Another mini clean

After this weekend's major purge, I wanted to finish another mini-project. So I attacked the downstair's desk (not to be confused with the upstairs desk in previous posts).

Here's a before post that really doesn't do justice to the chaos that this desk has been for the last couple years (that's right, we live with chaos for years):

Before this before shot, there was no laptop because there was no place for the laptop. There was no desk top for that matter. It was a useless piece of furniture that we used to stash EVERYTHING. I'm amazed at times that we didn't kill ourselves walking past the thing with everything as precarious as it was. I can just imagine avalanches of stuff tumbling down upon us. A couple of weeks ago, I cleaned the desk enough to move my computer over here and out of the living room. It's increased my productivity immensely; however, I am falling behind on my Hulu watching. Watching tv shows at a desk just isn't as comfortable as the sofa.

But tonight, tonight I decided that the desk would finally become fully functional. It took me a bit longer than the phone corner, but it is well worth it. My productivity levels may actually go down as I sit and marvel in the beauty of a this newly clean desk.

Tomorrow I hope to have the after picture of the guest room corner on which I've been so diligently working. I have to get that done tomorrow, anyway, since we're expecting my family (and DH's family) this weekend for Easter.

I know that my cleaning habits have pretty much always been motivated by company (can't have a messy house when others are here!). Do you find that you're more motivated to clean if others will be visiting or do you do regular maintenance?

My vertical file

For this entire weekend (well, most of it anyway), I've worked on this corner. This corner has a history. The table you see is our old "dining room" table (we've never actually had a dining room). After my parent's gifted us with their old dining room table, I didn't have the heart to discard this one. It works well as a craft table (most of the time), and you should be able to see my ironing board on the top. The printer (at least one of them) is on the top of the table, too. Along with a bunch of other stuff. But my main focus this weekend was all of that STUFF you see under the table. It's been a lovely little hiding place for a couple years now. I just shoved any old thing under there. It's mostly random power cables (our wire bag), my old laptop, empty folders and binders, and papers. Lots-o-papers. My task this weekend: purge the paper.

The first task was to bring most of it downstairs so I wouldn't be distracted by the other corners of this room (sidebar: I only got distracted once twice. The first time was when I discovered a big almost empty box that was perfect for all of those greeting cards I can't throw away. The second time was when I realized I could put all of our response cards from our wedding (yes, I saved them all... and now I know the people who didn't respond but showed up anyway) into the album we used for our guest book. Great idea, but it did sap quite a bit of time this afternoon). Anywho, here is where we (and when I say we, I mean I) were at sometime early this weekend:

I know that I've been working for a while at this point because I already have two bins almost totally empty. So, the grand tour. Bottom left is my "professional" box filled with all things library. The two black bins contained an assortment of stuff and old files on who knows what. Above that is a box of professional magazines, my personal file box, and a box of empty binders and folders. Back at the bottom in the crate, we have another box of files related to my undergraduate education and random sorting piles for paper (keep, toss, shred).

Everything was going just fine until I reached that box of personal files. Mind you, I haven't opened this thing in years. Years. But what happens when I do? I remember how much care I took when assembling the assortment of materials contained in it's many folders. Just look at it's beauty:

I was sitting there staring at the thing when DH walked up to me and asked if I was ok. It was in this moment that I realized, no, everything was not ok. This box was me. This box (and here was the epiphany) was my vertical file! So, for you non-library folk, that probably doesn't mean much, and you may even need a definition. Basically though, a vertical file is a collection of important (at least to the collector) items that help paint a picture or history of the chosen topic. And in this case, the topic was me. It took me a good 15 or 20 minutes to pull the first file out. I took half a dozen pictures of the thing as it was. And then, I dove in to American Literature. It's a good thing that was the first folder because I didn't particularly care for the topic (nothing against the professor!). By the time I was done, I had purged about half of the materials in the box. To be honest, most of what I threw away was work done by other people (what ever possessed me to keep all of the handouts from all of my classmates... I may never know).

I finished the paper purge this evening. Check out these pictures:

 It's hard to read the numbers on the tape measure, but that's just over 2 feet of paper. Gone. And a box of empty folders and binders to be sent to a good cause (i.e. middle school)

And look at all that's left:

Two completely empty crates and a much more condensed collection of papers. I still have quite a bit of stuff in my vertical file, and I'm not sure that I'll ever get rid of all of it. But I think I've kept enough to make the memories real. I even kept the page of notes from my Modern Philosophy class that contains evidence of the ONE time I fell asleep in class. The stuff still needs to go back upstairs, but that's for another day. And for the DH. These boxes are heavy!

Question of the post: Do you hold on to ephemera (i.e. stuff) to help you remember the past, or do you ditch the stuff and hope the memories last?

In the jungle...

Today I tried my very hardest to continue on my Spring Cleaning mission. It did not go so well. Or maybe I should say it went differently than I had expected. Let me explain. The next two projects on my to-do list are the back yard:

Or maybe I should say jungle?

 And the 2nd bedroom...

slash sewing room (you may recognize my sewing corner from my first post)...

slash guest room...

slash home office.






The yard was supposed to be the easy part. DH listed the gigantic Birds of Paradise plants on our local Freecycle. Several people responded, and we scheduled with one lady to come pick them up this morning under the stipulation that she dig them out herself. Yeah, that went... terrible. First, the lady tried to tell me that they weren't BOP because they were too big. Um, whatever. See that flower right there? Yeah. Then she just moaned and groaned the whole time with her hired hand doing all the labor (hello, these are free? And you're complaining?). They chopped off all the leaves, dug a huge hole, took out one of the plants, laid it on the ground. Then she just left. Yup. It was great. So then DH got another lady to come. No hired labor for her. We helped. Those things were a beast. But they are gone, and hopefully the lady will be able to revive them and make them beautiful. So now the back yard looks like this:

No more jungle and all ready for some new landscaping!

The multi-purpose room, however, did me in. First off, I woke up this morning very much on the wrong side of the bed (actually it was the couch because someone who shall remain nameless was hacking up a lung last night). I was grouchy beyond all get out, sliced my finger open trying to cut my bagel with the injury proof bagel guillotine, and was generally angry at the world. Not so much the best state of mind to start cleaning. But I'm on a role, right? I can do this. No problem.

Problem. This room is filled with our lives, and the first corner I picked (brilliant choice) was the one filled with all of those greeting cards I struggle to throw away. I'm not sure why I didn't pick the corner that holds all of the high school and college papers that I resolved to toss the other day, but whatever. So I spend hours sorting through pictures of people I don't speak with any more, cards from family and friends who have moved on in life or beyond life, and notes from every "best" friend I've ever had (you know, all three or four of them). By noon, I was in tears I was so depressed. Actually, I found a picture of myself that was taken around the end of 1985 when my family was moving into our new house that illustrates how I felt:

So this is what the room looks like after working on it:

I'll work on another corner later. In other news, I'd like to share a gem of an item that I found:

That's right folks, this here is a genuine deck of Quotable Shakespeare knowledge cards. Every card includes an unforgettable quote from the Bard himself (such as "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears"... which always makes me think of Robin Hood: Men in Tights) and a little background of the play. I'd love to see these wonderful cards go to a good home. For who can live without such timeless wisdom:
"He hath eaten me out of house and home; / he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his" or "For there never was yet a philosopher / That could endure the toothache patiently." Classic.

So, dear readers, what's the most interesting thing you've discovered while cleaning?

It only takes a spark...

I am realizing that there is some irony in the fact that I make my living organizing things, but when it comes to my house, I'm hopeless. If only Melvil Dewey had invented an organizational scheme for household items! I know there are catalogers out there that spend their home time alphabetizing spices (the topic comes up often in our listservs), but I am not that kind of cataloger. My spices are on their own in the cabinets, and I would say I have a good, working kitchen. But these are not the things with which I struggle. My battle is with all the other stuff in the house. The stuff stuff that usually has no practical purpose unlike most of the things found in the kitchen.

There is one exception to this in our kitchen: the phone corner. It's been a constant struggle in our house.

You'll notice that under all that stuff, there is one of those nifty charger stations that we bought years ago in order to wrangle all of our chargers. Notice how many things are plugged into the thing? I'll help: zero. Here's where some of the chargers are:

Not really beautiful, right (and yes, that is the floor)?

So this morning, I decided to attack this corner once and for all (yeah, right!). I started shortly after 10 am, put in my new Francesca Battistelli CD (her "This is the stuff" seemed particularly apropos), and got to work with the knowledge that I had a phone meeting at 11. Forty or so minutes later, we have this:

Much better, don't you think? I even made fancy, schmancy folder things for the two types of paper that accumulate in this corner: bills and take out menus. The husband almost fainted when he walked downstairs for lunch :-) I haven't picked the next corner yet, but the house is starting to feel that I mean business.

Spring was in the air

Wednesday was Spring in Florida. That's it. One day. It was certainly a beautiful day; I only wish that I hadn't spent most of it inside at my desk. I wish I had spent it enjoying the beauty of where I work. Regardless of where I spent the day, it appears that I have been bit by the Spring Cleaning bug. And I have been bit hard. I have this sudden urge to throw away everything in our house (much to the horror of my mostly understanding husband) and start completely from scratch.

The piles of paper will be the first things to go. Those boxes of random articles from college? Gone. Those old retirement plan prospectives? Outta here. Those magazines from who knows how long ago? Trash bound.

A little harder will be those little items that have some sort of strange sentimental value, but at the same time, none at all. And my husbands hats. And perhaps more clothes (I recently purged more than 4 large bags of clothes from my wardrobe). And maybe the house (you think I jest).

Why this sudden change of heart, you may ask. I spent some time browsing on the web today at many lovely places that inspired some of it. Like Thrifty Decor Chick's blog. I've wandered her way a few times in the past, but I was especially inspired by this post about organizing paper. DH and I have a terrible time with paper. Terrible. I'm getting better bit by bit, and he's been told that he'll be getting better, too. And I know there are a ton of ways to cut down on paper, but I'm stubborn. I need to find my own way.

The terrible thing about lovely sites like Thrifty Decor Chick or like the This Old Thing? store on Facebook is that this is how I think my house should look (don't we all?). My house looks nothing like this. At all. Like in no way whatsoever could you mistake my home for one of these well designed, wonderfully comfortable, shabby chic, havens of wonderfulness. Not. A. Chance.

But. I do have a few very nice features in my house that I like very much. I just feel that the stuff that continues to creep into every crevice of our home is taking away from those wonderful features. So the next couple of posts, I'll share some of them with you. And I'll share some of the stress of trying to get things in order. And perhaps I'll even share some of the ridiculous things that I find that I still have and can't for the life of me figure out why I allow it to continue to take up space in my life. Just to show you I mean it, here's a preview:

I love this wall. It reminds me of France.

So (since I seem to be making a habit of asking a question at the end of my posts), what's the one thing in your house that you absolutely refuse to get rid of just because?

Wrangling the Fabric Stash

Rumor has it that I have a lot of fabric. You judge:

Granted, it's not as much as some crafters/sewers, but I am still young. I’ve been motivated recently to organize said fabric. I’ve made several attempts over the years as my stash has grown. For example, I bought the lovely bins in which the aforementioned fabric now lives. Unfortunately, the only place for these bins is in the closet of our guest room (which is not a walk in like many fortunate crafters have) along with two bins filled with yarn (I like crafting), all of our holiday decorations, luggage, and who knows what else. The stack of five large bins invariably would create problems when I had an urge to craft because where would the item I wanted always be? In the bottom bin of course.

This dilemma motivated the purchase of these economical shelves (storage solutions can be pricey, and hey, I'm only working part-time these days):

The yarn stayed behind for this organizational stint. And yes, I have a problem collecting baskets, too.

And the purchase of the wonderful shelves motivated a complete overhaul of my fabric organization (or lack of organization actually). Here we are in the middle of the process:

I suppose we can reliably confirm the rumor that I do indeed have quite a bit of fabric.

As a cataloger, I spend my professional life organizing information and items into some sort of logical order, so I took the task of organizing my fabric quite seriously. Here are some questions I asked myself before I began:

1. Why in the world do you have so much fabric? 
2. No, seriously, why in the world do you keep buying this stuff? (that second question may have been motivated from my husbands exclamation when he came downstairs and saw the living room)

Then I started again:

1. How do I use my fabric? 
2. What sorts of projects do I like to do?
3. Should I group by color?
4. Should I group by type of fabric?
5. Should I separate the large cuts of fabric that I bought to make actual patterns?

I decided on a couple of things.

• Most of the crafting that I do is small projects that involve matching several different colors
• I'm a wannabe quilter
• I have a lot of fabric in our small home (have I already said that?)
• I do a bunch of Christmas crafting
• I may never make some of the patterns that I purchased when they went on sale for $.99

So here’s the organizational scheme that I developed:

• Christmas fabrics
• Colors: Red, pink, purple, orange/brown, yellow, green, blue, black, white/tan, flowers/prints (when repacking the boxes, the colors got mixed together by combined volume more than aesthetic reasons)
• Fabric scraps for that day when I'll make a scrap quilt
• Batting and interfacing will be housed separately (it's so bulky!)

All the fabric back in its newly labeled homes

Before putting the fabric back in the boxes, I took some time to refold things. I didn't go to quite these lengths, but I tried to make all my odd shaped fabric pieces a similar size so they fit in the boxes well. I also think it's a good idea to refold fabric on a semi-regular basis so the folds don't become "permanent" and no one part of the fabric fades more than others.

I really enjoyed going through all my fabric. It was like reuniting with old friends. I remembered clothes my mom made when I was little (she keeps giving me parts of her stash), gifts I have given to friends, projects I’ve enjoyed making, and dreams of projects unrealized.

And back in the closet again waiting for the next sewing project

 It's not as beautiful as some fabric stashes (my little sister painted the inside of the closet for us), but it's my fabric stash. And to me, it's gorgeous.