The Eastern mess before....
It was hard to even walk through the room, and that was about all I was using it for–walking through to get to the elliptical machine. You can see that in the second picture. The room is long and narrow, and these to pictures pretty much show the whole space. The mess behind where I stand is just…too much even to show anyone. Let’s just say it was really, really bad.
I had spent way longer than I care to admit just thinking about cleaning it and doing nothing about it. There’s something about the inertia when taking on a huge project. In order to clean up the room, I would have to go through my stash. In order to do that, I would actually have to make decisions. I’d have to get rid of some things. Rather, lots of things. And, in order to deal with this room, I would also need to clean out and organize my storage closet which is in the main hallway of the house. The domino of thoughts would invariably lead to me picking up a project and getting onto the treadmill without actually doing any cleaning whatsoever.
Having a ‘need’ to get something done finally pushed me over the edge and launched me into action last week. There is still the small closet that needs work–but the photo project taking up some space is way more involved than I can even begin to deal with at the moment. I just blogged about some of my particular knitting related cleaning. And now, I’ve got a room that is picked up, organized and even cleaned. There hasn’t been a vacuum in there for…well…a very long time. Now, I get to take the reward of all that time spent organizing and cleaning. Yup. Time to cut into some fabric and get sewing!
Oh…and the results of all that effort:
Makes note to self. “Get rid of the dead plant hanging in the corner.” So, maybe I’m not 100% there, but I’m close.
This looks AWESOME! By the way, James LOVED making the potato and chard dish (but didn’t eat it); the rest of us loved it (Anna included!) Thanks for the recipe!
I’m glad you all liked it! If you’re not a fan of chard, the best way to eat it is with lots of other flavors. I’ve learned to love the stuff over time. I’m not quite as enthusiastic about kale, but I’m working on it.
WOW. I’m really impressed. You could earn a living doing that. My study is an absolute shocker. It is full of stuff. The rest of the house is tidy but the study is also the ironing room, storage room and things to be fixed room. I keep telling myself that the clutter is acceptable as long as I can get to my desk, but it’s getting worse and worse. I really need to clear it out 😀
I think the kicker for me was that I couldn’t really do much. Sure, I could just barely get to the machine to do quick repairs and whatnot. I bought yardage last summer (August 2010) to make my daughter a new skirt. I cut it out and pieced the gores together yesterday and plan on finishing it today. A year of thinking, “I really need to clean this room so I can even lay out the fabric” was really too long. My advice is to start with just one corner or one surface at a time and not think about the entire room as you get started.
It *feels* different, it unclutters the brain. I’m inspired.
This has inspired me to tackle a couple of my “default” places.