When we first closed on our house about 18 months ago we were hard charging to get things done. We ripped out the pond/planter in the kitchen and got the floors replaced, painted the walls, hung a chandelier and replaced the flooring in the office/laundry room, painted the downstairs bedrooms, replaced all the lightbulbs in the house with energy efficient ones...and then the holidays came and the week after that my foot accident. Screech went the brakes.
Then we moved into the house because is was so much easier for me to maneuver around in on crutches. And then we went into survival mode until summer while I hobbled, worked full time and we found ourselves incredibly busy. Now here we are months later and this house has just never gotten organized like it should have with a proper move in. It's just been survival mode and disorganized and I can't take it.
Now unfortunately the rest of the family has developed some bad habits about not putting things away and things not having a proper home and it's going to be crazy hard to create new habits now. But it has to be done for everyone's sanity, most importantly mine. So not only do we need to reorganize the entire house but we really need everyone to commit to keeping it that way. This is going to be a real challenge.
So I came up with a plan for Spring Break week where we'll do a project in the morning and then we'll go have fun in the afternoon. This way there is some earning and ownership of work in the mornings and then we have something to look forward to and relax doing in the afternoon. Hopefully I'll get buy in from the family. I called a Family Meeting on Friday night to have a conversation about how things got to where they are, what we can and need to do and how we can accomplish this during our Spring Break week. Hopefully this is going to get everyone on board for the duration of the week.
I was really committed to starting at the front door and working our way through the house but the more I think about it the more I think we need go start in the garage and work our way through the house from that direction instead. That way we'll have available storage for things we need to move out of the house in the garage. The Man has been working out there from time to time going through boxes and such and I have a feeling there are a ton of half empty or empty boxes that we just need to get out of there or finish cleaning out.
I think we are all ready to get rid of more stuff. I anticipate we'll have a big load for the thrift store this week. It will be great to get the garage in better shape and then move on to the house. I am learning that at times things are much easier to accomplish than expected and sometimes they are much harder. I'm not sure which the garage will be but fingers crossed things are in better shape out there than any of us expect and we'll be able to make some big progress quickly.
We need space in the garage for all the home improvement tools and products that are now set up in our family room. It was great when we were working on the house daily in the winter, but I don't think we need it in the house anymore. It could all be arranged nicely in the garage and we need to reclaim that space in the family room desperately. The Man continues to complain that there is no storage in this house, but in reality we just aren't using any of it to its proper use. We actually have a lot of space it's just not being used well.
I've come to realize what seemed like a very big family room really isn't and it has a terrible walking path from the sliding glass doors at the front of the house that leads right through the middle of the room at a weird angle that makes it almost impossible to place furniture in any reasonable manner in that room. Whomever designed this house really blew it in a few places.
This may sound a little crazy, but I smudged our house with white sage and lavender and gave the house a prayer/blessing. I thought I would hate the smell of the smoke in the house but I didn't mind it at all and it didn't linger or bother anyone else. In fact the family seemed to like It. Ideally you smudge after you've decluttered but I think we needed a little energy burst to get us going again and then I'll do it again sometime soon.
I do feel like the house needs a energy cleansing and fresh start. Whatever it takes. Especially after our neighbor made the mistake of telling The Man that both the previous homeowners died in this house. Fresh start, clean energy for them and for us. I bought the sage a few weeks ago and it had just been sitting on the counter until I studied up and decided to try it. I asked the family if they felt the energy in the house was a little lighter and we all felt it was a strong "maybe." We'll see what happens.
Anyway I digress. So the plan is the cleanse the house in body and soul and have some fun this week adventuring around to more local museums and attractions. Hopefully by the end of Spring Break we'll have a very happily organized house and we'll have had a lot of good adventures too. Fingers crossed!
*Late-breaking update. Okay so our first day of Spring Break went pretty well, despite some crying and me telling a little person I needed to take her to the ER if her legs suddenly weren't working when we headed out to start working. Amazingly they were fine before and all day afterwards including for some pretty hard core play with neighbor boys most of the afternoon. Thankfully 5 minutes with ice on the knees solved that problem and make the work seem much less horrible. To be honest it was little bit of cat wrangling to keep everyone on point but we filled out recycling bin that will go out this morning and my little car is packed up ready for a thrift store drop-off. Everyone contributed and let go of some things too. That is a success. Our garage is a little cleaner. Yay!
I may have secretly odios-ed a few 90s clothing items that I didn't say anything about to the owner. I generally don't believe in doing this but at some point enough is enough and the emotional attachment to hideous old clothing is tooooo strong. If it's been in boxes since for over a decade I think we're done. The comedic highlight of this was when he donned a 90s tee shirt and some of those multi-colored body-builder muscle/workout pants guys wore in the late 80s. To make his point he even wore that outfit around the house for a few hours. Oh my gosh. Kiddo and I laughed so hard. I still can't stop laughing at the thought. I've told him I need to make him a quilt from those because he's obviously very attached! Scary.
I tried to keep the project at two hours but with all the dramatics and cat chasing it lasted more like three hours, but I was happy to shut it all down at a reasonable point. I had to pull everyone off the job and stop the work, which I think was good. I really like stopping BEFORE everyone was exhausted, worn out and cranky. Tomorrow I will try taking some music out with us.
I think we're going to do another day in the garage since we're all in a groove with it and it still needs a lot of work and we're kind of on a roll about what needs to happen in there. Wouldn't it be crazy amazing if we could someday park two cars in there. Wow.
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