, as in more than one. Fortunately I had recently limited my magazine saving to home design+decor, Martha Stewart publications and food magazines (kept in a kitchen cupboard), but the amount I have is still ridiculous. We are talking easily over 100 pounds worth just collecting dust.

I've been hemming and hawing over whether or not there is any point in keeping them. Sure, there are scads of great ideas in there, but am I ever going to take the time to look through them? If the opportunity arises to design my dream house am I immediately going to sit down and spend three weeks pouring through years of magazines? Probably not.

I have finally concluded that since I have this great spot to save things, I will slowly go through these old mags and scan any must-keep ideas here. Then I will recycle my stacks of eye candy. Will I regret it? Maybe. But most likely not.

My point in posting this here is to ask if anyone out there can give me any reason to hold onto these old publications. Will I wish I had held onto these someday?

Feel free to tell me to just toss and be done with it too. It will help motivate me.

7 comments:

Jane Flanagan said...

I keep only World of Interiors, because each one is like an artbook. At the beginning of the year, I purged 3 years of Vogues.

Now, I read the magazine a few times throughout the month and then I pull clippings and scan them. I've also stopped buying as many magazines since I started reading blogs.

If they've gone unlooked at this long, odds are you won't go through them...

Holly said...

It's good to know I am not the only hoarder realizing that they need to make a change :)

Mandy said...

You won't use them. Maybe go through the most recent ones, but styles change and there are always new magazines with equally good ideas.

A and L said...

i always go through mine and tear out my favorites before i toss them. i like mandy's idea, limit yourself to a predetermined recent number. tear and file/scan.

katie said...

you are more creative than I am. I say toss them. if it hasn't been looked at in a month then it goes bye bye. However, I move a lot, and I HATE clutter, so that could be why.

SoulSearch said...

I wouldn't. I love magazines and the ideas they hold are treasures you can give your kids!
I'd keep them.

SoulSearch :)

Holly said...

Thanks for the input! As of right now I plan on slowly attacking the stack and saving favorites. We'll see how it goes ...