The Great Cleanup Continues...Slowly

To get stuff done...or to blog about getting stuff done. That is often the choice I face. I've had a lot going on lately, so I've chosen to get done what I could in the time I had. The Cleanup is continuing, although it's not quite following the schedule I originally laid out. (That doesn't surprise any of us, though, does it.)

The week after the bathroom, I tackled the Orange Bedroom, aka Isaac's room. There weren't a lot of major projects but it needed a lot of sorting, organizing, and purging.

Two Before pics:

One After:

This:

transformed to:

And this:

to this:

I went through a lot of boxes, and took a car load to Goodwill. Obviously there is still stuff left, and it doesn't look pretty stacked against the wall. But that's where it's going to be for a while. Fortunately the room is large enough to not feel crowded.

The one "fix it" project I did take on was the bedside table. It was scrounged from friends when I helped them move. I tied it into the trailer when I left, but it was the only thing in there. Without being weighed down, the trailer bounced and vibrated the whole top apart! Every single join gave way.

I've had it like this for quite a while, but I finally glued the joins with Elmers, and screwed the top back onto the base. (Only one of the four screws was remaining but I was able to replace them.)

One day I may paint the table and bed to match the dresser, but for now I'm calling it done.

And I also took time to mount the mirror onto the door.

It was no use leaning against the wall, and that wasn't doing the mirror any good either. Now, when the door's open, it's the one mirror I can double check my outfits in the morning without miserable back lighting. Bonus!

After the Orange Room, I dove into the Red Bedroom. It was supposed to be the Kitchen, but I misread my own schedule. All for the best, I guess, as I didn't have time or energy to tackle the Kitchen last week.

There was both more and less to do as that bedroom is used for storage and soap curing, and will continue to be so used. (There's only so much improvement I can make when the stuff piled up isn't going any where.) But I managed to tidy up, dust the bookshelves and purge some more. I think I just have to give a good vacuum and do the windows.

Next up is the Kitchen and that relies on some shelving going up in the shop. It's Wednesday night and I haven't even started on this week's room. That's not promising.... (In my defense, today was the most perfect day to be outside that you could have, so I got half the lawn mowed and other garden work done. It was so nice.)

My only hope for the kitchen is the long weekend coming up!

Siding on Wednesday (That can't be right, can it?)

No, it's not the weekend, but Troy and I found ourselves doing siding anyway. (Apparently that is possible.)

I tried to keep my mind open to the possibility all day because, even though he hadn't said anything, I knew Troy would be interested in tackling it. But by the time he got home I was TIIIII-yeerd! Tired from mowing mostly. (Three hours between last night and today with a push mower in case you want to compare to your own endurance.) My legs would hardly hold me and my toolbelt up. Of course, wearing my 5" platform shoes yesterday didn't help either. (Now there's a workout for your calves.)

But being the good, faithful, and ever-helpful wife, I took a deep breath and suited up for siding. Before we started, the shop still looked like this:

You can see why we've been frustrated to not be able to tackle these last two little pieces!!

An hour or two later we had this:

That's a lot of good looking red!! But hold off on the party because we quit before doing the corner pieces. One last little bit to do.

Feels good, though, I must say. What also feels good is sitting in bed (which is what I'm doing now) eating strawberries I picked this afternoon.

The Great Cleanup of 2010

So, yeah. I'm sure I've said before how little time I devote to cleaning up the house. I mean I generally try to keep it "picked up," sure, but it's not very motivating to clean a house that is 1. half destructed, 2. stained, or otherwise ruined so that cleaning does not improve the looks of anything, and 3. going to be completely demolished bit by bit. (Plus, let's be honest, there are a hundred other things I'd rather be doing.) So I do the dishes. But I don't mop the floor unless it's really bad.

However, this summer I am expecting all of my nearest and dearest to celebrate Troy's big birthday. For many this will be the first time they see the house. It's not much to look at (yet), but I thought I should try to at least put my best foot forward, and all that. (Plus looking at dirt and grime does get me down even though I'm  generally pretty successful at ignoring it.)

So, enter the Great Seven Week Plan to clean up the house. I'm trying a zone plan: one room per week. We'll see how it goes.

Week One: Upstairs bathroom. Full of junk and loaded with grime in all the places the vacuum can't easily reach. Windows need to be done, all the stuff needs to be sorted, stashed and/or given away.

I didn't get to a great start for the week, but made an awesome fourth-quarter come back today. I got everything on the list done except one window where I had to take care of a wasp nest. Happily I noticed the wasp before it got too threatened (or threatening).

View 1: before

after

Shelf above the toilet is completely sorted and organized. Same with the black wire shelf. Got rid of a lot of hair things I no longer use. Cleaned shelves, garbage can, mirror.

View 2: before

after

Reorganized things in white cupboard. All the sheets fit in there now (and the door stays shut). Went through all boxes and got rid of about 4 boxes worth of stuff!! A lot of that was plant pots that I am never going to use. Got the table out (it's upside down, holding up the shelf in the "before" pic)...I'll need it for the party, even if there's no good place to store it right now.

Part of this job somehow also included repotting most of Troy's cactus (which are in the bedrooms, not the bathroom...so much for zone). But Troy said they really needed it and then I knew what pots I needed before I gave them all away. So ok, I'll let myself get away with that one. I put out a notice that these baby cactus were free for the taking and got some takers. If you're local and you'd like one, just ask if there's any left.

View 3: before

after

Hmm...not a lot of change here. One window washed, but like I said I couldn't do the second one tonight. The closet is slightly better organized, the best part being that the floor is completely clear.

Week One is feeling like a pretty good success, although I have to admit that there are some larger items that I took out of the bathroom and haven't yet found space for like the solar oven, the car headrests and the aforementioned table. (Yes, it may seem obvious that none of those things really seem to belong in a bathroom in the first place, but that's how life is around here.)

Good night! I have worked enough today to deserve an early rest (and to need it)!


PS: I have been very silent about the siding because it is still not done. Last time I wrote I mentioned we were going to try finish it the next day, but we just couldn't get it done. Nothing went wrong, but obviously we didn't have a good sense of how much was left to do (or how much time it would take). We'd stayed out until 9 that night before finally giving into the realization that it just wasn't going to happen. We've tried several times since then and keep running into severe weather. For some reason Troy's not keen on climbing the aluminum ladder during a storm...

It's so frustrating to be so close and not be able to get it done. But we will.

We will.