Score!

Life is so crazy.

I was reading a blog the other day about how someone made their own bed frame which is something C and I have been wanting to do. Their inspiration was over $2000 and they paid $200 for the materials plus a jigsaw.

Check out the post for their do it yourself bed here.

This post has inspired C and I and we are going to do something similar. It probably won't happen for a bit because we need to finish up our living room.

Last night a friend was going through his tools and came across three jigsaws. He gave us one. Woo Hoo!

Decluttering Continues

I spent most of the weekend going through more hidden clutter spaces. I cleaned out under our bed and all the bins (six) we have in our hallway shelving unit. The bins are now organized and labeled and some of them are even half empty!

Unfortunately I do have to use under the bed for storage. It's not good feng shui or what I would prefer but unavoidable for now. I hope to eventually elimate that when I free up more space in the other hidden clutter areas.

At least I know what is under there now and I even found my yoga mat! I have a rolling bin that has all of my craft supplies and tools with the exception of some stamps and stamp pads and 12 x 12 scrapbooking paper. Those were kept in a couple of the bins in the hallway. I will use up the paper on pages for my sister (nephew and niece books) and I still make cards and gift tags. I also have a bin and two photo boxes with all my photos. This is temporary as I want to get them all stored digitally (I have not taken a regular photo in about four years). That will be a project when I get the decluttering done. I am hoping for a digital photo frame for my birthday next month.

I came across some really old stuff this weekend. All the RSVP's and gift cards (with notes of who gave what) from my wedding six years ago. TONS of photos, some of me when I was little. Stuff from highschool (a Christmas card from my now hubby), kids projects when they were little (we saved a small amount), stuff from a trip to California five years ago for a half started scrapbook, stuff from when I lived in North Carolina ten years ago. I filled a large garbage bag full of items I was keeping that I really never needed to. It feels like I lost ten pounds!

I even freed up a shelf in the hall closet as the four small bins of crafts supplies and tools I had in there fit in to the rolling bin under the bed. I have a few piles on my dining table that need to get in to their permanent homes and I plan to start tackling the hall closet this week.

What's left on my decluttering list?

• Hall closet
• Rolling cart in laundry center
• Storage off patio
• Master closet (need to purge clothing)
• Hallway bookshelves
• Pantry

Projects that resulted from decluttering...

• Photos need to be digitally stored (give originals to my mother or others)
• Finish up some scrapbook pages started for my sister (nephew & niece books)
• Find permanent homes for some items
• Selling/donating craft supplies I no longer need
• Bucca de Beppo wall (more on that in a later post)
• Finally get wedding photos framed for parents and other family (did I mention I have been married for six years?)

I am hopefull I can complete the decluttering by the end of June. The other projects will be things I can finish throughout the summer. They have places to live (either temporary or permanent) and I can find everything and that is half the battle.

I actually found a journal I started five years ago and it had a list in it of goals. I am sorry to say that I only had completed 1 of them. How is that for procrastination? Yikes - so embarrasing to admit. I know the reason for it too. The clutter, even when I couldn't see it, prevents me from getting things done. The clutter and unfinished projects throughout the condo are the reason we did complete that one goal - owning a home. We didn't have the money to finish the projects to move so we just bought the place we were living in. Ug!

This will also make it easier to finally finish all the little condo projects around the house. We will be able to find all of our tools easily and won't be tripping over piles of stuff to install baseboard molding etc.

I am gratefull for this blog and the blog community in general. This allows me to be somewhat accountable for things I am trying to accomplish. It's also a journal and scrapbook, wishlist and keepsake all rolled in to one. This online way of journaling actually made it easier for me to give up scrapbooking! I will still make pages for my sister and others which makes it OK to keep a lot of the stuff I spent good money on. When I do a scrapbook page - I do it. Mucho dinero can get invested in a page. I will post some later on to give you an idea.

For now though, I am on a roll and can't be stopped!

Absolute Necessities

I have been on a decluttering binge for many years now. I aquire less and less and it seems to me that I am ready to give up more and more.

The past couple of weeks the hubs and I have made more of an effort on finishing our condo projects. We painted the living room and the walls above the wainscoting in the bathroom. We bought more baseboard molding to finish off the living room. A trip to IKEA is in our future for many of these DVD shelfs and this leather couch. When we painted the living room we only put items back in that we needed. That meant a recliner we do use all the time but just really clutters up the room is going away.

I am the first person to look at something and think "how can I reuse this in another way". I had briefly decided that recliner (it looks like a wing chair) would work great in a corner of the dining room as a reading nook. (Photo below is not the actual chair but close to ours and lighter blue - you get the idea).

This is where I get in to trouble. Suddenly I am all about the reading nook and less about the rest of the dining room that needs finishing. Not to mention the living and bathrooms that have unfinished projects we started working on. All I can picture is lazy afternoons reading in the chair by the garden window, sipping my coffee with a blanket tucked around me. Never mind that in order to have those lazy Saturday afternoons, I need to finish the living, dining, bath and master bedrooms.

Instead, we are selling the chair. Pairing down. Perhaps in the future we will have a reading nook. If so, we will look for the appropriate chair at that time. At least this way I have not gotten distracted from finishing my current projects. Cause the dining table and chairs need to be sanded and painted - so they match. I think that is a little more important than a reading nook (which still requires us getting our old PC unhooked and the shelf it sits on taken down).

I have always been "afraid" of dead space in a room. In the past I have always filled my rooms with probably more than they needed. I always worry if there will be enough seating when I have a party, or Christmas morning when the relatives come over. You know, I have stopped worrying about those things because I am tired of living in clutter just to be prepared for those few days a year where I need to have more than my immediate family in my living room.

I have learned the hard way to start with good basics and build from there. I never had the money for good basics so I bought or inherited the basicas and built on top of them. We are getting back to basics.

Spring is Here

Spring is officially here, I see evidence sprouting up all around me. Yet its still so darn cold! They say it might even snow this week.

Over the Easter weekend we didn't do much since it was raining. In fact, I can't remember an Easter weekend in the Pacific Northwest where it hasn't rained. We did not dye eggs this year. I didn't really even think about it since I have teenagers that don't seem much interested.

I'm starting to get cabin fever though. Last night the hubs and I took the dog on an extended walk around the neighborhood just to be outside. We had thought about going down to the pier but it was threatening rain.

We are gearing up for some projects inside and out. We have our hearth that needs some tile, a new mantle to be built that can accomodate a 42" flat panel (still need to buy that - we are budgeting for it), I have some gardening to attend to and a dining canopy to build. I'm even in the mood for some sewing.


Photo of my garden from last summer - inspiration to get out in the yard this weekend. Maybe I'll even get a few more of these.

Ready for spring!