Do the apartment therapy 8-week home cure

The fall Cure is now over! I didn’t get everything finished on my list, and some things (like hanging art) is going to have to wait until I get my sofa but I’m pretty proud of the work I accomplished. I threw out tons of stuff, invested in some furniture, cleaned and made my apartment a more comfortable place. I was also encouraged by this process to take care of my other things, and to that end I took things to the cleaners, replaced buttons, removed stains, etc. I’ve been cooking a lot and eating more at home, which makes me feel healthier. I even figured out what to do with that cat tree. I actually still have a lot of other things that I’d like to do but officially the Cure is over. Phew!

Well now I’m behind on week seven too. I just don’t have any time for anything. I don’t know how people with, like, kids do it. Well they probably don’t go out drinking as often as I do, ha ha.

I had a lot of fun cleaning out all my awful art projects from under my bed and going through my old sketches and stuff. Now there is nothing under my bed, woah. I need to go through my closet and organize and scrub everything down. This process has also been a good reminder to go through and mend buttons, wash the stains out of vintage gloves, air out the furs. You know, that kind of thing.

Week Eight is supposed to be the week you get ready for your “housewarming” party but I’m not going to do anything until my sofa is delivered and that could be anywhere from two to six weeks from now! Instead I’ll just be playing catchup.

I hardly did anything for week six as well. Losing steam! I’m getting a lot of work done on my bedroom though, since I’m feeling a little too poorly to go out much.

Due to deadlines and friends in town and too much fun to be had, I did absolutely nothing towards AT for week five. A total wash but the main task was to sort through your files and I already did that a month or two ago so I don’t feel that bad. Onward!

Something I’ve noticed about this process is that it is forcing me to be very productive and use all of my available spare time to work on my apartment since I don’t have very much of it in the first place. It’s good to be doing some nice hard work but it’s a little exhausting. No sleeping in, no mulling, no lounging around with a book when there’s windows to clean and floors to mop!

Things are looking very good in my pad. I sent a drawing of what I want for a desk to my dad and he thinks it will cost less than $150. That’s awesome. Salvation Army took all my junk away and someone claimed my bike from beside the dumpster. I hope they can fix it and make it cute.

I’m tired.

Things are starting to take shape and it is starting to feel less like I’ve ripped up my entire home for no reason. This week’s task is to take care of the living room. The living room is probably the room in the best shape in my house so it hasn’t been too arduous a task, although I do need to do icky things like clean the windows and the sills (they are filthy). I also need to clean the one patch of carpet in my place, where my craft/dining table is, but that’s where my outbox is so I don’t think it will happen this week.

This week I alphabetized all my books and cds and put a whole bunch in the outbox. I’ll probably try to sell the cds. Some of them were funny. My broken bike is gone and the Salvation Army is going to pick up 14 bags and one suitcase full of “household items,” books and clothes tomorrow. Wow! I can’t WAIT to get that stuff out of there. I actually think my house is starting to look TOO empty now without all the clutter but I’ve got a bunch of art waiting to be framed and hung and a NEW SOFA on the way so I’m sure that will improve matters. Plus I still have to figure out a landing strip, which will help—my entry is pretty sterile. I haven’t taken the big plunge to put all my cds on my computer yet but maybe I will if I ever have the time and the backup system to do so—it sounds appealing. I still need to clean out my desk (which is in my living room) but I think I might wait until I get a new one and I am forced to.

I’ve also managed to keep my kitchen clean these last two weeks and stay on top of my dishes, which is kind of amazing for me. I made soup this week out of chicken stock I made myself too, holy cow. I’m getting all Susy Homemaker.

Not sure I will get much done this weekend in terms of deep cleaning because it’s full of fun plans and I have to clean my bathroom because I’m hosting poetry group on Monday. But we’ll see.

Week three we were supposed to clean out our hall closets and think about what it would take to create a “landing strip”—an area right by the door to sort mail, hang your coat, drop off your shoes and rest your keys. I am always throwing my mail, keys and coats all over the place so this landing strip idea sounds appealing, even if the term makes me think of bikini waxes.

The big news is that I bought a sofa! But I won’t get it for 6-10 weeks! But then I’ll be done with the cure so it will be a good treat and perhaps maybe I’ll start all over again with the one-room cure for my living room.

I cleaned out my closet and put a bunch of things in the outbook, including some old ceramics projects that I am having a hard time letting go of. I also have my dead cat’s cat tree in the hall closet and I am filled with guilt at the thought of throwing it out because it was a very expensive present. But it is taking up a lot of room and I don’t have a cat anymore!

I had some ideas for my landing strip but went shopping this weekend and realized none of them would work (the hooks I wanted turned out to be TINY in real life!), so I’m kind of back to square one. I got really frustrated. Then, after buying some tights for fall and groceries and paying some bills I don’t have any more money to spend on my home until next payday.

Sometimes I feel really frustrated that I don’t have enough money to do everything I want and I started to feel really overwhelmed this weekend. Reading a bunch of home blogs and going shopping makes me want new plates and pillows and bedding and a bed frame that’s not broken and a bunch of other pretty things I can’t afford. I get this way with my clothes sometimes too—I just want to feel like a put-together grownup with shoes that aren’t scuffed and a handbag that’s not falling apart, but all I can afford is to look like a childish slob and I get so frustrated and down about it.

It also doesn’t help that my living room is completely tore up since it is serving as my “outbox.” Ack! I totally had that “arg, what am I doing???” feeling yesterday. So instead of cleaning the floors I read a book and took a nap. Probably not very helpful.

I also haven’t scheduled ANY repairs because my manager will have to come into my unit to do them and my unit is a huge mess! So that’s on hold too I guess. Arg.

One thing I may have solved is the closet door problem. My closets are missing their doors and I hate seeing all the crap in my closet all the time. I went poking around in the laundry room yesterday and found a big stack of doors leaning against the wall. I guess other people in my building are missing their closet doors too! The weird thing is that the doors are all different sizes and there are both wood and metal ones so I’m not sure which are supposed to go with my unit. I’ve asked my manager about the closet doors a few times and he always kind of puts me off about it so I might just TAKE some and see if they work.

Tonight will be catch-up night and I’ll schedule a pick-up from Sally Ann. Hopefully that will help. I think I’ve come up with a new vision for my landing strip (hooks like these and perhaps some baskets nailed to the wall like this) and I guess I’ll just have to be patient and wait until I have the money to do it right.

I didn’t get everything done on my Apartment Therapy list for week two and I’m a little bummed. This is taking up a lot more time than I anticipated. I seem to have something going on every single night so I’m trying to shove everything in on the weekends (before I go out again!) and maybe it’s too much.

I did clean my kitchen from top to bottom (and it looks fantastic) and make the roast chicken recipe from the book. That’s something new—I rarely cook, and if I do I never make MEAT because raw meat grosses me out. Now I have a whole freaking chicken in my (very clean) refrigerator and I’m hoping to make some chicken stock from the leftovers since I love making soup in the fall. I walked around my apartment and felt all the walls, though I’m not sure I got much out of it except to notice all the scuffs. I’m having a lot of fun throwing things into the outbox, even things I would have thought might be “non-negotiable” like my college ceramics projects and my deceased cat’s bowls and collars. It is comforting knowing I can just take them out again.

This week we were also supposed to select a style and I want mine to be something like “vintage French/modern/eclectic,” which might be cheating since it is more than one style, but I feel like I am working at an advanced enough “style level” to be a little more creative. My style tray has been SO helpful in making my vision clear, and I’m really surprised how often I am drawn to white/neutral rooms with a lot of wood. It is a big change from the hot pink plastic of my current living room, but then again I bought that stuff seven years ago! I was feeling hesitant to buy the sofa I want in a sort of tweedy cream—I like it best of all the colors it comes in but the thought of a white sofa seemed impractical. Now, though, I think my style tray is compelling me to do so!

I did not make any repairs or buy flowers and due to getting home from a sleepover at my friend’s house just in time to head to a Sunday afternoon barbecue, I did not investigate my sofa or go to Watson Kennedy.

It’s a beautiful day but I’ve been inside cleaning my kitchen since 10:30 am. I took everything out of the cupboards and drawers and off the shelves and wiped them down, washed my collectible dishes that never get used, threw out a bunch of old food and put many ugly, chipped or otherwise unwanted dishes in my outbox, and even moved the microwave to get all the crumbs. Phew! This was a big task.

As soon as my floor dries I am going to work on another task for the week, making a delicious meal.

My outbook is getting off to a good start and since I cheated and began that task early I have a lot of stuff in my sell/giveaway pile too. But I know there’s a lot more that can go there.

Tomorrow I’m going to go see about my sofa (!), buy some flowers and go to Watson Kennedy (mostly for inspiration, but they also have my new favorite soap).

I was going to try to do BOTH the deep treatment and the one-room remedy for my living room, but man…I think that might be too much work. I’m so impatient though.

1. Cleaned my floors last night. They were disgusting! I have always subscribed to the method of cleaning from the top down so it felt a little weird to do the floors first, and I was really tempted to start cleaning other things too but I decided to just follow the book and take it one step at a time instead of jumping ahead and getting all overwhelmed. And actually, mopping the floors made my apartment look much better anyway.

2. Started on my “style tray.” I am collecting pictures from magazines along with inspirational images in my Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/maggies/tags/inspiration/

3. Made a list of repairs. Ugh! Not sure what to do about the closet doors.

4. I am jumping ahead on the outbox and made separate piles for “things to sell” and “things to give away.” The one big item I decided to give away for week one is my bike, which I don’t use, but I didn’t put it out last night because it was raining.

5. I sat for 10 minutes in my living room because I realized I never sit in there! I always read and watch movies in bed (on my laptop). I don’t have a sofa and I just don’t sit in the chairs in my LR very often. This reinforced my feeling that I should get a sofa. Also talked to my dad about him building me a desk!