Fix up my house - clean, organize, repair, maintain, decorate

Looking for a “quick fix” for something, I decided to look for a new kitchen rug or floor mat. I found this. They say it’s easy to clean and it will help my feet, too! My cabinets are painted white, the appliances are black, the walls are apricot flower (light soft orange), and the floors are light wood. They would probably recommend black, but I hate black. So, what color do you suggest?

I started the year with some motivation to achieve this goal, but it’s slacked off. I need to focus on this. I’d planned to log my monthly progress (certainly I should be able to do something about it every month), but I haven’t even done that. Now I can’t think of much that’s I’ve accomplished. I keep saying that I have to at least fix things faster than they break. I looked at January’s list of accomplishments and these things already broke again:

• Master bath toilet (another part broke, but it’s fixed again)
• Broken glass in the french doors (another pane broken)
• Loose rails on deck (yep, another loose rail)
• Waterbed drained & refilled – just discovered that the frame was put back a little lopsided

Progress made on these items:

• Kitchen painting – not 100% complete, but David (epp_dog) helped me get it 95% done
• I took a car load of books to the used book store. Old technical books aren’t worth any money, but they are out of my house.
• Terminte inspection. It was clean. Yay!
• Organized my music CD’s

I finally found a painting contractor that I like, but he can’t paint my house until next spring. At least that will give me some time to save for it. But in the meantime I have to get some repair work done and replace the french doors going from the family room to the outside. The decision on the doors will probably be hardest since all decisions requiring the services of another person are difficult for me.

Oh, yes, in my life a new hot water heater is exciting indeed. I also had a few minor repairs done. There’s nothing you can see that looks better, but getting these things fixed is a good foundation for fixing up the house.

My overall plan is to attack the clutter and repairs, then move on to decorating. The challenge is to clean up and fix things faster than new items get put on the “fix up the house” list.

1. It reminds me of all the money I have spent on things that I never used.
2. I discover that desirable objects are missing, broken, or in need of repair.
3. It always takes longer than expected to de-clutter any area. And there is always some annoying expert who tells us that is can be done in 10 minutes a day, 10 easy steps, or some such nonsense. De-cluttering is work. Hard work. And lots of it.
4. Everything can’t just go in a Goodwill bag or the garbage. You have to figure out where each item can be donated appropriately, recycled, or disposed of in an environmentally correct manner.
5. Some stuff still has value and should be sold. But garage sales, eBay, newspaper ads, etc. are all more work.
6. Every area that gets cleaned up seems like the proverbial drop in the bucket. It always feels like there is still more to be done than is humanly possible.
7. I’m concerned that I might get rid of something that I’ll need later. It can happen!

_{Warning: The following entry is not worth reading. It’s just venting and whining.}

While “declutter” is not in the title of this goal, it’s close kin to “organize”. I want to get rid of the things that I will never use again, find homes for the things that I keep, and put them in those places. I’m pretty good about putting things in their place if they have one. It’s getting rid of stuff that’s the hardest for me. This is just plain painful! I don’t want to be so strict that I throw out things just because I haven’t used them in the past year. I want to keep things that I might use in the future. Oh, God, I’m rambling. How I’m writing now is sort of how decluttering goes for me. Last weekend I actually got the desk in my office cleaned off. Last night I collected several bags of books to give away. Now I’m going through CD’s. Some are purely junk, but should I keep the jewel cases? And there’s just so many! Now I see why I had piles. Piles take up less room that lining them up neatly on the shelf. OK, I’m done whining now. Back to the CD’s.

I’m going to log progress on this so that I don’t just see the list of what’s left to do and feel overwhelmed. It’s somewhat of a little experiment with myself to see if positive reinforcement works. It’s definitely a reward to list my accomplishments.

New Year’s Weekend – drained my water-bed, installed the new heater, refilled the bed (with my son’s help)

• Fixed the master bath toilet (Yay!)
• Replaced the broken pane of glass in the french door
• Removed the broken screen doors
• Replaced the microwave light
• Tightened some loose rails on the deck (in the rain)
• Replaced the washer hoses with the kind that cannot break (lesson learned from people I know who had flooded basements from washing machines)
• Determined what is wrong with a bathroom sink and another toilet (call a plumber to replace shut-off valves)
• Figured out what was wrong with my electric screwdriver (needed new battery)

Jan. 12 – My son fixed the large fluorescent light fixture in the kitchen. (Now it won’t fall on my head!) Should have done more this weekend, but used up all my extra time and energy going to the Dam with Rosemary.

And hopefully the construction will begin soon. My best friend is here visiting this week to help me with some kitchen remodeling (doesn’t he know how to have fun!). Since Sunday, we’ve scraped all the popcorn off the ceiling, removed the soffits above the cabinets, and removed most of the wallpaper. He has put sheetrock on the walls where the soffits were and I’ve painted some of the beadboard for the ceiling. So, I’m committed to this project now and there’ll be no turning back.

My friend has to leave Friday and we still have the beadboard ceiling to install and the crown molding to replace. And the new lighting to install. I just hated the popcorn ceiling and the popcorn on the front of the soffits. I’m so excited to have this underway. I will post photos of the finished project.

That meant that I had to get everything up off the floor. And I had to do a lot of dusting so I wouldn’t die of embarrassment when the carpet cleaners came. So, the house is looking better. But it really made me face all the piles of stuff I have to organize – financial, gardening info, genealogy, papers from a previous job, photos, computer stuff, etc. Anyway, I feel like I’m making progress. If you have tips to share on how to organize all this stuff, please do. I need all the help I can get.

Out-of-town family will be visiting in 2 months, so I’ve decided to use that as an impetus to get the house fixed up. I had a man who does renovation work come over yesterday to give me a quote on some kitchen work. While he was here, I also asked him for instructions on how to fix my leaky bathroom faucet. Well, today when I started to disassemble it, I couldn’t get the water turned off. So, I just took the faucet off anyway. It’s OK if you’re ROTFL. I would be too if someone else did this. What I can’t figure out is why I would do something so stupid. That’s not a rhetoric question – I really don’t understand! Anyway, I had to call a neighbor for help and while I was on the phone the water did some serious damage to the ceiling. I’ve spent about 3 hours just trying to clean up this mess. The worst part is that after my neighbor got the water off, I went to Lowe’s, bought the replacement washers, came home and attempted to fix it. But it didn’t work and I’ve now ruined the $8. plastic part inside and can’t even get it off to try again! So, I’m going to have to live without this faucet for a few days, then confess my stupidity to the professional! Always wanting to salvage something, I’m trying to at least find a “lesson learned” in this stupidity. Any ideas? I haven’t come up with much.