On Saturday I was determined to get some clean up done in our family room, which for the past few months has really served as a storage unit. On one side is a gathering of things that will go into our Spring garage sale and on the other side were boxes and excess furniture that have not yet found a home.
Up against one side of the room is a wall of cupboards and a wet bar which over the winter has become the indoor work bench where all the tools and home organizing supplies have been temporarily stored. Down the middle of the room was a narrow walkway from the kitchen to the sliding glass door in the family room, which serves as the most used entryway to our driveway and front yard.
Needless to say, this room has been driving me crazy. So on Saturday we took about 90 minutes and did a quick and dirty clean up.
1. We gathered up all the used moving supplies that had been dumped in there, including emptied boxes, packing paper, large plastic protective bags, packing peanuts and bubble wrap. We organized it all into groups, a bag for each type of material and a bag that was filled with useless garbage.
2. I cut down all the boxes and stacked them neatly together. This was the easy job with major impact that allowed us to get more space in that room and really opened it up. It only took a few minutes to remedy that part of the mess.
3. We made plans to pass on the reusable packing supplies. I remembered that there are a couple of families at our church who are moving so I sent some messages asking if they'd like some of our boxes and packing papers. If they don't need them, I'll list them on the craigslist "free" site.
4. I reorganized the furniture. We will still be using this room as a bit of storage until we decide what we're doing with all the furniture. So I stacked everything neatly on shelves and moved all the larger pieces of furniture up against the far walls of the room. It's fun actually to go into that area and see the good pieces we have that we are not yet using and know we have a little "home store" to shop from as we continue to put the house together.
5. My last task was to sweep the floor. There was a lot of dust in that room after being largely ignored the past few months. Once that was done it was a major game changer to have that room mostly opened up and have things out of the way.
Since we were up early Saturday morning we had time to slowly get going, have a nice breakfast and do this project before 11:30 in the morning. We also went through a couple of boxes that were filled with small tchotchkes that were fun to find.
Now my office space has become covered with small things that now need to find a home somewhere in the house or in the garage sale boxes. Since I started working on that room it has gotten worse before it is going to get better. I've pulled everything out and am trying to reorganize the drawers and cupboards. I can't have a bookshelf in that space so I'm trying to figure out how to get some of my favorite books and craft supplies in the cupboards.
It is starting to look good but there are lots of stacks to go through. I realized that the corner desk is deep enough to accommodate both my 22" TV with DVD player and my laptop which is great. That freed up a lot of counter space and since all the electronic pieces are black they look cohesive and organized together. Now to keep that process moving.
So far no room is completely pulled together from top to bottom. The most pulled together room is probably the kitchen. The dining room, living room and bedrooms are mostly pulled together but need a little rethink on art and decor still. Things have definitely slowed down since the holidays and my breaking my foot right after that. But now that the weather is so nice and I'm pretty used to getting around on the broken foot, I am a little more energetic to get things done.
Hopefully I'll have the office/laundry room done very soon and then I can start working on The Man's office and the family room. The Man has been doing major work on the yard all winter. He has removed hundreds of pounds of menacing cactus, dead trees and other unfriendly plants. He has also added trees to improve the privacy of our yard. I can't tell you how often we have family members or the dog who need cactus first aid after going out in the property beyond the fenced in backyard. We call everything outside the fenced area "outside the rim". That is where all the wild thing happen and wild creatures appear.
I'm itching to have friends over and we need to get this place pulled together. Summer will be here in no time and I really want to spend my time enjoying it on the back patio and that is going to take some work as well. So the sooner I pull the inside together the sooner I can start working on the back patio. Still want to make a big, long table for outside dining! Still non-weight-bearing in the cast for another month. Not happy about that but just working around it the best I can. I could not live without my iWalk!
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