Clear out a house without losing what matters.
Margaret's Clear-Out Handbook gives you every step, in order: checklists, item lists and room-by-room steps for a parent's house or your own.
I cleared my parents' dairy farm in three weekends. Our own house of about forty years took me four. I did a good deal of it wrong the first time. This handbook is everything I wish I'd had: what to do the first week, where families find cash and papers, what to check before you donate, how to divide things without a fight, and a checklist for every room.
The videos have the stories. The book has the steps.
Each video runs about twenty minutes. That's room for the stories, not for the checklists. This book puts it all in order — the steps, the questions to ask, the cards to print — so you're not pausing a video with a dusty box in your lap.
And there's a good deal in here that never fit in a video at all.
How you get it
You pay once
Secure checkout through Lemon Squeezy. We never see your card number. No subscription, ever.
It opens right away
Your download link is on the next screen and in your email. Phone, tablet or computer.
Print what you like
The story cards and checklists are made for the kitchen table. Print them, write on them, tape them up.
Nothing ships. No account to make. No app to learn.
There are two ways a house gets emptied.
One of them happens to most families. The other one you can still choose.
The difference isn't money. It's who gets to decide, and whether they have to guess.
Nine parts. Thirty-eight short chapters. One drawer at a time.
Read it front to back, or go straight to the room that's keeping you up at night. Every chapter ends with one thing you can do this week in ten minutes or less.
Start Here
- What not to do first
- The first seven days, day by day
- Supplies
- How long this really takes
Find Before You Toss
- Where the money hides: cans, books, drawers, the freezer
- Papers to find before anything is shredded
- Junk that isn't: keys, claim tickets, old certificates
- Photographs, letters and handwriting
Sort
- The six boxes
- The three questions that sort almost anything
- Collections, duplicates and the everyday stuff
- Sorting with a parent who's still here
What It's Worth
- Worth checking before it leaves the house
- Usually hard to sell
- Checking what things actually sold for, yourself
- When to call an appraiser or an estate sale company
Who Gets What
- Rules before anyone chooses
- Five ways to divide, and when each fits
- The thing everyone wants
- The sibling far away, and the one who stayed
Where It Goes
- The five doors: family, sell, sell the rest, donate, drop off
- What thrift stores often won't take
- Selling what's left
- Keeping a simple record
Handle With Care
- Do these first
- Medicines, the FDA way
- Firearms and ammunition
- Chemicals, batteries and bulbs
- Computers, phones and personal papers
Room by Room
- The order to work in
- A checklist for every room, from the desk to the attic, and the final walkthrough
If It's Your Own House
- Why now
- Big things first, photos last
- Ask before you give
- Story cards
- The list for your family
- Phones, computers and accounts
- The 30-day start
Big type, on purpose.
A few sample pages, so you know what you're getting. Plain words, short steps, and room to write.
Whose: my mother, Ruth
Story: every card is her writing
Who gets it: whoever bakes
Sample layouts. Final pages may differ slightly.
The print-and-keep pieces
Fourteen pages you print at home. The book tells you what to do; these sit on the table while you do it. Large-print and e-reader editions of the whole handbook are included too.
For Your Own House
3×5 story cards, the Where Things Are letter for your family, and the 30-day start.
The Who-Gets-What Sheet
Sticker colors, pick order, the rules you agree on, and a record of who took what.
Sorting Tools
The three questions in big type, and six box labels to cut out and tape on.
First-Week Checklists
The first seven days, where to look, papers to find, and what to handle with care.
Room-by-Room Checklists
Nine rooms, desk to attic, plus the final walkthrough. Tape each one to its door.
Worth Checking and the Five Doors
What to turn over before you donate, and where everything else should go.
Margaret's Clear-Out Handbook
Thirty days, my word on it. Read it over. If it isn't what you hoped, send one email within 30 days and every dollar comes back. No forms, no hard feelings.
There aren't any here yet.
The book is new, and I'm not going to make up letters to fill this space. That wouldn't be very Lutheran of me.
If you read it, write and tell me the truth. With your permission, the kind letters and the cranky ones both go up here.
— Margaret
I'm Margaret. I'm not an expert. I've just done it, mostly the hard way.
I'm sixty-nine, a retired librarian, and I live in a two-bedroom rambler in Lindström, Minnesota, with a cat named Pepper who sleeps on my grandmother's trunk.
I'm not a professional organizer. I've cleared out houses for my own family and a few friends from church, and that's all. In 2014 my brother and I emptied our parents' dairy farm in three weekends. I threw out my father's farm ledgers without reading a page. I still think about that.
After my husband Dale died in 2019, I spent four years going through our house in Stillwater. Slowly. Badly, some weeks. This book is what I wish someone had handed me before the first box. It won't make you feel guilty: not for keeping things, and not for letting them go.
"Things don't hold love. People do. But some things hold handwriting, and those, you keep."
Questions people ask first
Is a paper book coming in the mail?
No, and I'll say it plainly so nobody's surprised. It's a digital book, a PDF. Nothing ships. If you want paper, print the pages you like at home. The cards are made for exactly that.
I'm not good with computers.
If you can open an email, you can open this. You tap one link and the book opens. If it doesn't, write to support@margaretskeepsakes.com. A real person answers and will walk you through it.
Is this "Swedish death cleaning"?
That name comes from Margareta Magnusson's 2017 book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. I have no connection to her; our names are just close. Her book is about your own home. Mine is the American family side of it: the parents' house, the brothers and sisters, the china nobody wants, and the talk at the kitchen table.
Will it tell me what my things are worth?
No. Nobody can honestly do that from a book. It shows you how to look up what similar things actually sold for, not what people are asking, and when an appraiser is worth calling.
Will it help with the will, probate or taxes?
It will help you find the papers and start the conversation. It doesn't give legal or tax advice, because those rules change from state to state. For that, you want an estate attorney.
Can I buy it for my mom or dad? Or for my kids?
Yes. It's written for both sides of the table. Part V, Who Gets What, is the one to read together. Part IX is for sorting your own house.
Is it a subscription?
No. One payment, one time. No membership, no monthly anything, no free trial that turns into a bill.
What if it isn't for me?
Then send one email within thirty days and you'll get every dollar back. I'd rather you have your nineteen dollars than a book you don't use.
Go find one thing in your house with someone's handwriting on it.
A recipe card. A note in the front of a Bible. A label on a freezer bag. Decide who should have it, and write down why. This book helps with everything after that.
Get the book · $19Instant PDF · large print included · one payment · 30-day money-back guarantee