Cleaning Day is like Ground Hog Day*

 *The movie. Not, actually, you know, February 2nd.

It really is, isn't it?

There aren't any "before" photos in this post. I didn't take them. I am actually getting pretty tired of showing pictures of my messy, dirty house. It didn't used to bother me, but I've realised a couple of things since I started blogging my "before and after" cleaning frenzies, as Melissa calls them. (Not an affiliate link.)

1) Everyone has messy rooms. I didn't used to know that. How could I know that? But I joined a decluttering facebook group where, once in a while, people will post a challenge to clean the house, 20 minutes on, 10 minutes off, and away they go. On breaks, each lists what they got done in their 20 minutes. It is incredibly motivating. But I realised I am not the only one with a messy house. Who knew?

2) If they are depressing for me, they might be for you too. I don't know. Pictures of shiny, sparkly homes can be off-putting. All the afters with never a "before"  can feel intimidating and discouraging or worse, fake, and artificial. I don't want that either! Can the "afters" uplift and motivate all by themselves? You tell me.

I want this little corner of the blogosphere to be all about creating a home that delights and inspires. Yours and mine.

I didn't know if I'd even blog about my day spent cleaning. I'm not sure what belongs on the blog, quite, anymore.

I do know I want this blog to encourage all of us to live in the best homes we can, whatever our circumstances and limitations. 

And a clean home, ahem, a clean kitchen is delightful. And inspiring.

I left those bowls for my daughter to do as she promised she would after a bout of baking last night.

So, there might be more than a little light housekeeping around here soon, for sure. Maybe even a deep clean.

But, never fear, I will still be the same, doing the same things. Or sort of the same things. We'll see.

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The Case for Bigger Mouldings

My Mom has asked me to figure out the trim work for her house--you know, the baseboards, casings, the headers over doorways and windows, and, maybe, crown.

First, there's no doubt that trimwork increases the value of the house, is there?

Look at this:

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Isn't that amazing?

And this:

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But, it has to be the right size. Most of the mouldings in our houses (unless you are lucky to live in a house built before WW1) are downright dinky.

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Look at the difference here:

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I have been researching what size they ought to be and while there's really nothing that says exactly, there is agreement that each of the components should relate to the other--and the height of the ceiling (not the size of the room).

It all starts with the baseboards.

These are 9 foot ceiling with 7 1/4 inch baseboards and 6 5/16" crown.

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The same in an 8 foot hallway:

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These photos come from a thread in Houzz where someone asked if her 5 1/4" baseboards were too wide. Someone answered, "Asking if your baseboards are too wide is like asking if your diamond is too big."

But tall baseboards can get expensive.

There are three ways I've found which might work. (But I have yet to figure out which will work for us).

1. Fool the Eye 

source 

Imply a taller baseboard by installing a narrow piece of trim some distance above (no more than half the width of the original) --and paint it all the same glossy paint. This is an excellent solution if you already have baseboards and do not want to rip them out. It works well for adding heft to crown moulding, too. I'm not so sure it is a good solution for door and window casings, though, as the difference between the texture of the wall and the mouldings would be too apparent. Backband moulding is excellent for that.

2. Add backband moulding

Again, this is an excellent solution if you already have casings or baseboards and don't want to rip them out.

This example shows how you it works. (Worth clicking through if you've no idea. It is a great little gif.)

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3. Stack the mouldings.

Apparently, this is the traditional way to install baseboard. It helps the trim move with the house--and so minimizes shifting and cracking. You could do this over existing baseboard, I think, if it is plain and wide.  The top piece is called the cap and the bottom is called the fascia.

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In classical moulding, the height of the cap is equal to the total depth of the baseboard from the wall. (It's profile.)

Of course,no one says you have to adhere to classical proportions. Here, this enterprising gal just used a casing and flipped it so the narrow edges met together in the middle.

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Or, of course, you can do this before you install anything to build up a profile you like.

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As I mentioned, though, proportion is important.

From what I've read, the consensus seems to be that the baseboards and crown moulding should be about the same size, headers a bit smaller and the casings about half the size of the baseboards.

So, for example,

base: 5 1/4 to 6"
casing: 3 1/2"
crown: 4 1/4"
headers: 4 1/2"

or

base: 4 1/4"
casing: 2 1/2"
crown: 4 1/2"
headers: 4"

Another guideline seems to be that once baseboards reach 5 inches, casings should not be smaller that 3 1/2". I also read that the profile, or thickness of the boards should not be less than 3/4". That makes stock moulding from big box stores pretty much out of the question (unless it's stacked, of course). The thickest I've found is 5/8ths

This is what it looks like when your casings are roughly the same size as (or larger than?) your crown and baseboards:

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The baseboards and casings are the same width here, too.

Contemporary Kids by San Francisco Architects & Building Designers Winder Gibson Architects

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So, as soon as you think there's a rule--somebody breaks it--and breaks it well. It's all interconnected--and it all has to do with your own eye.

I'm off to the Big Box store to see what I can come up with!

5 Steps to Get Organized for Fall: Your Way

The Fall is like a fresh start, isn't it? It's like the New Year for me--full of beginnings and promise. It is certainly a season of change.

There's lots of advice out there about making up snack stations for school kids, ideas for lunches, there's projects for making communication centers and all sorts of things--but our needs are all different, depending on where we are in life.

What will change for you? (Or has it already?) What do you need to do to get ready for that change? What do you need to do to make that change happen more easily?

1. Mind Dump

Take five minutes (set a timer if you're feeling particularly overwhelmed) and do a mind dump--or a mind map. This may be all you need to do.

But, if you feel like you may be forgetting a few things, check out a few sites, like the great practical September Checklist from Simplify 101. Here's Aby's Back to School Checklist. There's more: If you want to make sure you get your lawn and garden ready, there's a checklist from This Old House, a fall home maintenance checklist from Bob Vila, and if cleaning the house helps you prepare, there's the Fall Cleaning Checklist from Organized Home. If you really want to see checklists of every kind imaginable, just type "fall checklist" into pinterest!

Get everything swimming in your head down on paper (or typed into the screen--however you do it). You want it all out of your head and in front of you so you can see it all and assess it.

2. Prioritize

The next step is to prioritize. Once you've got all the tasks listed, ask yourself, given all that's to happen between now and Christmas (I know!) what's essential? What will make the most difference to our lives? What will have the most effect?

However, some things, like whether I hang a fall wreath on my front door won't change my life a whit--but it is fun. Don't forget to include a few of those.

I'm going to work through four examples from my list:

1) Call for Furnace Cleaning.
2) Buy a new winter coat.
3) Research frugal make-ahead meals.
4) Aerate the front lawn.

How much of a difference will these things make to my life?
1) Huge. Well, not making the call, of course, but having a clean furnace and ducts will make a world of difference to our comfort this winter--and our natural gas bills!
2) Again, huge.
3) Well, here, I'm not so sure. Having a few meals pre-prepared and ready to go on nights when I am tired would be great. But it is a lot of effort to put into the whole endeavour up front and I'm not sure I can't just continue the way I have: making two meals on one night when I know there's a heavy week coming up.
4) This will make no practical difference to my life at all. But a nice front lawn would be a pleasant thing to have.

3. Rank the Ease

Here's the thing. If something is dead easy and will make a big difference--it's going to take precedence over something that is difficult to do and won't make all that much difference to how your life goes, day to day. In fact, if something is on your list that's difficult to do and won't make much difference to your life--does it really need to stay on your list? Can you let it go?

How easy are they to do?
1) Call for Furnace Cleaning. Dead easy.
2) Buy a new winter coat. Relatively difficult and relatively urgent given how few warm plus sized coats exist.
3) Research frugal make-ahead meals. Somewhat difficult,
4) Aerate the front lawn. Very difficult. I'd have to rent an aerator and figure out how to use it--then do it!

Once I have these two measures: effect and ease, I can plot them on a graph. (I know, I'm such a geek. This handy tool comes from Jackie Hernandez and her book, Project Home.)

On the left vertical axis is the Effectiveness scale. If something will make no difference to my life at all, that is, if it won't have any effect on my life at all, it is a zero. Something that will contribute significantly to my life is a five.

On the horizontal axis, plot how easy the project will be. Lots of effort--that is, not at all easy is ranked at zero, easy-peasy is a five. Anything between 0-2.5 you probably could let go of, and anything 5 and above are "must do's" Anything falling in between 2.5 and 5 are "might do's"

So:
1) Call for Furnace cleaning: Effect: 5 + Ease: 5 =10. Must do.
2) Buy a new winter coat: Effect: 5 + Ease: 2 =7. Must do.
3) Research frugal make-ahead meals: Effect: 2.5 + Ease: 2 =4.5. Might Do.
4) Aerate the front lawn: Effect: 0 + Ease: 0 =0. Don't do.

4. Estimate Time

This may seem counter-intuitive, but the busier you are, the more important is this step. This way, when you have a free ten minutes, you can find something on your list--and get it done, just like that. If you have to look at your list and try and figure it out--well, your ten minutes will have been lost. So, do it and you'll be able to make the most of your time.

How long will they take?
1) Call for Furnace cleaning: 15 minutes at most. (I need to look up the number.)
2) Buy a new winter coat:1/2 hour if I am really lucky to 4-5 hours. Since I hate shopping for long periods, at least 2 maybe 3 trips to the mall.
3) Research frugal make-ahead meals: several hours.
4) Aerate the front lawn: most of the day.

5. Schedule your tasks.

Now, actually, there is one thing I can do before I schedule them--I can delegate! I just needed to slip that one in!

Do some tasks need to be done by a certain time? Keep that in mind.

Since I don't keep a day-timer or a planner of that kind, what I did was make a list.

1) Call for Furnace cleaning: I should call by the end of the first week in September so someone can come by the middle of October at the very latest!
2) Buy a new winter coat: As soon as possible.
3) Research frugal make-ahead meals: If I decide to do it, there's several ways to approach the research phase. I can spread it over several evenings, or I can just research one or two meals to do while I make up the menu plan each week, or I can blitz out and plan out a whole freezer meal prep day extravaganza.
4) Aerate the front lawn: Not going to happen. (But you knew that already.)

It looks like this in my Bullet Journal:

This might seem like a lot of planning and prioritizing--but the process brings tremendous clarity. That's vital in a season of change such as this.

Review:

1. Mind dump a big list. The bigger the better.
2. Rank each task according to the difference it will make to your life. Remember to include fun things.
3. Decide the effort it will take. Is it worth your time?
4. Estimate how much time it might take
5. Schedule a time to do it. Is it time sensitive?

I may not do this process all the time: but it was quite helpful for me this time.

Minimalism and Me: Decluttering

Before:

At noon today:

at 4pm today:

Oh my goodness, you guys. The instant that second shelf came out I felt like 20 pounds had just rolled off my shoulders. So odd. So freeing. Both of the kids do not like it.

This month, I signed up for the course "A Simple Year" because I wanted to explore minimalism and see whether it's for me. Decluttering was the first module and that makes sense because is the first step towards the simple life. I have been decluttering for years and expect to continue for many more.

I have always decluttered because 1) We don't use the stuff, 2) We don't need the stuff, 3) we don't have room for the stuff we don't use or need. Those are excellent reasons to declutter. But there is more.

There is choice.

As I cleaned the house and decluttered things during the January Cure, I realised that I am a minimalist only because my house imposes it on me. I have two coats--not because I only want two coats or because I can only afford two coats--but because my closet is so small--two coats is all that will fit --given the other three people in my house and their coats!

I have the kitchen gadgets I have--because that's all I have room for.

That's not really choosing. That's accommodating.

So, I thought, if I am going to choose minimalism, or the simple life, or whatever, then I need to make a space where I don't have it. I need to choose space--over display, over storage, over "usefulness."

Books from the shelves above were re-located to my library landing--and using the Kon-Marie method,  I weeded out these books to make room for them.

I'm on my way.

The Purpose of Home.

Mom and my daughter having a chat while we were redoing the living room during the ORC.

I am not a minimalist.

I wanted to be one. But then, I always want to do what the counter cultural popular kids are doing.

My motivation wasn't to save the planet or anything (and indeed, how are you saving the planet by decluttering, exactly?) No, my thinking was: surely, if I have fewer things, I'll be able to keep my home clean and tidy all the time?

But it doesn't work like that. There is a relationship between the amount of stuff you have and your ability to keep a clean and tidy home: but there is an even bigger relationship between your habits and routines and a clean and tidy home. I keep forgetting that.

Over at Apartment Therapy, the editors resurrected the introduction to the ten part series Maxwell Ryan wrote on what AT is all about. His first installment is all about Terence Conran and his message about home. That message goes something like this:

A good looking, well functioning, enjoyable home supports a good life. Or, more pithily, a good home is the foundation of the good life.

Isn't that wonderful?

A bit of pretty.

Sometimes, it is all too easy to lose one's way, to think that the prettiness is the point. I do love decorating, I truly do. This year has been so much fun--even through the stress of a six week challenge and the disruption of painting the kitchen (and the bedroom)--but, in the end, it is all about creating a good looking space that functions well and which we can enjoy. (As an aside, they say that yellow promotes arguments...I am wondering if family meals will be more peaceful now the kitchen is grey.)

This blog, then is a record of how I get my home to the place where we can enjoy a good life. I love that. It's not about the house.

All this tired, hardworking man needs is that blanket.

I mean, I know that. But I'd forgotten, I think. My struggle with establishing good home habits and routines, my preoccupation with clutter, my passion for prettiness--they held a meeting sometime this year and wrested purpose away from the life they were meant to support and onto themselves.

And that's Ok.

For a little while.

However, reading through the series today, I came across this statement:

What you see in a home is where a person is truly at.

(sigh)

and this:

In a very real way, the experience of building a home becomes identical with finding one’s path in life.

Rita and Cane, of the now (sadly defunct) site, This (sorta) Old Life, said, "How we do "house" is how we do life." (Though I am sure their rendering of the idea was much more grammatically correct.)

And though I agree with this, it also makes me sad. Really? Am I doomed to be disorganized? Cluttered? A messy house = a messy mind? It makes the state of the house about me and my mental state. (And to be honest, that's a wee bit narcissistic, isn't it?)

But, of course, I am not the only person who lives here, it is not all about me--but about the state of the dysfunction in our family--and that's hardly better!

My daughter making cookies back in March when the cabinets were yellow. Does she really need the cabinets to be green to make cookies?

But, I don't want to end this post on a down note. It seems clear that what I need to do is establish habits--a routine--that works for me and my crazy life. The next ORC isn't until April (and I'm thinking hard about tackling the back hallway and stairwell). So, I have time to make the little things, the small daily repetitive things my focus. And, to extend the logic, if a messy house=a messy family, I'll need to focus some of my efforts there.

Space

I am not a minimalist.

(I came to that conclusion, sadly, after this discussion at Lisa's blog, Trapped in North Jersey.)

But, oh, my gawd. We took down the cookbook shelf and the microwave shelf and in spite of the awful, awful walls, I love it. The emptiness. The openness.

What an incredible difference it makes to my perception of the space. Especially as I enter--since the microwave isn't there to take up all that visual (and physical) space.

yesterday

 today.

In my ideal kitchen, this stove wouldn't be here at all. Here we would have a custom fit pantry (and separate broom closet) that would match the depth of that chimney flue on the right. It would stop somewhere maybe a foot? short of the doorway.

yesterday (I didn't take a proper shot of the doorway but this does show the cookbook shelf with my utensils hanging off a double row of towel bars. The towel bars will not be put back up.) 

today.

Not a lot of painting done. Mostly repairs. Like this:

We used up so much spackle, we actually had to go out in the snow storm to get more.

I am just craving space.

ETA: After writing the above, I putzed around with the shelves in the dining room.

Before:

After:

And yes! I got my cookbooks on them.

Reflections on the ORC

You can catch up on all the posts here, starting with the reveal.

Back when I was, oh, 17 or so, I wanted to become an Interior Designer.

At that time, there was one program (maybe two) in the country--the closest one was two whole provinces away from me. The program would take five years. Five years! An eternity to a 17 year old. And the brochure made the fatal mistake of suggesting that my work, at the end of it, would be more about office design than residential.

Much to my lasting regret, I never pursued it. I had no idea just how stretchy a fabric life really is. I didn't know about forks and paths and how opportunities can come up--but only if you start.

My bedroom. It lanquished for a few years until I just made the decision to just start, already!

I was thirty when I thought of it again. There was a much less ambitious program from the faculty of extension here at home. But there came a point in the program when I was told the truth. It was highly unlikely I'd ever actually be an interior designer. In fact, because of provincial regulations and the building code, all I could be was an interior decorator. No, actually, it was even worse than that: all I'd likely be fit for at the end of it was working in retail. You know, at a kitchen design place, or a flooring place, Ethan Allen, whatever--and without becoming an interior designer, I wouldn't be able to move walls.

We moved a wall to make this.

And I didn't how how to sell. Hated the very thought of it.

So, that's not what I wanted, either. (And I'd just had my first child, so the timing was really bad to continue anyway.) That was, oh, about seventeen years ago.

When I said doing the One Room Challenge (hosted and trademarked by Linda, of Calling It Home), was an experience of a lifetime, this is what I meant:

For me, it is like I have been plunged into an apprenticeship in head on real-life full service design.


1) There are a million choices for every single detail.  A million decisions to be made. It is utterly overwhelming. Unfortunately, I am the sort of decision maker who likes to consider all her options before deciding. For example, the RAST nightstands. I googled RAST. I looked up RAST on Pinterest. I found all kinds of them. I decided, finally, on what we'd do. But then, then came the hardware. Lots of things to look at. Lots of things to think about. What choice to make? How?

2) Every decision I made was built on the one before it. What if I made the wrong decision? Not only would that particular decision be wrong--but all the ones which came after it. Good grief. At times it felt like I was just flinging bits and pieces together with no rhyme or reason to them and hoping it all worked out.

3) The client, especially when it's your own Mom, is a challenge, too. They say renovations are a test of a marriage: I don't know why I thought mothers and daughters would be immune! Fortunately, we have an excellent relationship and can figure out our boundaries as we go along. For example, we made a rule early on that we could call each other only five times a day, each.

As well, Mom has an amazingly creative brain. So, after I thought I'd considered all the options and made a decision, she'd almost inevitably say, "You know, we could....." and "What about this?" Eventually I had to tell her--when I've made a decision (finally) I've made a decision! It's not that I didn't want her input, not at all, but we had to approach it delicately. My poor brain had been about to explode.

4) When your handyman is your hubby, there's a certain amount of finesse that has to happen there, too. I was shocked by how much he took on and did for us, though. That part was wonderful.

5) Before this, every single time I have approached decorating, it has been with things already in place. It has NEVER been from scratch, considering all the elements all at once. Terrifying. Now that it's done, exhilarating.

I had a vision, I brought it to life.

Mom's bedroom on the left, the inspiration, from Amber Interiors, on the right.

I want more.

Just as soon as I recover.

Willpower and Tidiness

My grandmother was right.

 I really do need to make my bed everyday. But that I need to make it so I can lose weight (or do any other task requiring willpower) is a bit of an eye-opener!

Another simple old-fashioned way to boost your willpower is to expend a little on neatness. As we described in Chapter 7, people exert less self-control after seeing a messy desk than after seeing a clean desk, or when using a sloppy rather than a neat and well-organized Web site. You may not care about whether your bed is made and your desk is clean, but these environmental cues subtly influence your brain and your behaviour, making it ultimately less of a strain to maintain self-discipline. Order seems to be contagious. p. 252, Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney (2011: Penguin)

In Chapter 7, Tierney and Baumeister write, "When offered snacks and drinks, people in the neat lab room chose apples and milk instead of the candy and sugary colas preferred by their peers in the pigsty." (p. 156)

As well, it turns out that once you expend some will power putting good habits into place (and vanquishing bad ones) not only does life go a little more smoothly (avoiding those crises which require self-control to get through well) but it conserves your will power so that when the inevitable storms do hit you, you can weather them better.

This makes intuitive sense when you consider the tenure track professor, as they do. Those who wrote when they had bursts of inspiration tended not to get tenure as much as those who plodded along, writing or researching a bit every day. In fact the correlation between self-control, habits and desired oucomes was strongest for working and study habits--and weakest for dieting and exercise.

However, the idea of establishing certain habits to make the effort easier-- the more automatic something is, the less will power it takes to do it-- is worth exploring.

Some habits to develop (and some to continue):

1. Make the bed every day. (Just 'cause.)
2. Do the dishes before going to bed. (So the counters is clean and making breakfast is easier)
3. Put on my work out clothes every morning. (So I don't have to think about going back upstairs)
4. Tidy the living room before bed. (So there's room to move.)
5. Menu plan. (I could even expand this to include all my meals for the day, not just supper.)
6. Write it down. (I am actually keeping a "five minute" journal this month where I just take five minutes to write down how my day went with respect to sticking with the Whole30. Again, another idea from Willpower. Tracking --of any and all kinds-- is good.)


What habits would you put into place to make it easier to achieve your goals?

New Direction

I don't have that much to say about keeping house any more.

(Illustration notwithstanding, I'm not going to say much about beer, either! Though, I do love me a strong beer. Have you done a google image search for "strong women"? Crazy stuff.)

The struggle isn't over: it is still a challenge to keep the house picked up and clean, but the nature of the challenge has changed. It's not so much about overcoming my internal resistance, but more about overcoming or managing the external obstacles: time, and the habits of the people I live with. I may continue to write about that from time to time, but I really don't think there's enough to write about twice a week.

The same goes for organizing. Thanks to "The FUNdamentals of Getting Organized." at Simplify 101 I am about as organized as I need to be. Except for paperwork, I have extremely effective systems in place. My budget binder keeps our finances on track, my menu planning keeps me sane. Except for the tchotchkes on a table in the basement, everything has a home: it's just a matter of getting things into them. Organizing projects, thus, are not the priority they once were. I have made up an organizing schedule where I plan to tackle one area of the house each month. I'll keep you posted on that.

As for decorating, I am itching to paint more than a few rooms. I would love to change up more than a few things. But, as we still have debt, I am doing my best to keep changes to a minimum. As well, I just don't have the time I used to have.

No, my focus is shifting away from caring for my home and towards caring for my body. I lost 40 pounds from October 2012 to May of 2013. Since May, though, I have put it all back on. I miss being forty pounds slimmer. Life was considerably easier without aching knees and the awkwardness of trying to bend over sausage shaped. I have plans in place to help me change things-- and I'd like to share those plans and this journey with you here. I think of those of you who read and comment as friends-- so I am taking a leap and hoping you will continue to be interested in what I have to say even when it isn't about the house, but about my body instead.

So, here's to a new year--and a new direction for my life and the blog.

I'm curious, are any of you embarking on any big changes this year?

Day 4: Perfectionism. A Dirty Word?

Hi. My name is Alana and I am a perfectionist.

In truth, I am a recovering perfectionist. I started my recovery about a dozen years ago or so--the first time I found Flylady. She was the first to make the connection between my tendency to want and expect perfection--and the reality of the chaos around me. Back then, under the influence of full-blown perfectionism, my house was a complete catastrophe and I was utterly miserable.

I based my expectations for housekeeping on my hardworking grandmother. I lived with her for many summers and once for half a year. She kept a garden, she washed her dishes by hand several times a day, she did laundry every day, she vacuumed every day (sometimes more than once, especially if I'd made a mess). She also had about three part time jobs-- one as church secretary, one with a government office, and one as an assistant to my grandfather at his part-time job as a process server for county court. (He also worked full time). You get the picture. She never sat down-- and her house was always company ready. (And she had company--couples came over to play cards every Friday night.)

But what I missed was that when I stayed with my grandmother, she had only one child still at home--and she was ten years older than me. I never saw her run her house with small children and all their toys underfoot. She didn't drive. She never ferried her children all over the city to various activities. When I lived with her, I rode my bike to the town swimming pool every day in the summer. I had a paper route and choir practice--and I was expected to walk, no matter what the weather.

In short, our lives were totally different: yet I expected myself to be just like her. It has taken me a long time to figure all this out. In the beginning, all I knew was a tremendous pressure to be different, to be better.

Grandma didn't have an Expedit, either.

 

Symptoms of Perfectionism:

1. All or nothing thinking.

I have long suffered from this. In psychology they call it "catastrophizing." You know, that one thing goes missing and you say to yourself, "I'll never find it. I'm always losing things."  Either something is perfect--or it is terrible. Either I am a good housekeeper--or a failure. Projects aren't worth starting unless you can start and finish them all in one go. That's impossible with long complicated projects, like switching out the summer for the winter clothes, painting a room, or cleaning the fridge--so they don't get done. If I can't see my clear to the end of a complicated project--if I don't know some of the steps to take--I tend to put it off. I still do this.

2. Procrastination.

Not all procrastination is caused by perfectionism, but some of it is. Most telling, I always tend to leave that last 10% of a project incomplete. Once it is done, you see, it can be critiqued and judged--and I already know it is not perfect.

3. Difficulty with delegating.

A perfectionist finds it difficult to delegate--though I am working on that one! I have young teenagers and they need to learn to do things for themselves, so I am doing my best to let them do things (and bite my tongue). Nothing is quite done to my satisfaction--but I have decided to learn to live with it.

4. Fear of making a mistake.

Fortunately, my grandmother always laughed at herself when she made a mistake. Making mistakes was just a part of life, so I was fortunate to escape this symptom. It can paralyse you when you're decluttering and making decisions about what to get rid of. The remedy for this is to ask yourself: "what's the worst that could happen if I got rid of this?" and listen to the answer.


Perfectionism isn't all bad. It has its place. My ability to pay attention to detail means that I can plan an entire series like this, catch patches on a wall that need further sanding before we paint, and help my Mom organize her entire house, room by room.

Over the next few days, I am going to talk about how I have managed to deal with perfectionism when it gets in the way of being organized.

Are you a perfectionist?

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.    

Day 3: Integrity: Honouring Your Comfort Zone

Integrity: Being true to yourself. To honour your own needs.


Do you know your tipping point? You know, that point where the mess goes from "OK, I can deal with that later," to "omigodwhathappenedherewhatamesswheredoIbegin?"

Aby Garvey calls this knowing your comfort zone. It is a continuum and it can be different for different areas of the house. It can be different for different seasons of our lives. (Bionicles and Polly Pockets used to throw parties with Lego in my living room. Used to. No more! (I was sitting here thinking how great that was when I glanced over into the living room and saw jackets, shoes, backpacks, and various bits of electronics.....)

The continuum ranges from "very cluttered" to "magazine ready." Let me illustrate, using my own kitchen table.

Very cluttered:

This is so bad, there's no possibility of eating together as a family tonight. It would take far too much time to clear off. This was my table on Sunday. It made me sad.

Slightly Cluttered:

This was taken sometime this summer. This would probably take about 15 minutes or so to clear off. We ate outside a lot this summer, though, so I got into a bad habit of letting things pile up here.

Real Life:

This is how the table looks this morning. (Those are chips in the laminate--not blobs of chocolate!) These things are here because we're sanding and painting our back entry way which is just to the left of this photo. Hubs and I ate together here last night. The kids ate in their rooms. (sad face.)

Company Ready:

This is a photo from the Home Tour in June.
There's one more spot on the continuum: Magazine Ready.

There's no photo of the table "magazine ready" because unless a magazine actually comes to my home to shoot it, it won't ever be "magazine ready." And that's totally fine with me. I don't need that kind of pressure on me. (No one does.)

My personal comfort zone? As far as the kitchen table goes, somewhere between "real life" and "company ready" is where I like it to be.

There is another area of my kitchen, though, where my standards are higher. Unfortunately, it is also more difficult to keep clean and tidy.

My counter. Specifically, the area beside my kitchen sink. (We don't have a dishwasher.) When this area is out of sorts, it can cause me to feel paralysed. Quite quickly, I can fall into the pit of thinking "there's no use cleaning up."  (When my kids were littles and my whole house looked something like this, everywhere, all at once, it was difficult to believe it would ever change. The paralysis and hopelessness were intense at times. I have, fortunately, learned to cope with those feelings and I'll talk about that later in this series.) But when this area looks like this: I can still get anxious.

When it is "company ready" all is right with the world and I feel intense satisfaction. I smile. I'm cheerful. (But don't ask me to make you a sandwich.)

Mary Starns Clark, in her book, The House that Cleans Itself, calls an area like this: one that causes an intense emotional reaction, your Home Based Zone. It could be anything. The area under your bed, perhaps. A bathroom. Papers.

It helps to know what it is: that way you can prioritize your time and effort. Looking after it honours yourself and your standards. Looking after it is a way of looking after yourself. And that's important. More important than a "magazine ready" house.

What's your "home based zone?"
Do you know your clutter comfort zone for each area of your house?

PS: This series is roughly based on what I learned in a course called "The Secrets of Staying Organized" by Aby Garvey at Simplify 101. It is being offered again in November and it is currently on sale. I am not being compensated by Simplify 101 for this series--in fact, I doubt they even know I'm doing it. But I just wanted you to know in case you're interested.

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.