Tag: Marie Kondo

Projects and more projects 05.12.20

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Projects and more projects 05.12.20

Are you working on long overdue projects at your house?  When I can motivate myself, I am.  This extra room in our house has had many, many purposes over the past twelve years that we’ve lived here.  I had thought that I would turn it into an extra bedroom, which is probably what we will make it before we ever sell our house sometime in the nebulous future.  But right now, I am giving it over to Liv as a studio space.  

As you can see:  it needs some help.  For the past six months I have been cramming Christmas stuff here.  I didn’t want all of my Christmas stuff to go back into the attic, because Denton and I have many “conversations” over it when I need it around Christmas time.  Our attic access isn’t one of those handy dandy, pull down jobs.  Oh no, the builders of our house, along with all of the others in our neighborhood thought it would be better to have to drag a giant ladder from the garage every time you needed to find something you have stored up there.  Sigh.

This past Christmas I informed Denton that he didn’t need to cart everything back up into the attic, which he was very pleased about.  Instead, I am taking over our Harry Potter closet.  Which has been a black hole of random things for more than a decade.  I have been putting this task off for MONTHS.  Would you like to guess how long it took me to empty the Harry Potter closet?  Thirty nine minutes.  My life if ridiculous.  I just knew it was going to take me days, to pull everything out of there and find a new home for it.

In actuality, it took a mere 39 minutes.  Crazy town.  That’s where I live.  The shelves are going to go serve their purpose in my laundry room, which will be another project, the guitar cases went to live in the den.  Denton hasn’t notice yet. 🙂   Most of the other things just needed to be recycled.  Do you keep your boxes from things you’ve bought, just in case you need to move and you’ll need the box?  Example:  Our router and a drum kit seat.  I called Denton at work and asked him that if we needed to move tomorrow would we need the box that our two year old router came in?  No and no.  Problem solved.

I love my vacuum.  Another inanimate object that has my devotion, because it does what it is supposed to do.  After emptying out the Harry Potter closet, I vacuumed it out and declared it sufficient.  You will see later that I should have mopped it too, but I will tackle that task at Christmas when I take all of this stuff out to determine what I am keeping and what is going to grace someone else’s home.  I would have decluttered it now, but my Salvation Army isn’t taking anything right now, so I decided if it all fit, it would be decluttered at Christmas this year.

Then I started on the extra room.  I started making piles of like things.  Such as:  478 empty boxes.  I have been keeping them so that when I finally get up the energy to list things in my Etsy shop I won’t have to shell out money for them at the post office.  But they can’t live in this room anymore.

I started carting Christmas stuff into the closet…..

And it all fit!  With room to grow!  hahahaha. Now that the Christmas stuff is out of the spare room, Liv and I can start assembling her studio, which will free up a LOT of room in her bedroom.  Does your house go through transformations like mine does?  When one space isn’t working anymore, we just shift and change and make it into what works for us at the time.  I wish I could go with the flow in my everyday life, like I do with shifting my furniture around!

I hope that your projects are going smoothly!  Stay safe and healthy!  You can see all of the other projects I’ve worked on here.

What are you working on right now?

Projects

Projects and more projects

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

Projects and more projects

When I can motivate myself these days, I am slowly going through my giant list of “to-do’s” and crossing some of them off.  Simple things that don’t actually take much of my brain power, because, I need all of my brain power to get from waking up to bedtime.  You understand.  Everyones new normal.  So here’s what I have accomplished lately.

I dragged a shelf that I had in the garage out and put a couple of couple of screws in my laundry room wall and – VOILA!  Now my laundry detergent can stop falling off of the dryer each time I do laundry.

Don’t you love my Clorox bottle?  I found that little gem at a thrift store for $0.95 about a century ago.  Sigh.  I miss finding gems at the thrift stores.

I also found this lovely basket there too at some point in the past and it holds my wool dryer balls.  I love those things.  The basket is hand painted and adorable.  Please ignore the hair.  My hair is everywhere.  I’m sorry that you have to see that.  But, it’s a reality here in my house.  Sorry again.

I have been in the process of switching out Liv’s dresser in her bedroom for what feels like 700 years.  It’s almost ready.

I had to look back in my phone to see when I bought this beauty.  It was February 10th.  Long, long ago.  As I normally do, when I spotted this gorgeous specimen, I immediately sent a photo to Liv and said “Yes or no”.  She immediately said “Yes.”  And then I called Denton and said I need you to meet me at the Salvation Army…..He was not pleased.  As usual.  Hahahaha.  $30.00 for a solid wood, lovely dresser that has beautiful handles, that she and I loved at first sight.  Oh yes.  He came right over.  It is missing a small piece of veneer that you can see below, that I will replace later when I can actually go into a store and find some that will match.  In the meantime, we don’t care that it’s missing.

I also replaced another light fixture in my downstairs hallway.

I had found the one I wanted to put up down there a couple of years ago for $3.99 and just put it in the garage until I had a few minutes to take the other one down.  And then I forgot about it.  The other one worked, I just liked the new to me linen one that I found on one of my hunts a lot more.

Man, I need to take the vacuum to my ceiling downstairs…..Or we can just call it “Antique lace” like Hayden and Liv’s Aunty Crystal does and move on…… And that’s what I’ve actually gotten accomplished over the last couple of weeks.  I have other projects I’m working on right now, and as soon as I get them completed I’ll show you here!

Stay safe and healthy!  You can see all of the other projects I’ve worked on here.

What are you working on right now?

Projects

Projects and more projects

Published on by Tracie1 Comment

How are you passing the gift of all of this time?  That’s how I am choosing to look at this.  A gift.  A gift that I should use to get all of the un-done projects completed at my house that have been waiting in the wings for way too long.

When I can keep my mind from wandering that is.  That happens a LOT.  I’ll start one teeny tiny project, see something else that needs to be done right NOW, and switch over to that.  So, I am making lists for myself.

It works sometimes. 😀   Here are some of the ones that I have actually gotten done so far!

I decided that I needed to get that one last piece of the landing in place so that I could put the trim back up.  There was a reason I had been putting it off….It took me almost two and a half hours to get that last piece cut to the proper width.  The length wasn’t a problem.  But its done!  Yay!  Don’t look at the stairs, just don’t.  It’s on the list.  While I had the paint out, I thought to myself, I should get that small bookcase painted.  I had bought it ages, and ages ago.  I think I may have paid around $3 for it, more than likely because it looked so bad. Liv wandered through about the time I started to paint and asked, Don’t you need to clean that thing first?  And I told her, This has been cleaned!  Pitiful little thing.

I had the perfect spot for it outside my kitchen where I had been piling my number one “to be read” stack of books, a la Martha Stewart style.  It always looks so much better at her house, doesn’t it? It’s amazing what a coat of paint can do.I’ve had one hook outside my shower for years now.  And I constantly put way too many things on it.I’ve also had these two cute ostrich head hooks floating around my house for a couple of years now with no real purpose.  Now they have a purpose…And my shower hook isn’t overloaded anymore.  This project took approximately 49 seconds to accomplish.  Sigh.

Last but not least.My dresser.  You’ll have to use your imagination and “see” this poor thing piled as high as the sky with clothes, random bits of things that did not even belong in our bedroom, because either I forgot to take a before or I deleted it by accident.  It wasn’t pretty.I have been resisting doing this project, because I knew I needed to take EVERYTHING out and do a major purge of all the things.  I hesitate to do things KonMari style because I get so overwhelmed with how much stuff I still have.  And probably do NOT need.  But I set aside an entire day and worked drawer by drawer.I LOVE having my t-shirts folded this way.  It’s so easy to see what I have and what I don’t.  I’m also going to try this with my pajamas too and I’ll let you know how it goes.I took out everything, and anything that said NO way am I ever putting you on my body again, went into a bag to dealt with another day.  Everything else needed a designated drawer or things like swimsuits that I only wear once a year went into a basket to live on the top shelf of my closet.  Why in the world I was letting them take up space in my drawers is beyond my comprehension. It was a long, tedious day, with many, many breaks for my mental health, but at the end of it all my bed was clear and everything was put away where it belongs.  Also yes, that IS another “to be read” pile of books!  Which is another project to add to my ever expanding list, because this pile drives me bonkers.  It was a great idea at the time, but I constantly knock them off and have to pick them up again.Another project I need to check with my Mama about.  I want to change out the pulls on this dresser, but I don’t know which ones are the originals on this piece.  It was my Mama’s Mother’s dresser and it has two different styles of pulls.  Wooden ones and metal pulls on the bottom drawer.

Another side note:  don’t you love my monkey?  He is quite ancient.  My cousin who is almost twenty years older than I am gave it to me when I was about two years old.  Thank you Johnny Ray for that sweet gift, he has been well loved.

Well, that’s it for my week and the projects.  The best part about all of these projects is that I had everything on hand to get them done.  Mostly my time.  Are you working on projects during this time of isolation?  If I can just stay on track, I may get quite a lot more accomplished!  Good luck to us all.

You can see all of the other projects I’ve worked on here.

Stay safe.  Tracie

KonMari: Kitchen Cleaning Supplies

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One of the benefits that I didn’t even consider when I started my 30 Simple Days at the beginning of January is:  TIME.  You gain time, you guys.  For all of you who do not live in the land of Tracie, I know that you already knew this, but now I know too.  I’ll update you in the next week, but I can tell you this, I am LOVING having my kitchen stay – relatively – clean.  But, that’s not what I’m here to tell you about today.

Earlier today, I was trying to find my bottle brush to clean out Liv’s tall travel coffee mug that she takes to school every morning and it was lost in the madness that is underneath my kitchen sink.  (Don’t mind the one you can actually see in the photo below, it’s old and gross and I would never use it to clean something, but we all know how hard it is for me to throw away actual trash.  Here’s how the conversation will go in my head – “Is it recyclable?  I don’t know!!!  It doesn’t have a recycle number on it anywhere, so what do I do, what do I do?!?”  Just throw the stupid thing away you maniac!  No, I believe I will just put it right back where it was, so I can have another mental screaming match with myself later.)  Anyway.

One of the things I am learning about myself repeatedly, is that what space I do have, I don’t use properly and to its best advantage.  It doesn’t matter how everyone else uses their space, I need to organize and use the spaces that I do have, in a way that is going to make sense to my brain.

So, I asked myself, “Why, why, why, am I keeping 372 bottles of cleaning supplies underneath my sink, when I only use a handful of them on a daily basis”?  Because that’s where I thought that everyone else keeps theirs.  And they might.  But, that doesn’t matter in my house.  I need to be able to find what I need in that moment quickly or I could decide that I should go take a break and pick up my current book.  Two hours later, I will finally remember that I was cleaning something.

I have a fairly large laundry room downstairs that I am usually only in twice a day, that I can store all of my overflow in.  Another benefit from this type of storage method for me is that I can see at a glance that I have NINE bottles of Mrs. Meyers cleaning spray and I don’t need to pick another four up when I am in Target the next time.  I also discovered that I own three gallons of white vinegar.  Sigh.  At least I won’t run out anytime soon.

It was also absolutely grimy down there.  So I removed every single thing inside the cabinet and gave it a very thorough vacuuming…..

Also, a butter knife works wonders for stuck on…..whatever that was.

I still love this padded shelf liner that I picked up at Wal-Mart (I think it’s actually cheaper on Amazon and I don’t have to put on real clothes and leave my house).  You can occasionally find it at the Dollar Tree, but it is very hit or miss there.  Wally world and Amazon always have some in stock in very lovely patterns.

I used up the last of this roll here.  I love this pattern.  It makes everything look new and clean.

I put back only what I know I will need on a daily basis and the rest goes downstairs into what will be the overflow section in my laundry room.  I’ll give you a rundown of what I need close at hand every day:

Mrs. Meyer’s Apple Cider multi-surface cleaner.  I like almost all of the Mrs. Meyer’s multi-surface cleaners, but I LOVE this one.  It smells amazing and it makes me want to clean something so that my house will smell like this scent.  It’s awesome.

Scented trash bags.  We don’t use these large trash bags for our actual trash cans, but I love having these on hand for when I do need a big bag for something.  They smell amazing, but it’s not overpowering.

Eraser Cleaning Sponges.  This is another staple at my house.  I have my Mama hooked on them too.  They are made of melamine which is exactly what Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are made of and they work like you wouldn’t believe.  I always have a stash on hand.

Dish Drying Mat.  My MIL bought me one of these and I love it.  It folds into a small square that I can stuff underneath the sink and it does exactly what it’s supposed to do.  Soaks up all the water until I get all of the things that don’t fit into the dishwasher washed.

Dishwashing detergent.  I was faithful to Finish Quantum Max as my dishwasher detergent for years, but I ran out one day and needed something immediately and Wal-Mart DID NOT HAVE ANY, so I tried something random and it worked just as well in our newish dishwasher (it’s about three years old now) so I haven’t gone back.  If you have an older dishwasher that is having problems cleaning your dishes though, try the Finish.  It was the only thing that cleaned my dishes in my old decrepit dishwasher.

Microfiber cloths.  I use these for so many different things.  I have just random ones that I’ve picked up over the years, but I keep hearing great things about certain brands so I may invest in some.

White vinegar.  I use this in my dishwasher instead of a rinse aid.  It works, so I don’t spend the extra money.

Lysol Wipes.  These are something else that I bulk order from Amazon.  It’s just more efficient, and cheaper.  They work amazingly well, so I always keep them on hand.

Stainless Steel Cleaner.  I found a bottle of Goo Gone Stainless Steel cleaner at a yard sale that had never been opened and I bought it for $0.25.  It is amazing.  But it costs $39.99! on Amazon right now, so I am going out on a limb and thinking that they don’t make it anymore, so when this is gone I will replace it with this, more than likely.  I’ve heard great things about it.  I have also heard that you can use Pledge or an equivalent, but I haven’t tried that yet.  I can see why it would work though, my cleaner is very oily just like a furniture polish.

Scratchers.  This is what they are called in my family.  I use them on my iron skillets and stainless steel pots and pans.  I usually pick them up at my Dollar Tree.

Last but not least…..my bottle brushes.  I use these on our water bottles, and travel mugs.  I usually buy these at the Dollar Tree too, but they have some that look like they would last a little longer on Amazon.  I’m all for something I don’t need to replace every month.

What do you need right at your fingertips in your kitchen?  Curious minds need to know.

What’s next?

I have so, so many areas of my house that need micro-organizing like this.  I know it’s not exactly the Marie Kondo way of doing things, but I like to break things into manageable chunks so that I’m not overwhelmed.  Otherwise, I would end up shoving the entire mess into a closet somewhere to be dealt with at a later date, which may never come.

Making up my own categories, that are small enough to be attainable, in a tiny window of time let’s me get things done.  And progress is always a good thing.