That’s sad because you can just tell it’s a pile of memories. I doubt your wife needs a porcelain doll jewelry box & I would be surprised to learn that you own a working VCR.
This is definitely deeper than just decluttering & organizing.
My mother is, idk, I don’t want to say a hoarder but she is. Similar to the stories above she cherishes family heirlooms, large pieces of furniture along with old notes & letters. I’ve tried to help her but it always ends with her crying. Now I just tell myself, it’s her life, it’s her house.
You really don’t have that option though since it’s also your house.
I wouldn’t push your wife too hard too fast.
Maybe start by cleaning & organizing the areas you spend the most time in first. Then casually bring up an item of two. Idk, I’m no expert. But I know people get intense about their “stuff”.
I just asked my girlfriend who helps me with all of this, her advice on inheritance items is this:
Ok, so you have to look at these things and think 'why am I keeping this? Does it make me happy and send a thousand wonderful memories of the person who gave it to me? Or, am I saving it because I feel like I HAVE to. And if that’s the case, do I REALLY have to, or would it be ok to take a picture, and then let it go off into the universe to make someone else happy. If it doesn’t make me happy would the person who gave it to me want that?
Yeah, it’s tough because I can tell you that 95% (give or take) of that stuff, no one other than my wife has a connetion to. I get keeping family keepsakes to pass down, but truth is, if my wife left this earth today, no one would keep that stuff.
We did agree today to make shadow boxes with her boxes of eauropean money that she has. And a display case for her shot glasses that she has collected.
We also talked about making a scrap book for eavh of the kids to save the “highlights”.
But as soon as I am making progress, it all falls a part. I just listed a video game for sale, one that we used to play a lot, but we don’t have the console, nor a TV the console would even work on, and she asked me not to sell it. Ugh…
Thanks @MandiH that helps. I’ll be asking her those questions when we start to go through her stuff. 
I have been using another style for cleaning called Flylady. Look it up online. Anyway, my husband has quite a bit of stuff, collections, junk. We have 10 boxes of collector plates that his Dad invested in over 30 yo. We can’t even give them away. Maybe someone would want to use them for skeet shooting.
I got rid of an old photo album by copying pictures to computer. That worked great. Now, they’re in the cloud.
I’ll definitely check that out, thanks!
I’m so excited, I got my loft back! For the past 10 years it’s been used as storage for junk and whatever else people threw around. It was the cause of so much anxiety I refused to even look at it.
It’s still not perfect, but it’s manageable now. This is our future theatre room. I put up the blackout curtains last night (they need ironing).
That’s amazing! This was filled?? Wow, I need to hop on the declutter train big time
Lol sorry for delay. Yeah, that whole space was filled with clutter. Took several days and multiple trips to the dump and donation. I filtered my wifes stuff down to just a few boxes keeping pictures, documents, books and keepsakes.
The threatre room is coming together nicely. I got a projector last week, bought a surround sound system yesterday (still waiting on delivery of 5 more speakers). I spent the day running wires through the walls and ceiling. Next weekend I’ll be mounting the projector and setting up the speakers. The only thing left to do is build a proper screen, and somehow fix the curtains.
Ah, is that the way to Kakariko village? 
You know it!
Looks great mate. Wish I had a room to do that with.
I am however working on a room that will become a music room, well dinning room to the wife, but it will be big enough for one end to have our piano, guitars and my music system. So that’s my goal. It does however rely on me building a utility on the side of the house which is the summer job.
It’s that time of year, the days are shorter, the weather is wetter, time to start to declutter!
I’ve done pretty well at not having crap pile up. We are planning on spending the weekend working on our bedroom and closet. I have some clothes to thin out and maybe some, gasps shoes?!
Decluttering and improving my house by painting it and getting some new furniture is one of the main achievements of my sobriety so far. Lastly I bought a new closet, a bit smaller than what I had. Got rid of quite some clothes, and yes, shoes too. This will have to do. And it is plenty.
Funny, I just spent over an hour cleaning a closet of crafts and hobby stuff. I want to make some cards but couldn’t find the materials. Now, I’m ready to do them and the closet is organized. This thread was right on target for me. 
Very nice! Giving up some shoes will be hard for me, but I do have too many!
TBH there are three pair of hikers hidden behind the curtain and I also have some wellies hidden somewhere…
I bought a pair of shoes recently but I only wear them in the house. I really need to go out with them. They just look so nice that I don’t want to scuff them up. Van tennis shoes, really, what is wrong with me? 