My brush with death led to DIY paradise...

GET RID of any stuff that doesn’t “spark joy”. That’s the rule of decluttering queen Marie Kondo who wrote the bestseller The LifeChanging Magic Of Tidying Up in 2012 and has been cleaning up (financially) ever since.

Take my old stepladder. No...please take it. The last time I did any DIY I made a mental note that it was time to get a new one. It lacerates your hand as you unfold it and only snaps into place if you hit it with a hammer. It wobbles sickeningly even on the flattest surface. The number of times my heart lurched as I nearly fell off, clutching on to a nearby wall or light fitting. I called it the “stairway to Heaven” because it was lethal.

It sparked terror rather than joy but we went on using it for decades. And after each time it was put away in the shed and forgotten about.

With a new lockdown around the corner it seemed a good moment to paint the spare bedroom. I covered the floor with newspaper, took down the curtains and curtain poles, moved out all the furniture, bought the paint and dug out the paintbrushes. Then I went out to the shed and brought in the hated stepladder which spitefully bruised my shin in transit. Typical. Enough was enough.

“I’m going to buy a new stepladder,” I said. My husband reacted as though I’d announced I was putting in a bid for the Koh-i-noor diamond. But I ignored him and set off for the nearest B&Q. You have to strike while the iron is hot. Who knows? DIY shops could close down again at any minute.

B&Q was stepladder paradise. I drooled over three-steps, four-steps, platform, swing back. I dithered, I dawdled. Finally I decided on one with an “integral tool tray”. Oh yes. It has special places where you can park a hammer or a screwdriver. The height of sophistication in the fast-moving stepladder world.

It sits on the floor with a reassuring solidity. The top step is big enough to turn round on without going “whhhoooooaaa”. I hop on and off it like a gazelle – a gazelle with a paintbrush. It saddens me when it receives the occasional splash of emulsion and I wipe it down solicitously. Such is its beauty. The thought of it being sent to live in the shed after the decoration feels wrong.

There are so many things we go on using that are old, broken, unfit for purpose and sometimes downright dangerous. Decluttering is fashionable but so is the opposite – grim-faced thriftiness, making do, mending, repairing, re-using.

But sometimes – say when your aged stepladder is a death trap – there comes a moment when you must say: enough. Out with the old. Take it to the dump. Stop with the false economies.

And blooming well go out and buy a new one.