Category: Home Improvement

On with the cull

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I spent today getting on with my wardrobe cull.  I got rid of a lot of dresses, underwear, scarves and hats, and a lot more shoes – I’ve now got the previous total down to 59 pairs.  That’s a pretty big drop, and it means my new shoe shelves will look really neat and uncluttered.

Well, at least until I replace all the thrown-out pairs with new ones!

No, I’m kidding.  Like with everything else in the house, I’ll be instituting a one-in one-out rule once my shelves are full, in order to avoid things getting back into the chaotic hoarding state that has made this house move so stressful.  Neither Geth nor I have ever been in the habit of throwing things away, but that has to change from now on, for my own sanity.

I’m quite looking forward to seeing what it’s like to live without mounds of stuff everywhere!

(Justified) excessive spending

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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.

De-hoarding

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Well, I didn’t want to start doing the mega wardrobe cull until I’d hit my Slimming World target, but after weeks of chaos upstairs with having to clamber over stuff and not being able to find anything, I admitted defeat and started putting stuff in binbags and donation bags today.

I’ve come a long way with my hoarding problem over the years, but I still find it hard to let go of stuff, especially clothes.  I think it’s partly because I was so broke for so many years post-graduation – during that time, even a £5 Primark top was a hard-earned purchase, and it feels almost disrespectful to my struggling younger self just to toss the item away, even if it’s old and full of holes.

I’ve been trying to mitigate this by using the digital hoarding method – taking a photo of each piece so that I still ‘have’ it.  I’ll probably never look at these photos again, but knowing they’re there makes getting rid of the physical stuff a lot easier.

I threw out a lot of shoes today.  My previous total of 91 pairs first went up to 95 pairs, because I found four pairs that I thought I’d previously thrown out but it turned out I hadn’t.  I’ve now got it down to 77 pairs, and I reckon I’ll be able to get it down further when I finish the cull job tomorrow.  It’s especially tough to get rid of shoes, because I love shoes, but I’m trying just to keep thinking about the lovely neat shoe shelves I’ll be able to have up in the dressing room (not to mention, I must confess, the shiny new pairs I’ll be able to buy).

The biggest motivation for all this de-hoarding is the fact that I can’t wait for the house to look nice and uncluttered, so that I can finally relax and properly feel like this is home.

Storage junkie-ism

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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

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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

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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!

Return of the 50ft Shoe Monster

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I’d almost forgotten about my extensive shoe collection (89 pairs 91 pairs!  I forgot about the two new pairs I bought last week).  It was the first thing I packed back in January, so it’s been hidden in boxes for some time, and the shoes are only now making their reappearance.

The thing is, they won’t have anywhere to live until I build some custom shoe shelves in the dressing room, so until then, they’re just going to have to snake around the upstairs rooms, maliciously tripping people up.

Shoes in bags
They looked so innocent when I was packing them away.

I’m definitely going to get rid of most of them some of them a few, but I need to build my shelves first to see what will fit.

My possibly temporary ornament shelf

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No phone box tonight, ’cause I did promise some house pictures.  This is a start:

Ornament shelf
All of our ornaments (well, all the ones I’ve come across in the unpacking so far) sitting on an Ikea Billy shelf, which may or may not live there long-term.

Once we have access to the hearth (it’s currently hidden behind various shelving units and a hoover), I really should start using all my candles and incense and various other home fragrance stuff.  Having it on these shelves instead of stashed away in boxes will hopefully remind me that it’s there to be used.

Yet another busy day spent home improving

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I am that lucky girl who has the world’s best dad.

Today, between three of us (mostly Dad doing the work, with me playing assistant and Geth doing the heavy lifting) we got the master bedroom walls finalised, the other two bedrooms painted white, and the bed assembled.  This last bit was more difficult than expected, as the bed had lost a few fixings during its time in the last house (I thought I’d found them all while I was dissembling the thing in a rush on the morning of moving day, but we were missing a few); however, Dad found fixes for everything, and we now have a working bed that we’ll be able to sleep on again from tomorrow night.

The other two rooms, meanwhile, look so much better for a fresh coat of white paint, and I’m really looking forward to getting them set up with furniture and contents.  The unexplained smell that was hanging around upstairs has also disappeared since the paint went up, which is great, and the whole area just feels so much more welcoming and homely now.

Tomorrow’s job will be getting the furniture upstairs sorted.  I may even get round to sorting out some photos so you can see what I’m talking about!