I think it's going to be a good idea for me to add my bedroom to the list of areas that need organizing.
This is mainly because I barely have enough space on my desk to move my mouse, and even that can be frustrating. I have papers that need to be transcribed into document files so I can get rid of the papers themselves, some of which are from high school, even.
Granted, the main reason I want to get rid of the papers is both for the space they take up, but removing the papers and keeping the information will also have the added benefit of getting rid of a large source of dust in this house, which is always a good thing.
My main focus is still going to be in the public rooms of the house, mind, but there will be updates for the bedroom as well.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Living Room Update 2
Well, so far, so good.
I've both bookcases moved, now. The books are even all in the book cases, which it itself can be considered a mean feat.
The little area rug that was under the workbench was vacuumed and placed under the rocker and my papasan. The round table has been set up and has mother's light table on it so she can use it again.
I switched around my original plans for the three tables. I was planning on placing the two little ones between the chairs and leaving the larger one where it was. That was switched around, so we could have a bit more walking space. Not much more, mind, but every little bit helps when you're trying to get the mail in. (Not coincidentally, this also means it's a wider path to the front door in case of fire.) So, now we have the larger table between the two chairs, and I think that'll work very nicely.
The floor is almost completely clean, though I dare say it could use some scrubbing in spots. Then again, it's been in the I-need-scrubbing stage since we removed the carpeting back about 15 years ago. That's another one of those things we'd been putting off.
I'd say my cleaning it coming along nicely, though slowly. Once I have the living room tidied up, I plan to move into doing the dining room. :)
I've both bookcases moved, now. The books are even all in the book cases, which it itself can be considered a mean feat.
The little area rug that was under the workbench was vacuumed and placed under the rocker and my papasan. The round table has been set up and has mother's light table on it so she can use it again.
I switched around my original plans for the three tables. I was planning on placing the two little ones between the chairs and leaving the larger one where it was. That was switched around, so we could have a bit more walking space. Not much more, mind, but every little bit helps when you're trying to get the mail in. (Not coincidentally, this also means it's a wider path to the front door in case of fire.) So, now we have the larger table between the two chairs, and I think that'll work very nicely.
The floor is almost completely clean, though I dare say it could use some scrubbing in spots. Then again, it's been in the I-need-scrubbing stage since we removed the carpeting back about 15 years ago. That's another one of those things we'd been putting off.
I'd say my cleaning it coming along nicely, though slowly. Once I have the living room tidied up, I plan to move into doing the dining room. :)
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Update: Living Room
Well the Living Room is currently in shambles. Mainly due to what I've done in there since yesterday.
1: Cleared of the Dining Room table
2: Folded 5 total baskets of laundry (or just added the ironing stuff to the ironing basket to do later...)
3: Taken the two suitcases seen in the photo by the workbench upstairs to the storage are in the North closet.
4: Taken a small table out of said closet so Mom can remove the round table from her sewing room and have a little more space in there.
5: Helped Mom take down the old table and generally help out in getting her sewing room a bit neater.
6: Dismantled the workbench and taken it downstairs to the storage area in the furnace room. Dad helped with this one, as it was his idea.
His idea also includes putting the round table into the corner where the workbench was, but I've vetoed that. Not that I don't want that kind of table in the Living Room; far from it. I want to move the piano there, though. Then, I can get the bookshelves out from behind the papasan chair and the gliding rocker (so we can actually get to them), put those in the corner where the piano is, and put the table in the corner by the bookshelves. The little tables can then go between the rocker and the papasan chairs, and hopefully this will make it so we have a bit more space in there and a better layout in general.
The down side of this is that Mom is currently at work, and we cannot move the piano without her help. Yes, it does have legs, and yes, the legs do have wheels, however the legs are just there to support it. If you try to move the piano by pushing it, instead of picking it up a little, the legs can collapse and then you have a piano on the floor, which to my way of thinking sounds like a royal pain in the butt.
I've started getting the things from those areas moved, though, so that way when she gets home we can move it right away. :) Things are going well, so far.
1: Cleared of the Dining Room table
2: Folded 5 total baskets of laundry (or just added the ironing stuff to the ironing basket to do later...)
3: Taken the two suitcases seen in the photo by the workbench upstairs to the storage are in the North closet.
4: Taken a small table out of said closet so Mom can remove the round table from her sewing room and have a little more space in there.
5: Helped Mom take down the old table and generally help out in getting her sewing room a bit neater.
6: Dismantled the workbench and taken it downstairs to the storage area in the furnace room. Dad helped with this one, as it was his idea.
His idea also includes putting the round table into the corner where the workbench was, but I've vetoed that. Not that I don't want that kind of table in the Living Room; far from it. I want to move the piano there, though. Then, I can get the bookshelves out from behind the papasan chair and the gliding rocker (so we can actually get to them), put those in the corner where the piano is, and put the table in the corner by the bookshelves. The little tables can then go between the rocker and the papasan chairs, and hopefully this will make it so we have a bit more space in there and a better layout in general.
The down side of this is that Mom is currently at work, and we cannot move the piano without her help. Yes, it does have legs, and yes, the legs do have wheels, however the legs are just there to support it. If you try to move the piano by pushing it, instead of picking it up a little, the legs can collapse and then you have a piano on the floor, which to my way of thinking sounds like a royal pain in the butt.
I've started getting the things from those areas moved, though, so that way when she gets home we can move it right away. :) Things are going well, so far.
The Living Room
In order to fairly document the mess and my progress in getting rid of it - more importantly, in keeping it gone! - I've taken pictures of the mess.
This is something that I know my Mother would not appreciate.
Oh well! :D
Above you will see several pictures of the living room, in the state it was when I started this blog.
Multiple laundry baskets, things out of order, books off of the shelf. I'm not sure what's on top of my Mother's rocking glider in the corner there, but there's stuff on it so she cannot sit there, anyway.
These images are not in the order I wanted them uploaded in. Rather disappointing, but not much I can do about that, as far as I know.
The top image features the workout bench in the corner (which we can't really get to or use, due to lack of space), the boxes stacked on the little table next to it contain my (Generation One) My Little Pony toys, which I also need to sort through for which ones I want to keep in my collection, and which ones are going to be sold. Also has a portion of the piano, which has the pillows I made on top of it, covered by an old sheet, and some of the stuff at the base of said piano.
The second image features the table ion frost of the fireplace we cannot use (The chimney flue needs cleaning, and the some of the bricks on the out side of the top have no mortar between them anymore, so it's been boarded up since I was a kid), the Yudu machine that I have yet to open ( ^^; ), the home-made light-box that I use for photographing customs and my jewelry projects, and some leftover material. Also featured are the stand I made to hold my cross-stitch pieces, and the corner of a laundry basket.
Picture three features some of said laundry, my papasan chair (which I believe has my old Raggety Ann doll on it), one of the book shelves (which has Mom's flute and some of the scarves I've made on it), and Patches, our Tortie cat, sitting in the open window by the door to the vestibule.
Photo four has the full-on view of the laundry pile, with the other bookshelf, ironing rack, and Mom's rocking glider in the corner. I'm not sure what's on that glider, but I'm pretty sure Mom hasn't been able to relax in it for months. I'm not sure what's on the floor behind everything there, but I'm pretty sure it's going to consist of at least a few books. My yarn for making the scarves is in the bookshelf thing under the lamp.
The last image is of the stuff at the back of the piano, across from the landry pile. Basically, fabric and laundry again, though it's worth noting that there is another table under there. Under the piano is some of my fabric stash (no where near the size of Mother's), and my Generation Three My Little Ponies, which I plan to sort through and sell most of.
Other rooms will be done as separate entries, mainly to make it easier to see what is where.
Obviously, I've my work cut out for me... ^^;
Saturday, August 13, 2011
The Start of the Quest
Despite the fact that I shower daily, I must admit: I am a slob.
I leave clothing on the floor for days before tossing it in the laundry (even underwear!), it may take me a few days before I wash the dishes, and any flat surfaces invariably become covered with a mish-mash of papers, books, and assorted things. This can include the floor, though on a more limited basis, since we do still need to walk.
In a way, I'm surprised my parents and I aren't sicker than we are. ^^;
It wasn't always like this, of course. My Mother has mentioned before that my older brother was a very tidy person when he was little. As in, under 6, maybe 7. I found this rather interesting given his room was almost always as untidy as mine, sometimes more so. As a History major and fantasy writer, he and his wife's apartment tends to suffer in the same manner as the main floor of my parent's house, but I digress.
When I was in late grade school, early high school, Dad would occasionally snark about Mom being on strike from doing housework. This seamed reasonable enough. There was almost always laundry in baskets. The kitchen was (and still is!) in a state of disarray, and let's not mention the pins on the floor in her sewing room (formerly my brother's bedroom).
With the exception of my Dad, we all tend to ignore the immediate messes in the house. Dad keeps their bedroom (which is also his office/den) as neat as he can, though there are still piles of laundry, and Mom has quite a bit of her fabric stored up there. Admittedly, he complains about the messes quite a bit, though mostly when it's in his immediate way (not enough space around his spot at the dinner table, or papers and books falling off the table by the window when he's trying to get said window open, for example).
Now, some people would probably consider us hoarders. Mom could certainly be considered one as far as her fabric stash is concerned, but that's apparently a common phenomenon with sewers. (If you don't believe me, try doing an image search for the words "fabric stash" sometime.)
I'm pretty sure we're not hoarders, though. The floor tends to be cluttered, sure, but we can still see them. There are no huges stacks of stuff cluttering the floor enough to make it so we need to walk through an aisle of stuff to get from point A to point B. No, I can see out the living room windows through the dining room, from the doorway in the kitchen. Not very well, mind you, but that's more because of the angle than because of the mess.
What we are is disorganized, and procrastinators. "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow." "I'll get to it in a minute, I want to finish X first." It's basically a downhill trend; once you get onto it, it's hard to break out of this kind of procrastination. Do I know how we arrived at where we are now? Yes, actually.
As I mentioned before, when my brother was young - and I don't remember this, so I can't have been older than 5 or so - my brother was a neat-nick. Given that I was probably 5 or younger, this would make my brother 8 at the oldest. Anyway, he suddenly did a reversal. He wouldn't help out, he wouldn't do what mother asked him to as far as housework goes, and it was suddenly like she was trying to pull teeth from a very stubborn rock. Being the influential big brother that he was, I apparently did the same thing. Many would figure that this left Mom with three options: punish us, withhold our allowances, or just do it herself.
She chose option four: "If they're not going to do it, then neither am I." Which, I suppose would be the equivalent of being on strike. On the plus side, she didn't hurt us, and force us to do the things we didn't want to. On the other hand, she did teach us it was okay to be messy.
Still, I honestly can't blame her; at the time, she was working at a rather irritating job, making waterbeds in a factory, and putting up with at least one co-worker's sexual harassment on a daily basis. That in itself can make someone exhausted, much less a mother coming home to two kids who don't want to do anything other than their homework. Given that scenario, I can't blame her for not wanting to do anything other than make dinner, eat, then sit down with a good book before going to bed.
The downer is that the house always has been very messy. I have decided to try changing that. One room at a time. Granted, I'm not going to touch her sewing room, or their bedroom, but I'd like to make it so we're at least not embarrassed to have company over. Setting up the Christmas tree without having to shuffle things about would be nice too. I shall be linking to photos of the rooms before I try cleaning them, and will be keeping an updated record to see how long the rooms stay clean and whether I can keep up with everything.
Expect updates on Saturdays, at least.
Wooo~!
I leave clothing on the floor for days before tossing it in the laundry (even underwear!), it may take me a few days before I wash the dishes, and any flat surfaces invariably become covered with a mish-mash of papers, books, and assorted things. This can include the floor, though on a more limited basis, since we do still need to walk.
In a way, I'm surprised my parents and I aren't sicker than we are. ^^;
It wasn't always like this, of course. My Mother has mentioned before that my older brother was a very tidy person when he was little. As in, under 6, maybe 7. I found this rather interesting given his room was almost always as untidy as mine, sometimes more so. As a History major and fantasy writer, he and his wife's apartment tends to suffer in the same manner as the main floor of my parent's house, but I digress.
When I was in late grade school, early high school, Dad would occasionally snark about Mom being on strike from doing housework. This seamed reasonable enough. There was almost always laundry in baskets. The kitchen was (and still is!) in a state of disarray, and let's not mention the pins on the floor in her sewing room (formerly my brother's bedroom).
With the exception of my Dad, we all tend to ignore the immediate messes in the house. Dad keeps their bedroom (which is also his office/den) as neat as he can, though there are still piles of laundry, and Mom has quite a bit of her fabric stored up there. Admittedly, he complains about the messes quite a bit, though mostly when it's in his immediate way (not enough space around his spot at the dinner table, or papers and books falling off the table by the window when he's trying to get said window open, for example).
Now, some people would probably consider us hoarders. Mom could certainly be considered one as far as her fabric stash is concerned, but that's apparently a common phenomenon with sewers. (If you don't believe me, try doing an image search for the words "fabric stash" sometime.)
I'm pretty sure we're not hoarders, though. The floor tends to be cluttered, sure, but we can still see them. There are no huges stacks of stuff cluttering the floor enough to make it so we need to walk through an aisle of stuff to get from point A to point B. No, I can see out the living room windows through the dining room, from the doorway in the kitchen. Not very well, mind you, but that's more because of the angle than because of the mess.
What we are is disorganized, and procrastinators. "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow." "I'll get to it in a minute, I want to finish X first." It's basically a downhill trend; once you get onto it, it's hard to break out of this kind of procrastination. Do I know how we arrived at where we are now? Yes, actually.
As I mentioned before, when my brother was young - and I don't remember this, so I can't have been older than 5 or so - my brother was a neat-nick. Given that I was probably 5 or younger, this would make my brother 8 at the oldest. Anyway, he suddenly did a reversal. He wouldn't help out, he wouldn't do what mother asked him to as far as housework goes, and it was suddenly like she was trying to pull teeth from a very stubborn rock. Being the influential big brother that he was, I apparently did the same thing. Many would figure that this left Mom with three options: punish us, withhold our allowances, or just do it herself.
She chose option four: "If they're not going to do it, then neither am I." Which, I suppose would be the equivalent of being on strike. On the plus side, she didn't hurt us, and force us to do the things we didn't want to. On the other hand, she did teach us it was okay to be messy.
Still, I honestly can't blame her; at the time, she was working at a rather irritating job, making waterbeds in a factory, and putting up with at least one co-worker's sexual harassment on a daily basis. That in itself can make someone exhausted, much less a mother coming home to two kids who don't want to do anything other than their homework. Given that scenario, I can't blame her for not wanting to do anything other than make dinner, eat, then sit down with a good book before going to bed.
The downer is that the house always has been very messy. I have decided to try changing that. One room at a time. Granted, I'm not going to touch her sewing room, or their bedroom, but I'd like to make it so we're at least not embarrassed to have company over. Setting up the Christmas tree without having to shuffle things about would be nice too. I shall be linking to photos of the rooms before I try cleaning them, and will be keeping an updated record to see how long the rooms stay clean and whether I can keep up with everything.
Expect updates on Saturdays, at least.
Wooo~!
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