Thursday, January 13, 2011

Doing the Right Thing, Finally

One of my goals during retirement has been to organize my house. I'll admit it... I have a problem with clutter. I don't like clutter, I don't want to have a problem with clutter. But I also don't like to be too anal about picking up every little thing the minute we put it in the wrong spot. I don't want cleaning my house to consume my every waking moment. So, I look around after a while and realize it has gone beyond "lived in" and has reached "cluttered and messy".

Cluttered and messy doesn't seem to bother my husband, so it's usually up to me to tackle it. And when it gets too bad, it's overwhelming and hard to rev myself up to get started. That's why I've been retired for six months, and I'm just now getting started on this job.

The good news is, I have fixed one room! That's progress. It is our guest room, at least for now. It used to be our son's bedroom. The real guest room is in the basement, but it's still unfinished, so it's not very pleasant. And it currently is lacking a bed. Not very comfortable for a guest.

So here's our cleaned up guest room. I'm liking it! Does it look guest worthy?



I'll bravely show you the before picture, too. Can you believe it? It started out being pretty neat. Then I kept putting my quilting stuff in there "just for now," until I found a permanent spot. Then I set up the table to help me with basting quilts, and later to wrap Christmas gifts. Then knitting grabbed hold of me, and I started putting knitting projects in there "just for now." That's how this happens.



I hope I can keep up the momentum and work the same magic in another room! Wish me luck!

6 comments:

Nancy said...

I can relate to the state of your guest room because that is what my sewing room looked like last week. It is a handy place to put things "just for now," but then they establish residency.

Paula, the quilter said...

I'm going thru a bit of home reno right now and things are so chaotic. Arghhh!

Unknown said...

put a sign on the door that says STOP or NO Junk... I am impressed! I need some time to do this too!

sophie said...

My ex-husband used to believe that the guestroom was "the junk room" (his words, honestly) ... and while I'm not obsessively neat and orderly by any means, during my life with him, I was the neat-nik. It seems in any relationship, one person is destined to become "oscar" and the other "felix."

BrendaLou said...

I'd be proud to be a guest! lovely. We dismantled my sewing room (I sew mostly at the shop anyway) and my husband painted it, put down some new carpeting someone gave us and surprise, surprise! He grabbed furniture and "decor" from other places and we have a lovely guest room. Come see me!

Pattilou said...

It looks great! Super accomplishment there gal!