get rid of my clutter

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YES!!

My apartment has gone from the worst hellhole I ever saw to my own little sanctuary from the perils of… well, dangerous scary old Japan (ha!).

It’s wonderful. The renovations are done – everything looks so CLEAN! It takes so little effort to make the place presentable now.
I need to have a dinner party to celebrate, but… I threw out most of the furniture. Oops! ;-)

Yahoo yahoo yahoo! Home sweet home.

My landlord came by on Saturday with about 7 workmen and they measured all the rooms, and we chose new flooring and wallpaper for the whole apartment.

They’ll do the work by the end of THIS month!

Best part -> the cost to me? ZERO!

There’s only a little bit of clutter left, but now that I’ve got the worst of it gone, I just want to relax in my new-looking, clean, post-renovation apartment :-)

Delighted!

The most awful of my horrible furniture is sitting outside, ready to be taken away. Really – it’s so bad that used furniture/charity shops wouldn’t even take it, I’m sure.

(FYI, I unfortunately inherited it when I moved into this apartment 2 years ago – promptly hid most of it in the closets. 10 years’ worth of recent university graduates – with constant turnover- had lived here previously. Nightmare.)

What can I say? It can be tough to find an apartment as close to downtown, for so little rent, in a big city, in Japan, when you’re a foreigner. BUT – nice apartment (or, at least it WILL be!).

Took a long time and a lot of effort (asking 3 people for help, even) to make the arrangements – it’s challenging to throw out anything unusual in Japan.
Whew! Pat myself on the back. My living room looks HUGE now! Like a yoga studio :-)

Ooook! I have a huge pile of stuff set out – it will be taken away this Friday.
Next need to buy some shelves for the bathroom, and some for the kitchen.
Oooh, that messy pile of papers isn’t magically going away on its own, rats! Sigh- Maybe tomorrow.

I was planning to move in 2 months, and moving is always a good occasion to de-clutter.

However, now it turns out I’m NOT going to move (because I struck a deal with my landlord that I’d stay for another year IF she renovated the whole place – new flooring, wallpaper, bathroom fixtures – I can’t believe she agreed!!!). LUCKY ME!

The idea of living in a nicer place is inspiring me to get rid of a lot of this crappy old, hand-me-down, ancient furniture (I’ll mostly just be getting “new” stuff which is still used, but has been handed down significantly less).

AND I’m moderately inspired to sort out my junk drawers, old docs, etc. But what a big task :-(