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

• I put in some supports around the still young apple trees and tied the branches into position. Hopefully I’ll be able to get them to set into a decent shape.

• Pruned back the magnolias and unknown hedge in front of the front door, reshaped them and exposed the lower trunks because I think it’s more balanced that way.

• gave all the front yard shrubbery a good clipping

• Cleaned up the front yard, swept up the spilled birdseed

• weeded the back garden, but it’s way out of control!

• Cleaned and decluttered both kids rooms

• found the floor in the master bedroom, vacuumed and decluttered

• Got all the laundry organized and put away

• Gave the bathroom a really deep cleaning, decluttered the cupboards and countertop and bleached every surface

• tidied the foyer

• cleaned and decluttered kitchen #2, down to all the surfaces bare and shiny!!

• Decluttered the playroom, got rid of 2 very large bags of broken, mismatched, or never coming clean toys; Reorganized so that there is one less toybox in there and nothing is left out in view.

I guess Dominion Day means getting control over my “dominion”!

First time this year. We’ve had a weird spring, and the lawn was thick and high with dandelions all over it, but I never had an opportunity to mow it before, too much rain.

So I feel like making an entry about such a mundane thing, because of the enormous effort it took. Thick, long grass, wet moss underneath, dull blades and a hill. Plus my back yard is big. I am so sore now, I feel like that was a huge athletic endeavour. Left all the clipping on the lawn looking like shit, but it’s good to have that jungle gone!

I wrote this in my journal today and thought it was worth sharing here, also:

Cool things are happening today.

I just spent the last forty or so minutes in my kitchen, eating my breakfast (a bit late), scrubbing the sink, cleaning out the fridge � a task I started yesterday, taking photos, journaling and doing some sacred reading.

I don�t know when I felt so accomplished in so short of a time.

I don�t remember oatmeal with a smidge of brown sugar ever tasting quite as flavorful.

Right before my time in the kitchen I visited gaia.com where I oftentimes use the �Questions and Reflections� as a writing (and contemplative) prompt.

This is the question that came up:

�When do you feel the most accomplished?�

I wrote the question on the top page of my journal and began scrubbing. I knew when my initial scrub was over, I would go to my journal and write. I was having a splendid time, cleaning with the same passion I usually use for my art.

I sat down with my cup of coffee as my oatmeal cooked and wrote, �I feel most accomplished in this exact moment. I am on task witih my personal studies. I am working on my business, actively. My creativity and art is consistently flowing, my relationships are flourishing�

AND�.

I had a huge a-ha yesterday (well, it was several yesterdays ago actually, on Friday, when I was seeing my therapist.) This �a-ha� springs from my home, my house, this place I have lived for nearly 18 years now.

I have come close to losing this house more times than I feel comfortable admitting. It is one loss God managed, somehow, to spare me from each and every time.

My house has sheltered me. My house has protected me. My house has been the place where I have grown as a human being in ways I never expected. My house has put up with my apathy towards it for wayyyy too long.

Now it is my turn � my long overdue turn � to fully love my house back. To show up and hug my house, cuddle my house.

It started several years ago, actually � on a New Years Eve when I painted my dining room a gorgeous shade of purple with a deeper purple ceiling and gold accents on the wood. I have continued in fits and starts, like in pulling up most of the carpeting last Summer revealing hardwood floors again. Now, I see the hugging, the cuddling, the caretaking of my house as a part of my complete and overall life alignment.

I see this alignment reappearing in so many ways.

Now, here it is, in my beloved home.

Today I scrubbed my kitchen sink with a toothbrush. This may seem ordinary for some of you. I have read about it on Flylady, but I have never actually done it myself. I knew of it, but I wasn�t intimate with it through experience, through touching, through the process. Today, I became intimate with the joy of scrubbing the sink with a toothbrush, working towards making it sparkle and shine. I think it even winked at me, although I am not completely sure.

Maybe that was Divinity winking at me.

My hand smells like cleaning solution.

Today that is what accomplishment smells like.

Dietrich Bonhoffer said, “Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”

I am ready for the responsibility of loving my home deeply and showing that love outwardly. It isn�t talking about �Oh, I can scrub my sink with a toothbrush� it is about showing up and doing it. And then repeating it. And being grateful for each part of the process.

Showing up in this way feels so good.

I used a little tiny brush and scrubbed all the tiny spaces that get missed.

• Everything came off the counters so they could get a good cleaning at the back.
• Then every countertop thing got a good cleaning & buffing before being returned to it’s place.
• scrubbed the baseboards
• scrubbed the floors by hand
• polished all the stainless steel appliance fronts
• washed the walls and fronts of cupboards
• washed the sliding glass door
• scrubbed out the tracks to sliding doors
• scrubbed the sink, polished and buffed the faucet
• cleaned out the baskets and culled the fruits and root vegetables
• decluttered
• cleaned off the fridge and washed it
• cleaned out the freezer and washed the inside
• washed the chairs
• washed each panel of the vertical blinds
• decluttered and cleaned the window sill

And now I have to say, it’s amazing how fast one man in the kitchen can mess it up again!

My kitchen has solid oak cabinets that are about 18 years old. I would say that they were between medium and high quality when they were installed. The handles are in matching oak with brass at the ends. The brass is tarnished and I can’t bring the shine back. And the finish on the cabinets is showing age, on some areas near the stove the wood is dried and cracked and in areas on the lower cupboards the wood is discoloured, probably from cleaning products and the wood along a side panel bottem has greyed from flood damage. None of this is really obvious but instead the cupboards are just looking drab.

The colour of the wood is kind of a honey amber, somewhere in the yellow orange range. This really limits what colours I can paint the kitchen. Blues are definitely out. My appliances are black and stainless steal.

So my question is, do I paint the cupboards? I always think that wood is best and adds a lot of value, and some people would like the colours that go with those cabinets. I’m afraid that by painting I might bring down the value of the house.

Maybe its Spring, I don’t know, but I am just about ready to get rid of the crap in my purple room and yank up the carpet in there. It will be the last communal room to be rid of carpet.

I still need to do this room, too (my bedroom) but that dining room decarpeting will be huge, huge.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can….

Prep will begin Tuesday, when Emma and Sam are back in school.

by giving my front entrance a mini makeover today. I picked up some small containers of primroses, tulips and iris’s and then daughter and I cleaned all the old plants from the big planter and planted the new ones. It looks very nice and bright.

We beat all the winter dirt out of the welcome mat and gave the cement a good sweeping, getting rid of all the leaves and dirt that had blown into the corners. Also put away all the toys that had collected in the driveway and some winter garden tools that were left out too long. Ended it all by hosing the last bit of dirt off the stoop and driveway.

It’s easy to get stuck on the computer but I’d love to get more done around the house.

It’s very hard to take a picture of the room that really shows it, since I can’t get all the walls in at once. I’ve just used this angle to match the before picture, but it’s probably the worst angle. The room still needs some personal touches, bedside tables, art, crown moldings. And I still have to change the blinds (that’s the new ones at the side). But overall, I’m quite pleased with the outcome. I do wish the picture showed the bed in context. From where I stand to take the picture, on my right is a bank of 2 dressers 5 feet tall and about 6 feet wide, in cherry. On my left are the closet doors, framed up like the window and on the left side of the bed is an antique dresser in dark oak with a scrolling front profile.

I was just looking at my before pictures. I cannot believe I was living like that! It’s amazing how fast your standards can change.

One of the reasons I picked this project for while hubby is away, is because I only have one couch to sleep on. It’s not very comfortable. Then one child wet the bed (not a usual thing) and joined me. The other child woke up and also joined me. Rather a tight squeeze! By the end of today, my patience was wearing pretty thin.

I got 2 more coats of paint on the wall, with “help” from the kids. Then we painted all the baseboards and casings.

Silly me!! I had pushed all the dressers in front of the closet door to make room….guess where I hid my new mitre box & saw so hubby wouldn’t suspect anything.

The baseboards look awesome!! That really finishes a room nicely. The casings were a little more difficult. I had figured I needed 72 feets so I bought 8 pieces of ten foot lengths. Didn’t realize I needed to make sure I had enough to do all the long pieces without having to make them from two short pieces. I tried that in one spot and will be taking it down, looks amateurish. Also made a few cutting mistakes just from being tired and having the kids yak at me.

Figured out how a nailgun works. What a marvelous invention.

The casings around the window and closet give the room a much more polished look. I still have a few small pieces of molding to put in, but I knocked over and broke the only lamp and the sun was going down…and honestly I was just too tired!

Hey, I’m watching Numb3ers, Hubby loves the house they live in. Just noticed the walls are the same colour as mine!

Finally I put the bed together and moved all the dressers. That was strenuous and a lot harder than it was to move them yesterday. Tired muscles. I angled the bed and rearranged the dressers. That little change makes a huge difference, I think, to the flow of the room.

Still to do: replace the blinds, last few pieces of molding, caulk and touch up paint, get rid of paint tape, touch up ceiling, figure out what to do about bedside tables, cut down the headboard and paint it, lighting, crown molding.

I’m in no rush now, if I get nothing else done, hubby will be impressed. And I need to get the rest of the house back to normal (pretty neglected).

And DRAT!! Hubby phoned to say he’ll be home 12 hours later, getting home the next morning while the rest of us are at work and school. Not sure what to do about that. Hubby isn’t the most expressive guy, I wanted the kids to see his reaction while he is surprised, coming home after him means the kids will miss that.