thoroughly clean the house and then keep it clean

Oh my! I haven’t written anything on this goal in quite a while. In February and March, we built an awesome courtyard out front, painted the entire house, and put real wood flooring throughout the inside except the bedrooms, which still have carpet.

When the new flooring went down, everything in the house had to be moved, so ever since then I’ve been working with a whole different set of problems. The house mostly looks clean all the time now, but there are stacks of things in places where the Dearest’s workers shoved my stuff and I have been having difficulties dealing with it – partly because I’ve been having fun with my life, and partly because I’m still rather irritated that I can’t find my own things in my own house.

Anyway, I noticed when I was catching up on my entries here that the old floor was in those pictures and the furniture has been moved all around since then. Now that my schedule has calmed down and is more conducive to being at home, I will be getting back to this, although I will focus more on getting through the boxes now instead of sweeping and dusting.

Every day I open 43T and peruse my list to see what wonderful things I can post about. I always have plenty of stuff going on and certainly have no lack for words. ;)

But lately, the thought rushes to my mind that what I REALLY need to do is practice piano, read my scriptures, write in my journal, read and write and rewrite the books I’m working on, and CLEAN THE HOUSE… and then somehow, a lot of my other stuff doesn’t get done.

I need to reassess my priorities.

heh heh

It’s fun and I get a big workout.

I start at the front door and go along the wall, working all the way around the outer edge (like a carousel horse) of the whole house and into the middle of each room as I go.

The trick to it is that I set my timer for 3 minutes for each segment. It makes me run—especially if I have to gather up trash, take it out, and be back in the house within 3 minutes!

The other trick to it is that I have to leave each room partially undone in order to keep traveling along the circumference of my house. That means if I run out of steam before it’s all done, whatever room I go back into is only half done at best, and that makes me want to have it all done.

Good way to psyche myself out, huh!

. . . of my closet today. Made a giant dent! Huge difference already!

I recently acquired a fairly small vintage desk. It’s a nice piece of furniture, but I have little room for it, except as a necessity in my closet. It will be just the thing to house the gifts I hide in there, as well as gift wrapping supplies. The top will have a couple boxes stacked on it, but hey—they will be easier to get into that way, so it works. :)

I am finally feeling eager about clearing out junk again and will no doubt post a picture when I’ve finished in there.

Hmmm. I am not some crazy food hoarder, but perhaps my mother-in-law is, so she is responsible for overstocking my pantry thusly.

This collection of cans WAS stacked in the same place under the counter, but one can deep, all the way up to the counter, each layer separated with cardboard. Very classy. :\

I asked the Dearest to build some shelves for me, but he didn’t see the point and it is too hot in the garage for me to do it myself, so I did this. I am excited about it. The toilet paper and paper towels had been stuffed stored underneath the pool table, which I hated because it was ghetto enough just having the cans stacked the way they were, but now I can’t even see the cans from the couch in the Family Room, so I’m happy. =D

This shelf is below the mirror in the Dining room—that’s why you can see the pool table in the picture, it’s just a reflection.

Anyway, there are 3 shelves, one for each girl, and they used to keep their school stuff in their own little cubbies so they wouldn’t forget it on the way out to the garage in the mornings. After they got older, they used that mirror to do their hair and makeup when someone else was in the bathroom.

Over time, it became a drop spot for random clutter and I never really paid that much attention to it. The junk on it wasn’t mine so I just left it alone.

Well, a while back, my sister came to visit for the day and I was cleaning the kitchen so she tried to help me out by cleaning off the top of this shelf. She put all the makeup and hairbrushes in a box and wanted to know where it should go. I told her it was the girls’ stuff and that’s where they use it.

She reminded me that none of them really live here anymore and it struck me all of a sudden that this little spot of THEIRS actually does look a kind of messy. I let my sister put the box in the bathroom, but soon brought it back out. Somehow, I wasn’t quite ready to have the precious belongings of my little girls all cleared away. Funny thing is though, that once I finally noticed how it looked, it did start bothering me, so I did it myself last night.

The little bamboo plant has been on the kitchen counter for over a year. It’s my longest living houseplant! That picture of San Francisco is the one I bought from the street artist who painted it. OK, the skinny tub still has some girlie stuff in it, but I think I have successfully taken over this little spot and can call it my own now.

This window faces west. It is excruciating in the summer, so I have always left the blinds closed, but that makes the room dark. Plus, with the blinds closed all the time, spiders find their way between there.

OK, nevermind that I’ve lived here for 13 years and never decided to do anything about my favorite room always being dark in the daytime. I finally did something about it today. The fabric is actually quite sheer, although it looks more solid in the night time photo.

The little clear shelves are just 97¢ stackable baskets from WalMart, but since they are clear, they don’t weigh down the corner aesthetically while still accenting the depth of the window sill.

All this time, I have been letting things pass around here, but finally! I am making my own mark on this house and I like it. It’s so wecoming and cozy now. :)

This has endlessly been a problem area in the house. That table is actually my daughter’s “hope chest” and books get stacked on it all the time. Well, not anymore!

I got a bunch of bitty little stacking baskets that are clear and put the small books in a couple of those. The rest are put away out of the room. I even got a set of plastic drawers for all the tutoring supplies, so now the coffee table cabinet isn’t full of folders and school supplies, and the end of the couch there has no more timed-reading stories on it. YAY!

. . . is possible again!

Yesterday I decided I’d had enough of eating on the couch now that the pool table takes up the entire Dining Room. The real dinner table is in my studio and there’s no room for it anywhere else now anyway.

So I figured out a good plan! I cleared out my Dearest’s clutter from the Family Room and set up a card table with two chairs. Then I went over to the local Goodwill and got a few tablecloths, a pair of placemats and some awesome table runners. THEN I informed him that nothing is to be set on that table except food…and maybe some flowers.

Hope it works. Wish me luck!

Well, really the whole kitchen, since this is such a good shot of the entire room.

It is done. I am amazed. It took me a while to be this thorough, but it is so worth it!

Now… On to the Dining Room!. . . Well, we have a pool table instead of a dinner table so technically, we do not DINE in there anymore, but “game room” isn’t an appropriate title, since the air hockey table and the foosball table are not in there. Regardless of what function the room holds, it IS still the dining room and I DO still have to clean it next.