For the last eight or so weeks, our living room has served as a combination warehouse/sorting facility. As each box was opened, it was sorted through right there - in the living room. Every items was then put away in it's place, or put into one of three piles: donate, discard, or sell.
Sounds simple enough, right?
Imagine a room that is 18 x 14. Imagine that 1/3 of the room is full of furniture; and approximately 1/2 of the room held boxes, stacked (literally) 12 feet high. The remaining space by the doorway was decorated with a makeshift table of three large empty cartons upended in front of the fireplace where I worked, sorting and putting away.
Meanwhile, at the back of the house was another room that was also turned into an impromptu storage area. Our former gameroom, complete with the pinball machine, the air hockey table, and shelves and shelves of Legos, puzzles, and board games has become a repository for the furniture & excerise equipment that we want to keep, but currently don't have a space for.
Finally, my office is gone. In it's place is, quite simply, storage. The room that once housed my little sanctuary, where I could work and blog, and play The Sims2, and escape... now has plastic storage tubs from floor to ceiling. The only vestiges of my previous occupancy are the DSL modem and the wireless router, along with the networked laser printer. They all perch nervously just inside the door, like they are contemplating their escape at any moment.
The whole thing has been just like one of those sliding puzzles. You have to keep moving things around, until you can get them where you want them - and to see if there is enough room for everything you wanted to put in that room. It's exciting, nerve-wracking, and tiring to no end.Every day, I got up, and I did a little bit more. This weekend, for example, I finally completed unboxing all of my Mom's sewing and art supplies. This might not sound like A Big Deal on the surface, but to her - just to be able to access her quilting and art supplies again WAS a big deal; she missed being able to use her things, to create freely. The sewing room is done, and now Mom can sit among her beloved things again, and happily spend the day... creating. To see her so happy - her eyes sparkling, and her joy at working with the jewel-toned fabrics she loves to much - totally worth all the hard work. Totally.
This weekend was also A Big Deal because in the living room - we now have those three distinct piles, and NO MORE BOXES TO OPEN. :::insert Happy Dance of your choice here:::
We are SO close to having our living room back. We have been camped out in the dining room for weeks now - the sofa, love seat and chairs being upended and stacked in the corner of the living room - and I am so fully sick and tired of sitting on these dining room chairs, watching that little 13" TV that I could CHEERFULLY SCREAM. I can't wait to sit on our raggedy old sofa, and watch the big TV, with my feet propped up. Twinks can't wait to get to her Wii again. The Wrench wants his favorite chair - in fact, for Fathers Day that's what he wants this year - the living room to be "functional" again.
A few more days, I believe - really, I do - that it will all be done. The charity will come and pick up the "donate" pile. The "discard" pile is already gone - what can be recycled is, and the rest is going to the trash. The "sell" pile will be a bit tougher - some of it will go on Craigslist, some on eBay, and the rest will either be a yardsale, or if I'm just sick and tired of the whole thing... it may go to the charity as well. I need to put up new shelves in the game room, there are a few bits and pieces of furniture to be moved here and there, and one more bookcase to be built in the library, and then... And then, the house will be... the house again. And not a warehouse.
We are SO close...
5 comments:
Here's to functional living rooms!
(And space to play the Wii! Hehehehehe!)
What a job. We did all that when we sold our house and all out stuff to live full time in an RV. It was very hard to go through some of that stuff--especially the photographs, the Christmas decorations, the keepsakes from when my children were little. But, in the end, we got rid of it all, and sat in an almost empty house for over a year. We had two reclining lawn chairs, a 13" TV, a waterbed, and a refrigerator, washer and dryer in a three bedroom house with a den. Lots of empty space. Good luck to you on getting done by this coming weekend.
I remember what a treat it was when we first moved to Watertown, back in '94, and had boxes and furniture stacked everywhere for a couple of months, and finally clearing out the living room and being able to just plain stretch out again. Such a small thing, but a great pleasure. I absolutely know where you're coming from.
i totally relate. i have a waist-high stack of broken down boxes in my entry way, and an entire room of packing paper and SO much still to do. i'll be SO happy when my house looks like a house again, with furniture and some sense of organization. *wistful sigh*
Good luck! Just remember that corollary to Murphy's law...the first 90% of the work takes the first 90% of the time, and the last 10% of the work takes the other 90% of the time. :) Seriously, I'm sure you'll have your living room as you like it shortly. Meanwhile, I'll be packing for MY cross-town move, in late July...
Post a Comment