Next Steps

So, it’s supposed to rain this afternoon, delaying the roof/patio project.

Here’s what’s new:

1. Worked on the attic. Pulled out 6 citronella candles which we’ll use on the porch if and when.
2. With help from DH stacked the drawer units in my office and got a top made for it. Needs to come down because of something we didn’t expect to be a problem, one more time, but at the moment, the drawer units have a top, there’s a “hole” in my office, the bookshelf I’m trying to empty has 2 empty shelves (on the stack and in the drawers).
3. A box of books was removed from the office yesterday and went to the flea market/antique store as was 3 rolls of wallpaper, which sold. There are 2 more boxes of books to remove from my office (well there’s more than that, but there’s 2 more egg boxes).
4. The attic got worked on Saturday. There’s enough room for the trunk in the kitchen to be put away there. I looked at things and decided I wanted to keep the trunk for sale (now in the storage) and take another to the dump, it’s in the worst shape and is currently full of mildewing clothes.(Ick!)
5. For a long time we’ve kept empty boxes for big ticket items. We’ve decided we’re going to limit this, which is good, as it’s just storing air, yes?
6. In the process of working on the trunks, I discovered why the Christmas cull was so easy last December (see here) there were TWO trunks of the stuff in the attic I didn’t touch, sigh. I’m not culling them right now. I have an “island” of stuff to get through in the middle of the attic first. After that, I’ll cull the things along the sides.
7. That said, I’ve already talked about the fact that I needed to cull china. I did. I need to do it again, probably at least 2 more times. There are pieces I’m not sure where they are. There are pieces which I don’t know if they’re really only the 2nd copy or the 5th? There’s at least 2 boxes of china, glass, and other kitchen stuff unaccounted for. When the missing pieces have been located, or given up as lost forever,  then I’ll do another china/glass kitchen cull. For example, the piece of furniture I call my “china cabinet” at the moment has < 10 items in it, not a single piece of china. Still too much in flux to do more than a really minor culling!
8. I have books in my car to give away. They were supposed to be gone last week, but didn’t make it because the car has been full of flea market stuff and the house has been chaos because of people working on the roof. I gave a magazine away yesterday, but that’s pretty much it.

New Antique Booth

The new booth has been a success. So far I’ve sold an enamel lamp shade, 3 canisters, a bowl and a coffee grinder. Roughly the same amount of money as I made last month at the old place. Hopefully, the trend will continue. (I sold a salt & pepper set after I left Sat.)

Because I moved in on 5/31, I got a small check. One day’s rent less the lamp = < $20, but hey a check is  CHECK!!!

Today the flea market was a bust, oh well. Next to no one showed up, customers or vendors. Happens sometimes!

DH and I dragged the empty black trunk out of my office tonight. I cleaned it. It's the trunk in the best condition of a batch of them I bought a few years ago. Most of the rest of them have gone away. There's a blue hobnailed one, which has a square top, that's in the attic. I think the one which used to hold Christmas decorations was taken to the swap shop. If not, it will go to the booth and maybe it will sell? If the other trunk isn't still in the attic, maybe I'll replace it with this one.

[The image is from images.google.com, the url originally was from ebay. This isn't my image or my trunk!]

Not sure yet.

It IS still in the attic and it has had the end of the Christmas decoration boxes in it. I thought I’d gotten rid of that trunk last December!!! Okay, it’s now empty. The few remaining things in it have been sorted into piles: going out/trash, going out/for sale, empty boxes to reuse, 3 small boxes of things to keep. All of the separate categories have been dealt with. When I get a chance (tomorrow) I will pull the trunk out of the attic and clean it, prepatory to taking it to the booth.

My main job tomorrow is to clear one side of the front stone wall, so that the work on our back roof can start on Weds. *grin*!!!

Busy, busy, busy…cull, cull, and cull some more!

J

The Road Goes Ever On. . .

Okay. Today we did the “great fridge move” and pulled the 2nd cabinet out of the kitchen to go to the antique store.

Right this instant, it’s a disaster down there. The fridge part of the big fridge has been cleaned, but not the inside of the door, the freezer section or the outside. The little fridge has been cleaned, relocated, and refilled. The outside of it could use cleaning too, but that’s it. The freezer has had a layer of frost removed from it (I use an ice scraper, the stuff is really soft).

The cabinet is in the middle of the room. The area where it stood has been swept and has been partially refilled with asst. other stuff.

As I said, the kitchen is a disaster. The sink is full of the dishes which haven’t been washed as well as various containers holding “science experiment” foods and containers of food which just need to be pitched and the containers washed.

Clearing the kitchen counters alone is about an hour’s work. That plus the rest: removing things from my car, putting the cabinet/top IN the car along with whatever else I can fit will take some time and effort. I would dearly love to be nearly done for today, but I’m not!

We’re doing some kind of “instant” dinner. Maybe more of the breakfast burritos we bought for flea market mornings (The market opens at 6 a.m. I’m not cooking breakfast at 5 in the morning!)

J

Spring Cleaning

I am slowly, but surely going through the cabinets & drawers in the kitchen. So that I remember what I’ve done (and haven’t) as I’m doing this on an “as possible and I have time” basis, I’m putting labels inside each cabinet or drawer I clean with a note that I did it and the month/year.

I have no idea if this will work in terms of helping me keep things clean. I do something similar when I go through the dry stores and cull them. I put a label on the outside which is the contents and the date, but inside the lid I put a note which tells me when the canister was last cleaned. As some of my dry stores are kept for more than 1 year, it helps me to keep things clean. There’s so much stuff in this house and so many things to clean (shelves, cabinets, drawers, closets, etc.) that this is the only way I’ve found which doesn’t lean on the PTSD and I manage to get some sort of ordered cleaning done. I’ve been doing this off and on for the past year. We’ll see if I can sustain it!

I updated the post I wrote in December (January?) about house decorative items. I’d forgotten that I’d had a goal to reduce the decorative locations from 4 to 3. I’ve done that.

The front door now has my “spring/summer” straw hat on it. It’s a straw hat with fake silk flowers around it as a band. Does two things: it’s nice and spring-like and it’s handy when I’m going out into the garden. I replace the hat on the door when I’m done. No clutter in the house. Nothing extra to store. Works fine.

This post was started a few weeks ago, and I’m still whacking away at the cabinets, counters, drawers, etc. in the kitchen and elsewhere. I defrosted the freezer last week, for example. On the agenda this week is the “great refrigerator move.”

When our big fridge died last year, we moved a small fridge atop a corner cabinet and put it next to the stove. The big fridge was moved off to the side of the room so that it was out of our way and easily accessible for service people. It’s still there. Both of them need to be cleaned and put back into their previous home.

Today I go and talk to someone about new retail space. My problem with the old retail space is that the only consistent way I had to make money was to sell furniture and I don’t sell enough of that to make my overhead more than about 1/2 the time, which is unacceptable. The new shop is brighter (the new location of the antique store is cave-like) and I think suits me better. We’ll see!

The new plan may mean using the Hoosiers as sales fixtures for a while, which would be fine, as it would get them out of here and not in the storage. After the 2 Hoosiers, I have a double dresser/mirror and a wrought iron/marble table to sell, both high-end pieces. If the Hoosier currently in the antique store isn’t going to the new space, then I’ll haul it to the storage today and to the auction house next Tuesday.

After 5 Days

Cleaning up and Clearing every day? There is still too much stuff here. Still it isn’t as clean as I’d like.

So, I think I’ll ask some folks over for a meal this week and see if I can’t get through another spate of culling and cleaning beforehand? I have plans over the weekend, which makes this idea more difficult.

We’ll see?

By Friday last week I was pretty well burnt out. I spent 5 days intensely cleaning and culling, six if you count the flea market on Saturday and the purge after that. Then just cleaning Sunday – Thursday, and by Friday I really didn’t want to do anything more at all.

This past Saturday (2 days ago) we didn’t do as well at the flea market as we had the first week, but we still did it AND donated a batch o’ stuff to the Salvation Army afterwards.  Then I stopped at the market and bought the groceries for our lunch company the next day.

Sunday DH did a dump run early, which was good: the bins were full, there were 2 bags of garbage (our usual is 1) and things to donate.

 

New Leaf

Determined to get the house at least marginally cleared out and cleaned this week. We’ll see how I do!

I’ve tackled part of the laundry room this morning. The plan is to at least run the laundry during the day, pretty continually, until I get the backlog done.

After that? The dining room. Then the kitchen storage area. Then the kitchen, hall, living room and entry.

By that time I figure it will be Friday!

I’ll track what I’ve done below.

Monday – this morning I took everything off the washer/dryer and put in a tool box with the idea that the box would contain the “stuff” which had littered the shelves. It works, and doesn’t work exactly the way I’d hoped. We’ll see what DH says!

Tuesday – Took everything off the “cat bench” (cat food, cat feeding station, recycling bins). Cleaned it all, put it all back so it’s tidy. Started cleaning off the table and the floor area under it.

Wednesday – More off the table, more floor space cleared, took a track light track, some cooking aluminum pieces (bread and entree pans/lids) to the swap shop along with a few books. More items intended for the flea market Saturday were put in the car. Dining room is nearly clean. Started working on the kitchen storage area. Came up with a plan to deal with the fragile and previously broken piece which has been on the table for months.

Thursday – Dining room is clean. Kitchen storage is clean. Left to do downstairs: kitchen, hall, and living room. Some of which will be pretty fast, as they’ve been done before. Not going to be fast: someway to deal with the coffee table in the hallway. Not sure how that will be fixed.

Friday – Today’s job is the hall/living room. Which leaves the landing, bath, and office for tomorrow.

Saturday – Tackled the living room and some of the sunroom, more of the kitchen. Recleaned the bathroom and swept the stairs.

Sunday – We had company. Finished up the living room.

Loads washed: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Loads taken upstairs to be put away: 1, 2, 3,

Loads put away: 1, 2

Items culled: 2 plastic baskets, a second box of washing soda, out of date food items. One measuring cup, a breadstick crock, soup crock, crate, some clothes, some magazines, a few craft items, a few books,

Items used which had been unused: tool box, 2 glass photo trays, 2 bowls, 1 aluminum pot w/lid, 4 plastic bins & lids,

Rooms worked on: laundry room, dining room, kitchen, upstairs bathroom, stairs, entry, sun room, kitchen storage, living room, hallway, sunroom.

So?

We sold a bunch o’ stuff and donated a bunch more. My biggest frustration is that I either 1)donated the accounting with the things we donated or 2)put it into the storage unit with the items we returned there. At any rate, it isn’t in the cars. Fortunately, I DO know exactly what I took in money-wise, as I was doing a running tally with every sold item. I had $x until just before we packed and I thought that was it, and sold another item for $5 last thing. The money checked out the way it should (start cash + sales = expected $) and I would have been very surprised if it hadn’t.

But it’s annoying in the extreme that I don’t have the actual tally. I can only recreate about 1/3 of it out of my head, what sold and for what, and I’ve done that. Hopefully the stupid piece of paper is in the storage and I’ll find it tomorrow. Otherwise I have the partial tally and I’ll have to put something like (unknown qty/items) sold for $xx.xx in my accounting, and I really don’t want to do that.

The flea market was a success, both in terms of selling things and doing a major cull o’ stuff.

Obviously, however, I have some work to do yet on actually getting organized. Or, more accurately, getting organized for not in a store event. I will probably just go buy another receipt book as that always worked before. It isn’t records I have a problem with, it’s when they’re on odd sheets of paper. I’ll fix it.