Procrastination: A Light Bulb Moment

I don't know if you've been watching my side bar with the "To Do" list. I update it every evening--and for the last few days one item has been edited, but not completed, every night. I am, of course, referring to the light bulb.

The fixture takes three. So, having one out does not exactly leave us in darkness. But it also means that I change the stupid bulbs fairly often. And each time I do, (and of course it's rare that more than one goes at one time) I have to haul out the small ladder, unscrew the nipple, inspect it for dead things, wash it if necessary, change the bulb (assuming we have some on hand) and then put the whole thing back up.

Just normal life.

So why procrastinate?

Well, I quess it's because when I've put it off for five days, when I've reminded myself that something needs to be done for five days, when the nagging voice in my head finally stops after five days, I feel like I've actually accomplished something!

Boom tada boom.

If I just looked after it when I saw it needed to be done, well then, well, then I'd just be changing the light bulb.

And where's the drama in that?

Day 1.5 Boom Dada Boom

image from www.simplegardens.com/

1. Four Dirty Buckets.

a) Washed Dining Room floor. Didn't move any of the furniture hugging the walls, but there was enough to clean!

b) Washed the upstairs bathroom floor (It's a tiny space with just room for a pedestal sink and toilet), and the walls, the baseboards and the outside of the toilet. (yuck). The floor here too needs replacing.

c) The Living room floor is swept and washed. This took two buckets. Some of you will remember I applied a light coat of varnish to the entire floor last Fall cure. I needn't have bothered. The worn spots are worn again--in fact they look worse than ever. Disheartening. But from standing height--the floor looks fantastic. That's something.

Day 1.4 Boom Dada Boom

(This photo was taken earlier in the summer after a particularily hot day. Yes, I'm dweeb enough to take pictures of my dishes!)

1. The dishes

I have now done ALL the dishes two nights running. That may not seem like a "cure" thing...but when I did the quiz, (below) I realised that I can "fix" a lot of what ails this place with regular housekeeping routines. This is the first one I've decided to tackle and so far, so good. I put them away in the morning while the coffee drips through.

2. A functional laundry room.

I finished varnishing the shelf and (new) table top in the laundry room today and set the laundry room back up. Then, I did three, four, five loads of laundry all the way from washing, to drying, to (gasp) folding them and putting them away! Yay, clean socks and underwear again!

This was actually a project the husband started when we got our new upright freezer. He took down the rope that served as my drying line (the clothes hung right down in the path to the freezer) and we re-strung it. Well, now the clothes on it hung down right over my sorting bins. We figured out that with a little carpentry we could slide those bins under the table beside the washing machine.....(and now, with the books out of boxes and on the newly built shelves on the stairway landing, I had room to remove all the bedding underneath that table) and so the laundry room got a quick overhaul in about a week.

What's wonderful about it, really, is that I'm able to use a screw on, swing arm lamp (usually used for desks) to give me some much needed lighting. I might be able to save some clothes from being permanently stained now. And, I have a home for my huge sweater drying rack. (When in use, it perched on top of the chest freezer.)

3. The old freezer has been hauled away (and the back door re-installed).

Day 1.3(b) In Which I Think More About the Dining Room

Let's take this wall by wall, shall we?


This is the wall on which I have my computer. Unfortunately, the photo is the "before" from last year's cure. But it is the best I have to show you what it looks like full on.

I'd like it to look more like this:

Isn't that purty? With its combination of open and closed storage, strong horizontal lines but with the vertical lines between the bottom and the top all lined up. The lighting. The curves of the Ant chairs breaking up the boxiness of the unit.

I like this too--in particular the dark top and the light sides. I love the symmetry. In an effort to try and recreate this, I stained my computer table.

The "old" colour is on the pull out shelf, the "new" one on top. Not to worry, they match!

Moving clockwise (The West Wall):



This wall has grown. And grown! Someday I'd like to do a photoessay of how it grew. But not today. We have purchased a white Expedit for all this schtuff. I'm hoping it will look less cluttered and more unified. Something like this:

(image from O At Home, September '07)

or this:

(Be still my beating heart.)

Moving on: the Window Wall. It faces North. There's never, ever any direct light. What indirect light I do have is filtered by the shaggy evergreen tree outside. It does keep the room warm, though.

This is, again, an old photo. The red curtains are gone. The shelving is as above.

Aaah. The East wall, with the China cabinet, the dratted pine door and the old painted IKEA bookcase.

Do you think my China Cabinet and table could look like this? (image from MSL Sept. '07)

Of course, I don't get nearly the light this room does. Nor is my china cabinet so tall and stately. And there's no room for the Windsor chairs, nor the urn-on-a-pedestal thingy. But I like the yellow and green combo. Actually, THIS is the colour scheme I want for this room. I cried when I found this on the Tricia Guild Web-site.
And so, where are we? Back at the kitchen door, with the shelving on the wall.
I love this image from AT:SF--and I'm thinking I could do a blue accent wall just like this with the shelves--but, in that long horizontal configuration above. We'll see. And you will too. Because I will paint this room. I have too, in order to get the Expedit up.

Here are my thoughts:

Paint the book case and chairs yellow. Put up yellow curtains. Paint out the red with a neutral: but put either blue or green on the wall with the computer. Paint the pine shelves white.

Other essential info:
The room is 11 feet long, 10 feet wide.
The window is not centered.
The floors are golden oak.
You will be able to see the west wall with the Expedit in the living room mirror over the mantle.
Painting the pine door is Not Allowed.

What do you think I should do?

Stain the pine dining table dark or paint it white?
Paint/Stain the dining chairs to match or contrast?
Should I have blue, green and shots of yellow or just two of the three (which two?).
The drawer units beside the computer desk...what to do with those? Keep them white (and re-cover the box-drawers with white paper)or paint them dark to match the computer desk?

Day 1.3 Room Function Analysis.

Being clear and honest with yourself about how you use your home will result in it having a strong sense of focus and purpose. (p.36)

I came across an old binder last night labelled "Room Function Analysis." I gathered from the comments I'd made, that I'd created it about five years ago. It was tabbed, the labels listing off each room in the house. It was interesting to note that most of the things I felt I needed I have managed to implement, like the bookcases on either side of the faux living room fireplace (purchased to fit exactly and look like built-ins), the china cabinet in the dining room (my china and schtuff used to be in boxes in the basement). It seems that thinking things through and making a plan works, even when you put it on a shelf and forget about it.

It all came from Julie Morgenstern's book: Organizing From The Inside Out. It's a marvelous book. Not only is it a terrific resource for organizing your home, but for de-cluttering as well. As Maxwell notes,

Not being clear about the purpose for each area of your home will result in clutter and disappointment. (p. 36)

Of course, activities and needs change. And too many activities can be crammed into one room. That's what has happened to my dining room.

It's the home office with the computer, filing cabinet, pens, paper, stamps, chequebook, etc....It's my scrap room, with paper, scraps, embellishments, albums, scrapping tools, and everything else I think I need. It's my sewing room, with scissors, thread, bobbins, everything except the fabric. It's my workspace, too, so there's reference books and homeschooling planners and books. And, if that's not enough, it's also the place where we store our curriculuum. I do projects here. As I type, there's a dissassembled drop-leaf table being sanded and stained on the table right behind me. To top it off, my husband and I also use the room to watch DVD's. Essentially? This room is where I live.

It's so crowded, we don't have those special meals in the dining room anymore. I schlep the fancy tableware from the dining room to the kitchen at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. For the last few years, I haven't even bothered.

Part of the problem, is, of course, the unfinished, ill-lit basement. I don't mind the unfinished part. It's the fact that there's no light. And, as the whole house is on--are you ready for it?--four breakers--we need to re-wire the house.

On a more positive note: the freezer leaves tonight. Once that's gone, I can take a stab at organizing and setting up a little sewing area down there. I'll figure something out for the light. I just hope I haven't decluttered all the power bars.

(image from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/whtour/photoessay/images/400-state-dining-room.jpg)

Day 1.2 In Which Little is Done

I detest the kitchen floor. I hate the kitchen floor. I don't want to wash it. I want to rip it up with my bare hands and a crow bar, which if I knew what to do, I would do. But we have to move the stove. To where? The Fridge. Good grief, where? And the tables and chairs. And the....yada, yada, yada. I wish we could afford to have a professional do it. Especially to get the molding back onto the baseboards. Lots of stupid short bits. Especially as there is at least two layers of floor. We can barely afford the floor tiles.

Needless to say, I didn't wash the floor today.

(image from http://www.gascoals.net/Portals/1/Fireplace%20clipart/wife%20cleaning.jpg)

Day 1.1 The Only Time I Think 1200 sq feet Is A LOT of Feet....

(image from tuscaloosahousing.org)

is when I have to wash the floors.....

In the Deep Treatment this week:

1) Note repairs (and solutions).
2) Vacuum and mop floors.
3) Remove one item.
4) Buy fresh flowers.
5) Sit for 10 minutes in a spot you never do.
6) Look into Earth friendly cleaning products.

My plan:

1) Prioritize repairs.
2) Floors, as follows:

• Mon--Stairwell. (Well, we know what that's led to!)
• Tues--Kitchen
• Wed--Living Room
• Thurs--Dining Room
• Fri--Bathrooms
• Sat--Bedrooms.

3) The defunct freezer is leaving Wednesday! The handy husband has chopped up a box-spring that's been sitting outside for about two years and will slowly feed it to a neighbourhood dumpster.
4) Fresh flowers--on grocery day (Sat).
5) Sit 10 minutes
6) I'm OK with what I have and use.
This may be a bit of a challenge as I have got a nasty cold.