Well, this thread inspired me to do something I’ve been thinking about for a long time: start a blog. About cleaning and decluttering. I’ve noticed that my piles of stuff are really obvious in photos but in person, my eye just skips right over them. So my plan is to post photos of my place each week to monitor my progress (as well as other house stuff like projects, repairs, etc.) and forfce myself to be honest. Anyway, here’s the blog and the first set of humiliating photos; I’m gonna update over the weekend as I get stuff done.
Oh, brave tremorviolet! The sad thing is that most of your rooms don’t look that bad to me. Your library…well, it could use some help. 
Well, I did a lot of good work in my bedroom, yay me! But my husband’s stuff is still all there, because I don’t touch that stuff, it’s his. He has piles of dusty books, dusty papers, and dusty cables all over his side of the room (and his closet) and a good deal of the dresser, which makes me kind of unhappy, but I don’t like to nag him about it either. And even if I did, I wouldn’t right now, because he’s working like crazy on his project, which has a deadline next week. So the bedroom has a sort of split personality at the moment.
Now I’m looking around this room (computers, books, Christmas tree, we call it Room 4), particularly at my desk. This desk is horrible. Some things in front of me, not counting the papers and CDs:
two Christmas cards I need addresses for
a couple of my presents–a lethal cheese grater knifey thing, for example
a bag of gummi candy from Christmas (I don’t eat gummi)
a half-finished paper Viking longship
a bag of Mandarin oranges
an Isaac Asimov book I’m not even reading
a Rod & Staff catalog (Mennonite school curriculum, I buy grammar books from them)
7 stamps
a bunch of other junk
I think tomorrow I’ll do some work in here. It would be great to get the Christmas stuff down too, I always want to get it out ASAP. Also this tree is huge. There’s a corner full of computer junk here too, sigh. I got my husband to get rid of the 2 orphan computers, but there are 3 keyboards, a USP, a bunch of cables, and I don’t even know what-all over there.
Tremorviolet, I am impressed and awed by your courage. It’s a hell of a good idea, but I just can’t see making myself do that, hehe.
Geek note: though your closet is out of focus, those look suspiciously like PTerry mass market paperbacks all nestled together happily. If only mine were in such nice categories! I need to put “reorganize and purge books” higher on my priority list.
Right. Today is Clear Off Horizontal Surfaces Day. And get rid of the damn boxes that have accumulated with all the baby stuff. Mr. Lissar gets to do any and all lifting.
Here goes.
A few options:
Option 1: Display case. For things that are pretty and well loved, put them into display cases, shelves with glass doors (so they don’t gather as much dust) or shadow boxes that you can hang on the wall.
Option 2: A “sentimental case”. Get a single Rubbermaid storage container, of a size that will fit neatly into a closet. All sentimental, loved but not used items go into that case. He can only keep as many as will fit.
Option 3: A picture album. Take of picture of the whozamawhatsits and thingamabobs, and put the pictures in an album. “Oh, remember that stuffed squirrel we saw at that coffee shop?” “Oh, here’s a picture of that bouquet you bought me for my birthday!” “Hey, here’s one of my fourth grade macaroni art!” It all works just as well as story starters if it’s pictures of the stuff instead of the stuff itself, and it stores in a much smaller and neater space.
I decluttered some of the bedroom. I’ve decided that I don’t really *need *all of my dolls, so all but 3 of them are going to Goodwill. I hope they will make some little girls happy. I think I might be able to actually use the bedroom closet for something soon. It used to be the doll’s closet, full of dolls and doll clothes. There’s also a PC, a monitor, 2 dead printers, and a dinosaur of a laptop. Different charities take different items, so I think I’ll have a couple of pick ups in the next few weeks, if I stay on top of it.
WhyNot, the photo album idea is awesome! Now I just need to find my (missing) camera…
Room 4 is now pretty! My desk is clean (and dusted!). All the Christmas decorations are down, except the tree itself–my husband is still at work and it will take both of us. Everything is off the floor and the couch, and the computer pile has been shoved further back so it’s not as visible. 
It is so much nicer in here!
Now I have to clean up the kitchen a bit before the babysitter arrives, so she doesn’t think I’m a complete slob (which, as you all know, I am). I’m going to meet my husband at the burger place next to his office for a quick dinner. Ah, the romance! 
Okay, I am definitely in. I had such good intentions last year, and then after my knee replacement in February I wasn’t able to do anything for a while and by the time I was, things had gotten out of control again. And I’m a person who has to do something for at least 30 days for it to become a habit, but it only takes not doing it one day for the habit to disappear as if it never existed.
Anyway, today I tacked some of the clutter my daughter left in the spare room after she moved out, plus the bookcases in my office. As another confirmed bookaholic, I am feeling very proud of myself for getting rid of huge quantities of my books. Tomorrow I tackle the other two bookcases, and the rest of my office; and then Monday is the dining room, which is in actuality my sewing room since we don’t eat there (by choice, not necessity). My desk alone, though, is probably a good afternoon’s work – I tend to let stuff pile up, and then do a thorough sorting every couple of months. It’s long overdue this time. 
At least the kitchen has stayed clean. A big part of that is that Papa Tigs is really good about doing all the cooking, and so when he gets home from work it’s definitely in my self-interest to have a clean room for him to work in. So any dishes I’ve accumulated during the day get dealt with by late afternoon, and then after supper one or the other of us clears up on the spot.
I’ll try to take some photos tomorrow. Before I vacuum up the dog hair! I honestly don’t know why the dogs aren’t bald; I brush them every week, and yet the house is always covered with dog hair as fast as I turn around. It’s completely ridiculous – I could sweep and vacuum every morning, and there would still be a dog hair drift in the hallway.
Got a lot of clutter put away, and a friend who loves cleaning was just over and scrubbed practically my whole kitchen down. And organized the fridge. I didn’t do it, but things are now tidier.
I’ve got most of the baby stuff organized and got most of the Christmas junk away. It’s a pretty good beginning. Tomorrow we do all the floors.
Yeah, this is actually pretty neat for me. Some of y’all might remember a thread I started a few years back asking if I should let my friends help me clean. They volunteered 'cause they saw how incredibly overwhelmed I was. Ever since then I haven’t been neat but I haven’t let myself backslide in to utter chaos. (I was somewhere between second and third degree, I wouldn’t let people in but I didn’t have a rotten food/animal waste issue)
Anyway, the blog is working! I was so close to blowing everything off today but then I realized how embarrassed I’d if I didn’t do anything (particularly since some of y’all have been so productive). So I got some stuff done and updated to document.
A Priori Tea, those are totally Terry Pratchett’s. (OT, I just got Wee Free Men, one of the few I hadn’t read yet) But that’s kinda misleading, the book shelf isn’t actually organized, those are the only ones actually sorted. Some day tho’. Purging books is really freeing. I donated something like 30 boxes (the uhaul book boxes) to AustinLiteracy before I moved. It’s so much easier to find the stuff you actually want to read again when you pare down…
Well, I cleaned out the hall pantry that was filled with expired cans of food. I got rid of a whole trash bag worth of stuff, but once you close the door it looks like the same old messy house…
Today’s housecleaning day, so that January 1st starts off with a clean, organised house for the new year! Of course it is. But first, I will read your blog.
Bookworm! Ooh, I haven’t played Bookworm in a while. And I should drink this tea before it gets too steeped…
On the plus side, tidying’s started, the dishwasher’s on, and the big dishes that don’t fit inside have mostly been washed.
Did the same thing… fed the food to the dogs - they had a big feast with even more to come! Since they didnt keel over dead, I assume it’s ok to feed it to them (of course we’re talking about dogs that ate a bunch of rat poison and survived).
Now we just need to sweep & mop the kitchen area. One room down… more to go.
Sometimes I feel like the evil stepmother taking over the house- clean your room, fold & put away your clothes, etc etc. sigh
And then a nagging wifey-thingy (not married) to the SO - if you want me to move in, ya gotta make room for us and all OUR stuff! AND get rid of any mice lurking around waiting to jump out at me and scare the sense out of me (it’s a country house, must invest in cats!). But hey, at least I havent seen any “waterbugs” (Texas nickname for those giant sized roaches).
This weekend I just have not been motivated.
I should probably re-commit as well. It’s not gotten any better in here. I still have school and work and I haven’t been spending a lot of time at home lately, so I will have to do small chunks. Luckily, it’s a studio apartment.
Yesterday:
Put away all Christmas items. Decluttered dining-room and living-room. Did massive loads of laundry. Watered plants, poor things. Then I was really tired for some reason and stopped.
Today:
More laundry. Swept down some sneaky spider-webs. Cleaned and de-cluttered kitchen. Emptied and scrubbed refrigerator. (Good God, there was stuff in there that “expired” six months ago!) Started dinner (beef for stroganoff in the crock-pot.)
Still to go: finish folding and putting away laundry. Decide if I want to tidy my kitchen cabinets today. Scrub bathrooms. Vacuum (that one may wait until Tuesday.) Finish cleaning master bedroom. The back patio isn’t too bad. The garage and the laundry-room need a tidying, but they can wait. And the outdoor lights/decorations need to come down. It’s too damned hot today, though. I ain’t goin’ out there!
And then the big projects will be cleaning first “his” spare bedroom, and then “mine”. His cousin is coming to visit in January and will stay in “his” guestroom. So all those jackets, and hunting/fishing gear that are scattered all over the room? Gotta be cleaned up. I need to wash the sheets on that bed and remake it, too. I’m going to make sure he does the lion’s share in that room, though. It’s not my mess.
I have finally, officially gotten a box together of books/CDs and posted the contents on Craigslist. I’m not trying to make a fortune here, just de-clutter, so everything’s a toonie each or 2 for $3.00. We’ll see if anyone wants any remnants of my previous phases in life! (I’m also trying to bribe my husband to take the box to work and see if his clients are interested in anything therein.)
My plan is to update and bump the ad weekly as I sell off (optimistically) and add new things to go to The Box.
Well, I got a lot done.
- Deep sixed the floor pie.
- Cleaned out fridge. Realized that the reason “there’s no food in this house!” is that, although the fridge was full, when I threw out all the bad stuff I had one shelf of condiments left.
- Got all the stuff off the kitchen floor, put all the dishes in the dishwasher, cleaned the countertops.
- Started dinner. Started dishwasher.
- Sink overflowed. Had to allow plumber into awful house. Luckily, plumber is dirtier than house.
- Cleaned up after plumber. This is not going so well.
- Got most of shit up off living room and dining room floors. Vacuumed. Dumped all of Himself’s shit on one chair. Cleared off dining room table.
- Filled recycling bin with wine bottles. Threw out six bags of trash and emptied vacuum cleaner four times. Anybody want to knit themselves a new cat?
It’s not great - there’s still crap on the coffee table, and Himself’s chair, and in all sort of little crappy spots. I really, really need to wash the floors. I need to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the hell out of the kitchen floor. But it’s decent enough that when I have my parents over for dinner tonight they won’t say TOO much about it, and the floor pie is gone.
See, that’s the problem. Not just that I can only emergency clean and not keep things clean to start with, that’s another problem, but the one specific to my house is this: there are two sides. The left side is public rooms, the right is private ones. The public ones get the occaisional emergency clean. Most things in them have a place to go. The private ones, though, they’re the serious problem. I don’t think they’ve all ever been clean at once - stuff just moves between them every so often.
Allow me to share with you guys the Christmas card my 92-year-old grandmother sent me: “I want to thank you for the delicious fudge you sent. It sure was good! Enjoyed it very much. You are getting to be quite a home-maker! Love, Grandma.”
Grandma can never know about the floor pie. 
“Quite a home-maker” indeed!
I haven’t done as much as I’d intended to today because both my hubby and I have had lousy headaches all day – partly weather induced, but also definitely partly due to all the dust being kicked up by the book sorting. At least I dusted the books before I took them off the shelves; when Papa Tiger attacked his portion of the living room bookcase, he moved the books first and then has been sneezing and snuffling ever since!
We really do need to get a better handle on the dust in this house, however. He’s had chronic sinus problems for several years, and although he’s had every allergy test known to man as well as surgery on his sinuses, he’s still constantly stuffed up. So keeping the dog hair/dust under control can only help.
But we did get 7 full boxes of books, plus some assorted other stuff, delivered to Goodwill – who was very happy to have the stuff neatly boxed since everyone else was delivering loose stuff – and I’ve finished clearing my daughter’s stuff out of the spare bedroom. Now it just needs a vacuuming/dusting and it’ll be good to go. I also did some more picking up in my office, including collapsing a whole bunch of cardboard to go into the recycling.
My biggest problem? I keep wanting to let myself get distracted by small projects – like divvying up and organizing my knitting needles by size – instead of doing the big stuff that needs doing.
The weather is supposed to be dry tomorrow, so I’ll tackle the floors then. Not to mention clearing more crap out of the dining/sewing room. If nothing else, there’s empty suitcases to go back up to the attic; that will clear a whole bunch of floor space! We’ve been far too lazy about replacing stuff in its proper place where we actually do have a place for it; not doing that just makes the rest of the clutter seem even worse, doesn’t it?
Who has a good suggestion for how to get the dust off laminate wood floors, by the way? Much of the house is laminate wood, and I need some way to get dust off it better than just sweeping, which doesn’t last very long. Is there some kind of good damp mopping system out there? Would a Swiffer help? I still don’t know what a Swiffer actually does (other than enchant small kids, who love to Swiffer the floors, by all accounts), so I’m not sure if it’s what I need or not. Anyway, suggestions would be very welcome!
I find that a dustmop works well. A Swiffer is basically a disposable dustmop; it works OK, but IME not if you’ve got large areas to work on, as I do. I have a dustmop that I got at Target; it’s just a duster pad that goes onto my ordinary mop-stick, which is one of those ones where you have a terrycloth mop thingy on it that you can take off for washing. The duster pad is thick and fluffy, with loopys of yarn all around the edge.
I think I said the word mop too often, but I hope you get my meaning.
I’m not doing much today; it’s Sunday and I’ve been doing some happy sewing. Also I went to church, which was about the most unintentionally funny meeting ever. I had to go outside afterwards to calm down and wipe the tears from my eyes, I was dying of laughter.
I have a Swiffer Sweep and Vac, or something like that, and I like it. It’s got a fluffy pad with grooves impressed in it, and you swiff it over the floors and then throw the pad away. The “…and Vac” also has a dustbuster of sorts mounted on it, and it’s good enough to get up Cheerios and cat litter and dustbunnies. I also use the wet pads on it, but they say you’re not supposed to. I swiff with the dry pad and then switch to the wet and use that to mop.
Works pretty well. I like my Roomba better for most of the sweeping, but I won’t be getting rid of the Swiffer - it’s more useful for immediate “Damn, the bag of ginger snaps I was crushing just broke!” jobs (true story - just happened) and getting into some corners that Robby the Roomba can’t quite negotiate.