Our house is bulimic. The whole purge mechanism that should really happen before the reno? During. Not so good. You know those Whirlpool commercials where there's churning water and jets and some benevolent (and scantily clad, because marketing) domestic goddess smiling at the beauty of it all? Picture the same scene yet with knick knacks and clothes and books and dry walling and sawdust and wood churning about, and over looking it all a guy with a cigar and a Kenora dinner jacket saying "we need more quarter round for this room". Finding interesting things to get rid of though...9 office chairs for instance, in varying stages of unrest. Why would we have 9 office chairs, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. We mocked a Staples once, and fell under a terrible enchantment. We were doomed to house huge quantities of ugly and slightly broken furniture for years, until rescued by ... well, something pretty darn impressive. And now through the help of a higher power we call contractors, we can at last be free of the tyranny of crap. Except for the hat collection. No one touches the hats, no one gets hurt.
Total cost of office furniture over 10 years: $200 (it was a chair)
Total cost of renovations: seriously, don't ask
Getting into the frame of mind where climbing trees and barking at cars sounds comfy: priceless.