midnightmusings: On housekeeping and clutter--and househunting

Liddys Links

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

On housekeeping and clutter--and househunting

We’re house hunting. Man, over the past few weeks I have seen some really, er, interesting houses. That’s being kind.

Doesn’t anyone who wants to sell their house watch any of those shows on D-I-Y, A&E, Style and HGTV? You don’t have to put everything away and make the place look like it’s a museum or no one lives there, but for crying out loud, clean up the dirty dishes and put away the junk mail.

I’ve decided our house will be shown empty. LOL I’ve got too much stuff, which is why we have to move. You know, if you only accumulate a bit of stuff each year, after 21 years the place is chock full of it! We haven’t reached the state of affairs that would warrant Niecy Nash and her crew coming in to save us or the Clean Sweep team’s attentions, but there is too much stuff for our tiny house. Since I started writing seriously, Smut Central, or my writing room, has gotten crammed to the rafters with promotional stuff, reference books, jewelry findings and beads (although I don’t complain about that!). For some reason my mending and sewing/crafts projects also get shoved in there.

I have to admit that I’m addicted to those “clean up your house” and “get organized” shows. I LOVE seeing how messy other people are and how the experts bring order out of chaos. First of all, it makes me feel virtuous about my much-less-severe mess. Second, I get ideas for making my mess better. One of these days, maybe when we move, I’m going to put all of that into practice and we’ll finally live in a house that’s comfortable, organized and workable. (Our house was too small even before we started another business.)

Why haven’t I organized our stuff here? Good question. I do ask myself that at times.

I have implemented some of those solutions, but the problem is that of fitting a quart into a pint bottle. Where do you put the stuff to get it out of the way while you’re erecting more shelving or getting the other stuff organized? I have yet to see a show on that problem. They spread it out over the yard, but our yard is still a construction zone. No room there! LOL The kitchen closet doesn’t exist yet, and right now the powder room is in process. (That’s a real engineery-sounding term, isn’t it? And it means there is nothing in there but walls and a workman, i.e., Mistah Midnight. The rest of the stuff - compound mitre saw, table saw, cabinets, commode, sink and pedestal, are spread out over the front porch, the patio, the lawn and the garage.)

One of these days, I’ll have a house that’s finished, where I can take my accumulated clutter and spread it out on the lawn — or front porch or patio — and get it organized. Until then, I laugh merrily at others who have slipped further down that slope into catastrophic clutter (anyone remember Langley Collier and his brother?) and count my blessings. We’re not winding our way along narrow paths between boxes and mountains of clothing and too many shoes. Yet.

Hugs,
Liddy

posted by Liddy Midnight @ 3:24 PM

1 Comments:

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