A while back, and I can't remember where, I saw these rugs which were made by crocheting doilies, except using materials like nylon rope or upholstery cording. If you can find one for sale at all (as opposed to just by-the-way in some design magazine), they cost between a 120 to 200 dollars.
I went to IKEA a few months ago and spent about 35 dollars on a king-size linens set. I've been procrastinating on it for ages, but thanks to the Twelve Days of Purging I'm finally turning the sheets and pillow cases into a rug. Better finished and on my stone floor than crumpled in bedlinen form at the end of my couch. The photo above shows it just over halfway done; once it's completed I'll post about it on my DIY blog. Finally there will be a nice rug to sit on while contemplating the books on the lower bookshelves in the office.
The rug is counting as four items towards the ten-items-a-day total (two sheets plus two pillow cases). To round out the total, I found two more books to put on the book exchange shelves in the recycling room, a t-shirt with holes in it (why wasn't this thrown out already? embarrassing), and paper that needs shredding. The shredding counts for several items in itself — the mailing slips and out-of-date business cards are just a small sample. If I'd dumped all of the paper that needs shredding onto the floor for the photo, it would have been impossible to see the rug.
It's only Day 3 of the purge, but it's become pretty clear — and it was already pretty clear when I did a similar exercise last year — that paper management is the biggest deal around here. I mean, sure, I have a lot of books, but at least those are read and appreciated before taking their leave. The paper just keeps showing up. The building has a recycling bin in the mail room, so like most residents here I just toss any flyers I don't want before they even pass my threshold, but ads from companies who already do business with me are addressed and are therefore safest shredded. That winds up being a lot of paper, and it's hard to keep up with. There ought to be a way to opt out of physical spam, the way that some web sites let you choose what sorts of e-mails you receive from them.