It's not even a suit I consider MY suit at all.
We're working on it. Not because I aspire to be a tidy homemaker, but because I kind of feel like I start to panic a little bit when I watch those "Hoarders" shows. Like, I'll be staring at the TV, and then my eyes will scan the living and dining rooms, and I'll think, "Uh oh."
(Really, if you know me, you'll know it isn't THAT bad. Except in our bedroom. There are 4 garbage bags full of clothes that I'm meaning to donate, falling over in the corner and a pile of clean laundry that never gets folded. We just dig through it like ferreting rodents, looking for any 2 socks. They don't even have to match, just as long as they fit. Nobody ever sees our bedroom. Or our socks.)
Okay, honestly, though, we're not filthy, but we do have way too much stuff.
I had an enlightened moment recently where I realized that I only have so much space. I mean, really. It doesn't matter that I can stack storage containers on top of storage containers. The whole deal is that, we have just this much space in which to live our lives. Do I really want an entire room of our precious space to be taken up by bags of old clothes and piles of mismatched laundry? Am I really willing to sacrifice 4 square feet of our living room for a giant vase that I don't even really like and doesn't even actually hold any flowers? It's crazy.
There are 4 of us in a very small house.
I have made a vow to respect us enough, as a family, to respect the space that we're given. There's only so much of it to go around and our home isn't going to be getting any bigger. How is it that I've been okay with wasting any of it for so long, let alone so much of it?
So, I have been going nuts giving things away and freecycling and regular old fashioned recycling, as well as tossing out revealingly huge quantities of stuff that I've been dragging around with me since I was like... in high school.
We're endeavoring to be one of those households where every thing we own must be either immediately useful or important or beautiful.
Enter exhibit Perfect Lamp.
Antique, orange glass. The base lights up! 5 bucks at Dormont Goodwill. Totally useful, check. Totally beautiful, at least to me.
So, we have a big list of things we want to improve around here. In the spirit of making myself into the thing I want to be, I've also decided to make my home into the thing I want it to be.
There's no reason I should be putting myself through the torture of too many toys and not enough space, ugly wallpaper, clothes everywhere, no storage, overgrown landscaping, mismatched socks and feeling like I'm turning into one of those hoarders. There's only so much space we can actually call home. The world is big, but we own (or rent) so very little of it. Our space can be anything we want it to be. (Within the confines of money, I suppose and of the amount of energy a person is able to muster up with a 3 year old and a 8 month old. But whatever. We have time.)
Here's our list:
Fix overhead light and ceiling fan in Scouty's room
Window box for basil
Large Garden Containers
Fix or buy a new lawnmower before the world thaws
Professional photos of Louisey
Remove wallpaper in kitchen
Remove border in our bedroom
Remove wallpaper in Louisey's room (Which actually depicts cats wearing cowboy hats. I'm not kidding. The people who owned this house before us were total psychopaths, apparently.)
Paint kitchen
Paint bathroom
Paint our bedroom
Paint Louise's room
Wooden edging for wildflower bed in front of house
Hammock Stand
Colorful area rug for dining room
Garden fencing for vegetable patch in the back yard
Stained glass sconce for upstairs hallway
New runner rug for spring. (One that isn't all salty and stained from winter.)
Start garden plants indoors
What do you want your home to be?
Make a plan and get back to me. If we'd rather barf than be considered good housekeepers, let's be space respecters, at least. We only get to keep so much, after all.
Oh my goodness... Mine & Jim's list is SOOOO LONG. However, we have been doing a great job of purging lately. Also and if it makes you feel any better, we are just getting ready to paint the room that will be my office... after it took us two years to finally get all the wallpaper off of the walls. Anyway, on with the list:
ReplyDelete1.) Paint my office
2.) Refix banister to the wall, that is now currently partially falling out of the wall
3.) De-crap my office room, meaning get rid of all the crap that's in boxes. It's been in boxes for two years. Obviously, I do not need it.
4.) Remove wallpaper, prime, and paint the hallway
5.) Prime and paint the bedroom
6.) Figure out how to get the old, disgusting carpet off of the 2nd floor rooms and lay hardwood flooring ourselves
7.) Re-tile the bathroom
8.) Figure out a way to redo the kitchen on the cheap
There you have it! Oh, the joys of homeownership... :)
I feel like you came into my home and wrote about it. We just have so much stuff and a 3 year old and it is overwhelming. It is great that you made a list, I hear they help. I just have to get around to making one. :)
ReplyDelete1. get job
ReplyDelete2. save money
3. get own apartment O_o
most of everything we own is currently still in storage, and i can't wait to get out of the RV and in to a real home again.
odds are, when we do that i'll get rid of more things, but right now all i want is to be DONE being in limbo. matt said 2-3 months. i said 1-2. seems he's right and i was a little too optimistic.
all i want is my own space and my own schedule!
I constantly de-junk, and give things away, but shutting the bedroom door saves some time cleaning :) We also have a list a mile long of home upkeep. We want wood floors in our room, and every room could use some fresh paint. We are planting our garden this weekend, and finished our pond last weekend :)
ReplyDeleteEllen, we'll have lived here for 3 years this summer and I have hated the wallpaper every day of those 3 years! I'm just now finding the energy to rip it all down. I think I always felt like... it was too expensive, or we were too busy with the kids or being pregnant, that it wasn't even worth it to think about starting to complete our list. But really, just little bits at a time make a huge difference, and it's worth tiring myself out for. Good luck with your list!
ReplyDeleteLulu, it IS overwhelming! that's what I was just saying. It's like... I have always felt like, we don't have the money or the time or the energy to even THINK about redoing our home, so we'll just wait for a better time. But then, a better time never came, so I'm just gonna take it one little task at a time. :)
ReplyDeleteKimberly, I hope you can do it sooner than you think. And when you DO have your own space and your own schedule, you'll think back on this crazy hippie adventure with fondness! I love you!
ReplyDeleteDella, that's the whole deal with our bedroom. haha. It's not even like a real room. It's just a place we put everything so that we can have guests over. Nobody ever snoops in the bedroom, right?
ReplyDelete