Bookshelves…part one

Well, I’ve been trying to get round to it for a few days, but today I finally got the bookshelves in place in the bedroom.  Or the frames, at least:

Bookshelf frames
Bookshelves! They will look a lot better when they’ve got books on them.

These are Ikea Billy bookshelves that we’ve had for well over a decade – Geth adopted them from his PhD supervisor when he was living in his first flat in Edinburgh, circa 2004.  As such, they’re made in a slightly different way from modern Billy bookshelves, which was fun when I was trying to remember how to put them together earlier!  I’ve not put the shelves or books on yet, because I want to live with the frames for a couple of days and see if there are any issues such as always bumping into bookshelf corners etc., as it’s quite a small bedroom.

Assuming no such issues, I will get it done later this week though.  It’ll be nice to have access to some of our books again.

Shoe storage!

One of the shelving projects that Dad and I (mostly Dad) did over the weekend was for my shoes.  Even though I got rid of a lot of shoes, I still need a good amount of storage for my remaining 59 62 pairs, especially as I’ve been on a bit of a shoe binge lately (though I think I’m satiated for now).  Some of my pairs are ‘legacy shoes’ (i.e. old pairs I’ll never wear again but am keeping in storage boxes or on display for sentimental reasons), and there are a couple of pairs for gardening that I’m keeping in the cupboard off the kitchen, and my dancing shoes live in my gym bag, and my running shoes tend to stay in the Skubb hanger I bought for the hallway…but that still leaves a good 48 pairs that needed a place to live in the dressing room.  Which they now have:

Shoe storage
Dad built the shelves, out of our old Billy bookcases, to fit around the wardrobes, chests of drawers and mirror that I have in the dressing room.

As you can see, there’s plenty space for more, which is probably a good thing knowing me.

Shoe storage
My shelf for all my tall goth boots.
Shoe storage
The wall is looking nice and colourful now though it probably needs a few more pairs.

It’s very nice having all my shoes to hand.  Of course, since I put them all up, it’s been pouring with rain and I’ve not been out (save for a very wet run this morning) so I’ve been living in my slippers indoors.  It will be good to get some use out of them once the weather clears up, though!

Shelves!

We built the Ikea Kallax wall for the boardgame collection today!

Kallax boardgame storage
Boardgame storage extraordinaire!

I designed this mishmash of Ikea Kallax units to fit our dining area space a few weeks ago, and ordered the requisite Kallaxes in the big Ikea order.  I built the individual units over the last couple of days, and today my dad came and bolted them all together to make a nice solid structure.  It got a bit tricky, involving having to shave bits off where the wall width was uneven, but the finished result looks amazing (and Geth finally has access to the boardgames again, which will keep him very happy).

We also started building some shoe storage, but that’s mainly a project for tomorrow!

New shiny things

After a couple of days of dribs and drabs of small deliveries of house stuff, the big Ikea order arrived today!  Most of it (I’ve already assembled the replacement lamp) is still sitting in the middle of the living room, as there’s no space to assemble the units or put them in their eventual places yet.  And just when I thought I’d reclaimed that bit of living room floor.  Oh well.

I also finally finished the wardrobe cull.  It’s amazing how much stuff I realised I just didn’t like or want to wear, and in total I’ve probably got rid of about 75% of my clothes.  To be fair, I am now spending a lot of time online, fantasy shopping for replacements, but I’m trying to be good and only (mostly) buying things I actually need.

Now that the Ikea order is here, one thing I can do is start putting stuff into its proper storage boxes.  Hopefully I’ll have a properly functioning dressing room, at least, by the end of the week!

(Justified) excessive spending

I spent a lot of money at Ikea and other homewares suppliers today.  There should be lots and lots of shiny packages arriving this week.  It’s all stuff we need for the house, though, so I don’t feel guilty about it (I know I shouldn’t ever feel guilty about spending money on stuff I want as long as I can afford it, but broke girl habits die hard!).

I bought new shelving (the Kallax units for the boardgames, plus a couple of things for upstairs), a new kitchen bin (I’m fed up of the ridiculous balancing act required by our current small one), a lamp to replace one of the ones that packed in earlier this week, a magazine rack for the downstairs toilet, hanging shoe storage for our tiny hallway, a wardrobe rail to replace a broken one in the wardrobe that came with the house, a new rug for the dressing room, a chair and mirror for my dressing table (my old director’s chair that I got for my ninth birthday has sadly seen its last days), hooks and other stuff for making jewellery storage, and approximately 1,000 pretty storage boxes for the various shelves in the house.  I’m so excited about the packages.  All the packages.

I’m not done with homewares buying yet, but I definitely think that’s enough for this week.

Storage junkie-ism

We’re having to buy a lot of new stuff for the house anyway, so I’ve just treated myself to some new makeup storage:

Sorbus makeup storage
Sorbus Acrylic Cosmetics Makeup and Jewellery Storage Case X-Large Display Sets. I had to copy ‘n’ paste that ridiculously long name off the Amazon website.

It’s going to sit on my dressing table, once I unbury the dressing table.  And buy a new mirror for the dressing table.  And buy some new lights for the dressing table – well, it’ll live there eventually.  In the meantime, it’ll have to perch precariously on the bathroom windowsill.  I don’t mind, though, ’cause it’s pretty, and I’ve been desperately wanting to organise something pretty – everything else is so functional and crammed in at the moment.

Also, all my lamps have decided to pack in at the same time for some reason, so I’m currently sitting in the dark.  I will be doing the giant Ikea order this weekend, so hopefully there will be more storage organising (and light) soon.

Tetris and other block puzzles

You know those games (physical or digital) where you have to get a ball from one end of the board/screen to the other by moving blocks around so you can slowly work the ball through the path?  I’m terrible at them.  It always takes me ages.

That’s how I’ve felt about working on the new house for most of the last week.

The current project is to get everything into its correct room, if not its correct place.  What this means is I’m just constantly moving boxes around, trying to clear paths for other things to be moved through, filling one room and then another in an attempt just to have some tiny space to manoeuvre stuff.  It’s really tiring, and I feel like I’m going round in circles.

A big part of the problem is that there’s so much stuff that doesn’t have a place yet.  We’re going to be building new wall shelves out of our old Ikea Billy bookshelves to house the DVDs, videogames and some of the books, and I’ve designed a wall of Ikea Kallax units for the boardgame collection.  As such, until these units are in place, our books, DVDs, videogames and boardgames have to stay in boxes, and there’s a lot of them.

I know, logically, I am making headway.  I’ve spent today making rows of all the boxes that go in different areas, so once Geth gets home tonight and helps me with a couple of heavy lifting jobs, I’ll be able to fill the study with all the Stuff That Goes In The Study (as opposed to the all-kinds-of-everything totally random stuff that was in there before) and use that as a dumping ground to help me sort out other rooms.  After that, over the next couple of days, I can move my magazine Kallax upstairs, then move all the boardgame boxes to the space where their Kallax storage is going to live, and that will mean there’s a bit more breathing room around the piles of boxes of books and DVDs that are currently having to stay in the living room.

The whole thing really is doing wonders for my hoarding habit though.  I can’t wait to start sorting through things properly and getting rid of stuff.

One step at a time.  It’s just frustrating when there are so many steps.

Slowly getting back to normal

Well, it’s taken some work, but I have now cleared enough space in the living room that Geth and I are currently able to have a normal-ish evening (for us).

What this looks like:

  1. Geth has enough space on the living room floor to play boardgames, so he’s dug out the Star Wars: Imperial Assault collection.  It’s keeping him very quiet, so I foresee many blissfully peaceful evenings from now on!
  2. I’m playing my recordings of BBC Four’s ’80s Top of the Pops repeats on the TV.  The open-plan setup of the downstairs makes this really sociable, and I’m quite excited about the eventual way we will have everything set up – with Geth playing solo boardgames on the table in the dining area, and me watching music stuff on the TV, yet still being able to chat to each other.
  3. I finally have access to the hearth as I’ve cleared all the stuff in front of it, so I’ve lit a scented candle, which I’ve been wanting to do for weeks.  Small luxuries and all.  The next step is to get the fire actually working!

The aim is to have enough space cleared by the end of the week that I can measure the space in the dining area accurately enough that I know what the Kallax boardgame storage is going to encompass, so I can get the big Ikea order placed.  Exciting!

Our new house…

…is gradually, very gradually, starting to feel like home.  Sort of.

I spent most of today dismantling the old Ikea Billy bookshelves that we don’t have space for anymore.  The plan is to make new ones out of them, but I’ll get my dad’s advice on that when he’s visiting later this week.  I also put one Billy up in the living room as temporary shelving next to the TV.  If I like the way it looks long-term it may get a reprieve.  It’s currently holding all our ornaments, which sounds frivolous but actually has the useful function of giving us some time to work out which ones we like looking at enough to keep.

Boxes are also getting unpacked a bit quicker than expected.  This is mainly because twice a day I realise that I need something, but don’t know which exact box it’s in, so I have to go through a few before I find the thing.  There’s not really anywhere for the stuff to go yet, but I am finding a lot of temporary solutions.

This week should be a real breakthrough, as once my parents have visited, we will have the walls painted upstairs, meaning that we can get the furniture finalised up there, meaning that I can get all our clothes and accessories put away.  Well, in my case, about 40% of them.  Dear God, I have far too many clothes.  The amount I’ve pulled out of boxes this week has been enough to send anyone screaming into the night.  The main reason I’m so impatient to get to my target weight is that I can’t wait for the giant trying-everything-on-and-then-getting-rid-of-most-of-it session that I’m not allowed to have until then.  You never know what might suddenly look awesome at target, so I’m not allowed to chuck anything out till then, no matter how old and scraggy it is.

(I realised yesterday that one of my current-rotation bras is about twenty years old, judging by the style of the M&S label.  Somehow, I don’t think it will survive the cull.)