It seems like yesterday...

...that I was writing the three-month anniversary entry, and now here it is past six months since I started this blog! 

My sister suggested that I lay out some steps for my tidying procedures, which I think is a great idea, but they're very loose as you have witnessed.  However, I think the best advice I could give is just to start with one tiny area and work out from there.  Just do a little each day.  My methodology has not solidified much.  At the start I had to make sure my area in the basement was safe, and the same goes for the upstairs rooms.  It gets like a war zone.  Don't forget stuff that falls on the floor.  I have brown carpets and I've found a myriad of tiny sharp objects: hairpins, screws, earrings, thumbtacks.  It helps to have a bright flashlight to shine in the corners and under furniture before you vacuum or step. 

As for the basement work that I've resumed, it's getting along slowly.  In fact, I'm not sure if the change is even noticeable.  Here's an update photo of the room:

 And, to alleviate the seeming moribundity of that area, I give you the jollier upstairs office, one corner of it anyway:

New Is Old

I've been keeping scrapbooks since about 1997, with ideas that I clip from magazines and newspapers.  There are hundreds of pages with images of interior design stuff, as well as clothes and hair and such.  Here's a picture I took of some of the pages:

Scrapbooks are a really good idea, or even just folders of clippings if you are working on some kind of home renovation project.  Even if I really just like a color combination in a photo I'll cut it out.  The books I keep them in are the large blank sketch books with the black pebbly covers, but you can use anything.  These particular ones are pretty heavy now and don't fit upright on most shelves, but they hold the larger images very nicely.  As you can see my aesthetics are all over the place.  Maybe someday I'll put in some photos of my living room or office to give you an idea of what I surround myself with.

The "secret" project I mentioned in this post is done, at least my part of it.  I did a design for a friend's bathroom, which hasn't been renovated yet, but I wanted to use the drawings for my portfolio.  Also, the end design is going to be different.  So, what you are seeing here is my portfolio page layout.  I think I need to look at it tomorrow when I've had some sleep and see what I think.  I deliberately took out the name of the person whose house it's in, but maybe you can guess?!

I will freely admit that my InDesign skills need polishing, and that I realized as I was wrapping up for the evening some things that would improve a few details.  But overall I'm pretty happy with it.  The drawings were done in AutoCAD, a drafting program, then rendered in Photoshop.  A village of software programs made this 11x17 page.

Most of the work I've been doing in my own house has started in my imagination and then led to massive amounts of furniture being moved.  I did a little sketching for the office but I really just visualized things as I went along.

Last post before...

...I take apart my computer system and move it out of the room.  It's showtime!  I am cleaning the walls tonight and painting tomorrow.  I may have a super busy work schedule happening this week so I want to get my new bedroom ready to move in.

I spent some time today moving a rack filled with comics shortboxes to one side of the room, then out of the room altogether into the living room.  It's a fucking disaster zone once again out there.  The living room is the new defacto storage space, now that I'm repurposing the other rooms upstairs.

Just to be clear, I have a (large, unfinished) basement and then there's one floor that I live on, no second floor.  I have a two bedroom apartment, and one of those rooms has always been an office.  I might make it sound sometimes like this is bigger house.  It's why it gets so messy, I have to play Tetris with all of this junk.  My bedroom is full too.  It's hard to believe that it's much less stuff than it was a year ago, or that I've bought very little to add to the decor.  The only new piece of furniture that I purchased (that I still have around) is my bed.  I was gifted a lot of furniture from my mother-in-law a year ago but I found places around the house for all of it.  Mostly by getting rid of stuff I already had.

This evening I got the paint I'm using, it's a warm white with just a hint of orange.  You have to use a warm color to offset these Northwest winter grays and cold sunshine days.  Also, my new bedroom window faces the north so I don't think I'll be having a lot of direct sunlight in here.  I can't wait to see it all come together!

Arrrgh...Aaahhh!!

What is this shit?  It's what I've been trying to figure out today.  I think I got done with it but I may never be sure.  These are all the cables and crap that I've been gathering to sort.  I made another big box to take to Free Geek.  I guess whenever you get a new electronic device it comes with all kinds of stuff.  I've never needed most of it for the last year so chances are I could just ditch it all and be fine.  I think I just echoed something I said in an earlier post, but I just don't care anymore.  Yes, that is Donald Glover of Community on my laptop screen there on the left.  I had to have something to take away the pain as I forked through this mess.

Now, take a look at one of my little triumphs...

I know it doesn't look like much, but it's my home filing system for all of my personal paperwork.  Well, this is one drawer, but it's pretty much the same for the other one.  And the one pictured is the drawer I use all the time.

I used to use multicolored files to make it look interesting and try to group certain categories, but after a while it only looked more jumbled.  I switched to all one color with matching tabs.  I used to work in office supplies so I already had them for years, I didn't have to make a purchase.  Here are my helpful tips for a streamlined file experience:

1. Keep a folder for "Unpaid Bills" in the front of the drawer, as you can see I have above.  I used to have a "Mail" folder for all incoming stuff to sort, but bills just got lost in there. 
2. I like to have paper utility bills, but I don't have individual folders for them anymore.  I put them all in one.  I almost never have to look them up so it doesn't make sense to be too pedantic about sorting them.
3. I've been shredding bills and most other things that are more than a year old.  You can find most statements online now so why bother holding onto them?
4. I love shredding!!  I now have the big shredder that used to be in Sparkplug's old office.  It gets rid of tension.  It's like a game of bowling but you can do it while watching TV!  Just put on subtitles if you can.

December 16 will mark THREE MONTHS that I have been piloting this blog!  I will make sure to celebrate with some primo photos.  

Just because

I don't have a lot to say today.  I just wanted to drop in, mainly.  I've been feeling great these last couple days.  I think it has something to do with the beautiful fall weather we've been having.

I did a little sorting out of the laundry room, where I've been keeping a lot of movies.  How do you reattach a label from a dvd box when it's fallen off?  I seem to have a lot of those to fix.  I made a box of stuff to take to Free Geek.  I feel like I'm making custom gift baskets for celebrity award show swag every time I go downstairs.

I decided that it's in my best interests to give things away to charity than to make huge efforts to sell them, unless they seem like a sure thing.  My time is too valuable to plan the future life of every object I have.  I decided a long time ago that unless it's beautiful, or of real sentimental value, or very useful, then it doesn't need to take up space in my home.  Function over form and all that.  I can't hold onto everything waiting for the perfect time to have a garage sale.  My sanity is most important right now, not making five bucks in my driveway or putting every little tchotchke on eBay.

Did I mention that I'm making my bed every morning now?  For most of my life I rarely bothered, but I do it now right after I get up.  It's a nice habit that came out of my new quest for neatness.  I read a book about changing habits recently: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg.  It says that changes to one habit lead to other positive changes, and this is an example.  I'm also trying to keep my kitchen cleaner and my refrigerator stocked.  I also make a hot breakfast every morning.  By that I mean oatmeal and fruit.  Maybe the breakfast thing came before the bed making though.

What's behind the mask

Things have come a long way and I'm willing to give myself credit, but there's always another mountain to climb.  Here is a picture of that mountain.  The photos I had taken a few days ago concealed what's going on on the far wall of the room: all these books and magazines.  I think I'm going to get radical with this area.  I'm not going to reveal what I mean yet, but I promise I won't set any fires.

Someday, it would be nice to have a roommate.  I'm not ready for one, but even if I was he or she couldn't move in.  There's too much upstairs that might have to come down here, and there's not enough room still.

While cleaning tonight though, I cleaned up an item I found on the street a long time ago that should help me sort a few treasures:

It was filthy, but now it's on a shelf holding art supplies.  I came up with a new tip: If you can fit a container on a shelf that will hold things that you normally put in a unit that sits on the floor, go with the shelf thingy.  Freeing floor space will free your mind.  Every time I get something off the floor for good I feel ten times better.

I'm having another brainwave about having a garage sale or combining efforts with my mom in a couple weeks and bringing things up to Olympia to sell in her sale.  She has a better garage.  But, I would pay in time and gas traveling up to Oly, and I'd have to hold onto the things for longer.  Those Freakonomics guys should do a study on all the reasoning I am putting into where and when I disperse my possessions.

Getting to be a little much

I'm doing a few clean-y sort-y things tonight so that I can get them out of the way before I spend the day doing fun comic-y things tomorrow.  I repaired a pine storage shelf, the kind you can take apart that usually comes in a kit, which I had repeatedly rammed with my car in the garage until the slats started to splinter.  It was uncharacteristically lazy of me to leave it in the garage in the first place, and even worse when I realized that it was kind of in the way of the car.  I was waiting until there was more room elsewhere to move it, now I spent a bunch of time gluing and weighting down and such.  This is was a good lesson to learn.  Now it's almost as good as new. 

I've been going through those little white storage boxes on the shelves and figuring out which contents to keep.  As I said in a much earlier post, this is a process.  I want to keep a lot of my craft supplies, but I don't need quite so many of the same thing, say, a whole handful of chopsticks.  I'm glad that different people staff the donation stations at SCRAP because I think they must wonder where I'm coming from with all of these random office and art supplies.  I unearth something new every day.

Now I've decided to streamline the shelves in the basement, so I'm sticking to the white plastic boxes.  I'm addicted to containers, but too many sizes and colors add to the messy look.

I'm questioning even more my attachment to things as I handle them.

Here's a little tip: the shoebox size containers I have are great for photo storage!  I can't believe I havdn't thought of it before.  For years I had an orange and green box from Target that was made to hold pics, but I decided to retire it.  Orange and green?  What was I thinking?  I'm proud to be Irish American but the colors of the Irish Republican flag offend my eyes when it comes to decorating.

Heavy Matter Pt. 2

A couple friends came over tonight and helped me move more books - I think I am ready to take this donation process to the next level!  There are about twice as many book stacks now in my living room.

I will be contacting my accountant tomorrow to ask about tax deductions and itemizing the things that are going.  After running a sole proprietorship this whole year, I want to get the maximum deduction possible!  I had to pay a massive amount of tax this year and I don't want to experience that again.  As I'm donating a few hundred books, I want to do the least amount of work possible to get the deduction form complete.

As for the basement, that is coming along very well.  If the great weather holds up into next week I'd like to have a small garage sale.  That might be a good way to say goodbye to a few pieces of furniture that are clogging up the floor area down there.  I have two lovely chairs and a side table that I can't really use, as well as all of those books and household goods I couldn't get rid of otherwise.

I've been cycling a bit through my emotions - I feel a sense of accomplishment for a while, and then I feel low.  I keep reminding myself that a few months ago I was going through a similar thing when I had to get rid of some old furniture in order to make room for a gift of new furniture.  I got through that, and I've had a lot of experience trying to make the basement the way I want.  Maybe I just have to give up on the basement altogether!

One tool I've found useful for this project is an egg timer.  If I set it for about half an hour and just clean and sort (or use it for any other chore), and I stick to it.  When I set a time limit, I look harder for little things that need doing.  I don't try to rush, but I do try to be more thorough.

Pilgrim's Progress

So, I worked a long time tonight just cleaning the basement.  I wish I had picked up some daytime allergy meds today, because now I'm paying for it.  It's too early for a Benadryl tablet, they put me right to sleep!

If you compare this photo with the one I posted September 16th, you can see there has been some change.  Since that time I've sold a lot of books or given them away to Title Wave, and donated arty goods to SCRAP,  or just made a pile for Salvation Army.  I have a laundry room off to the side, and it's now the place where I put the household item donations.  Despite the fact that things are actually leaving this basement room, the change doesn't look like a whole lot.

See that blond wood thing on the floor in the middle?  That's a piece of furniture that really needs to go.  I wish I gave it away when I had a chance weeks ago!  When one of my friends was helping me move it in here, he asked, "Is this thing made of concrete?"  It's probably heavier than a lot of other bigger furniture I have, and now it's stuck where it is because it's too heavy for me to drag up the stairs.

If I had more pictures of the room from different angles you could see that I have made good progress, and I should be pleased. 

I discovered a clever means of making a "shelf helper", which is what those white plastic-covered wire things were that I was praising September 30th.  I took four bricks (39 to 44 cents each at Home Depot) and laid a wire shelf that I found for free on the sidewalk across the top.  I think the shelf I found would normally be attached to brackets on a wall.  It's not a very dressy look but it did the trick for a basement bookcase I have.

I've been reading The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff, and I'm almost done.  There was a movie made based on it called The Eagle, starring Channing Tatum.  The book is much, much better.  It takes place in Britain in the Roman era, one of my favorite periods of history.  I understand this book was written for young adults, but it's a great read at any age.  

A little bit of plastic

What I have pictured here are some small implements that can change your life!  They don't look like much, but they've been a great help to me and I didn't even know they existed until just over a year ago.  They sit right on a shelf, just about any shelf in a cupboard, and they give you a little more surface to set things on.  They're especially good for small objects, because you can set them on top and slide little things right under them.  Because they're not really as deep as a cupboard, you can stand things in front of them that are taller.  If you look at my previous entry, you can see them in action.  On the larger wire tray at right, I included some small vintage trays to set on top to show how they can hold tiny things that will slip through the openings.

My mother gave me the larger wire thing, as well as others.  I got about ten of the smaller ones at a yard sale for ten cents each.  I took all that they had!

This leads me to another pointer: you don't have to spend a lot to get sorted.  Keep an eye out at yard sales for containers.  You don't have to have a closet company come in and build a thing that looks like a cat hotel for your shoes and shirts.

I just returned from a week's visit with my family in California.  I have to admit that the continuing endeavors to clean out my basement were in my thoughts more than once. It's a creative project, and it's making me look at myself and my surroundings in a new way.  I think it's partly because I've turned some corners in the grieving process for my husband, and I'm looking at possessions as separate from memories.  It's very hard but it's extremely important for me.

Question All Advice

At this moment I'd like to mention a few bits of advice that I've heard from so-called organizing gurus that I don't think are especially helpful to me.  Not that you should ignore them completely, but I think it's best for you to come up with your own system of doing things after considering the angles.

Here's one thing I hear a lot: "If you haven't used/worn it in a year, get rid of it.  You'll never use it."

My amendment to that is, put the thing in question in a place where you'll see it a lot.  That is, if you really kind of like it and hate the thought of parting with it straight off.  Give yourself a little time to decide.  It's not like it's going to get any bigger and take up MORE space.

A similar maxim to the above is, if you catch yourself saying, "I might use this someday, I can't get rid of it," well, maybe you will really use it again someday!  But again, you need to have it where you can think about it more than you have been.  It's true that we tend to pack things away and forget about them, then dig them out and get excited all over again about having them.  The trick is to put it in your own way for a while so you will actually use it.

I'm no minimalist, as my friends will tell you, but I hate random piles of detritus collecting everywhere.  That's why I have a couple cupboards where I just keep tchotchkes that I intend to rotate in and out of the bric-a-brac I keep out on display fulltime.  I try not to keep buying new things is all.  When you have some pretty objets that you can switch out with the vases and such, your home feels like a new place all of  a sudden.

Not long ago, I did empty out a number of boxes of china artifacts I'd been storing and I did decide that they no longer suited my tastes.  I put a few on eBay, and some I ended up taking to a vintage store I love, Village Merchants.  They are in Portland, on SE Division.  They will give cash for things they take, but I always get trade which ends up being worth more.  Then I can get something that I really want or need.  This store has furniture and other home decor stuff, but they also have clothing and jewelry.  I can't say how much I love this place!  One of my favorite stores in Portland, hands down.