It’s that time when we look forward to all the possibilities the new year might bring. I have some cool projects to share and more renovations to complete in the spring. It’s like the house is never done.
Here’s a quick update on the state of the house:
Fall Reno
Our Fall reno was completed on New Years’ Eve. It took about 3 months and mostly everything I wanted got checked off the list. I’ll go over the breakdown in more detail in a separate post. Alas, we have now entered the phase I’m calling The Great Purge and the Great Restoration.
The Great Purge
The last part of the renovation was like moving except we didn’t really “go” anywhere. The good thing about moving is the idea that you can declutter and weed out the things you no longer use/need. Coincidentally, January is the perfect time for this fresh start focus. It’s almost like I planned it. Almost.
Sidebar: Netflix is genius for rolling out Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up on New Years’ Day. If you haven’t seen it stop reading and go watch the first episode. I’ll wait. . .
Awesome right? So because my house is in flux at the moment I can’t really commit to the full system but it is still working for us. I made the hubs watch as well and now he’s a convert and willing to purge his closet.
I’m trying to be ruthless with this purge because there’s no point in having a fresh new space and then junking it up.
The Great Restoration
Ack! The house was in shambles for the holidays and if you were watching my Instagram stories you saw that we basically lived out of our bedroom and ate out for every meal. Our bedroom functioned like a hotel room. I took the kids’ table and chairs and made a little dining space near the bed. We ate a lot of pizza. Not too messy and no crumbs.
In any event, it’s time to put the house back together.
Second Floor
On the top floor the bedrooms are mostly in good shape except for Lady Pep’s room. There are bags and bags of clothes and miscellaneous items that we just shoved inside her room to save them from sanding dust.
The closet area is in use but not completely filled in yet. I still have to sort through those bags and hang up/fold so much clothes. I wish we had been more thoughtful about emptying the old closets. Note: A little thoughtfulness and planning makes life so much easier. At least we used clear bags so I kind of have an idea about what’s in each one.
First Floor
The bottom floor is a completely different beast. That lack of thoughtfulness meant some of our things were not properly secured and as a result were exposed to quite a bit of construction dust. Blech.
The front room/mudroom/xmas room/holiday room is just full of stuff including the cubbies we need to build to help organize the space. What do you do when your organizational solutions are sitting in boxes under stuff? I’m really looking forward to getting that space in shape but it’s daunting. So much depends upon the tall white cubbies. (Did you catch that William Carlos Williams reference?)
I have big plans for our open concept living room/dining room but I’m slightly thwarted by the crib and changing table. Two things I don’t want to give up yet. Call me sentimental.
The plan at the moment is to tackle the books first. Once we get those back on the shelves I can feel like I’m making some progress. Veering slightly from the KonMari method, we do have to tackle the Great Restoration room by room.
Wish me luck!
