apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I'm up to my elbows in my kitchen, and it's not going well. I have wiped down all of my small appliances, but I don't really want to put them back where I had them before.

I also took all of the food I had stored in various places. I don't have tons, so there wasn't much to get rid of...the fridge may be another story.

I have a set of shelves in a corner holding my pots and pans, and it's bugging me as well. I wouldn't mind putting the pots and pans where the appliances were, except that I hate that piece too, and I'm not sure where the appliances would move to.

I have to keep hitting it in small doses, because it's frustrating if I stand in the middle of it for too long.

On the up side, I did buy flowers today, and they are currently brightening my turret table.

I have also put a couple of things in the outbox and am looking at a few more before the kitchen is finished.

I tackled the cabinet where I keep my dishes, and the countertop under the cabinets. I edited my dishes severely - I had about 25 bowls in the cabinet taking up tons of space (before & after pics are linked to my name) and I'm starting to shift the way I think about my "everyday" dishes. My Dad made most of the bowls I have, and they are all precious to me, but I don't need to eat out of ALL of them. I kept the ones that are similar colours and stack nicely in the cabinets, and the others will go elsewhere in the house. Where, I don't know, but that's to be decided this weekend when I go through the Outbox.

I also had a surplus of wine glasses. I decided to keep about 20 of them, because I'd like to use them occasionally for cocktail parties, so I moved a lot of them to an upper cabinet that is only accessible by stepstool. That way they aren't cluttering the cabinets that I use every day. Some of them (the ones that say "oktoberfest 2004") are going to the goodwill.

I feel really good about what I've done already, but there is a huge amount still to do in the kitchen. I have Monday off and no other committments, so I hope to get finished then.

This worked out well, as I was planning on doing this to the kitchen anyway. I'm doing the deep treatment even though the apartment scored well on the self-test, because I want to tweak what I have. I took before pics, will post them later (35mm film still!) and then cleaned all the floors. Of course, nothing is in quite the same place, but I'm closer to what I want.

I will focus on the pantry tonight, as it is decently deep closet & I have a hard time staying aware of what is back there. I'll probably be 'cooking out of the pantry' this week, to use what I find that is still good. For the record, I already cook at home daily. Tonight we are making pumpkin bread for snacking, the house will smell great!

since i spent last weekend on crazy kitchen duty, and tomorrow is fun fun pasta day (i'm whipping up a pesto sauce tonight because i'm not sure my bouquets of basil are going to hold out another day), i've decided that my only act of kitchen purging this weekend is to try to trick my roommate into cleaning the fridge. i did the 'get rid of old dry goods and mismatched dishes' thing a couple months ago, so we're still set with that.

i've had an outbox corner in my room for months, inspired by the first go-round of the cure. i tend to use it more for things i'm pretty sure i don't want, rather than a testing ground for things i maybe do. i'm actually pretty good about editing and letting go -- which is funny, because i'm a 'warm' person in every other way. right now i've got two things in it -- a piece of crew swag i neither want, use, nor have room for, and a chair that was replaced ages ago when i got new dining chairs, but which has been in my room just sorta "because" ever since. it won't work as a desk chair and we don't need more random seating in the rest of the apartment. it's ok as a chair, but i don't love it, so it must go. i'm letting it stay around until i set up my desk area in the bedroom in a few weeks.

Amy in Richmond - Thanks for the comments on the pic. The liquor looks much more impressive than it actually is, most of it is either nearing the end of the bottle or really cheap crap, guess we'll need to restock! 8-) The bulk storage is from Ikea. We've stacked two on top of each other. My DH dreams of having bulk bins on the wall that he can push the little lever to dispense whatever is in them, but this will have to do. ;-)

Well, the kitchen purge didn't happen today. I magically slept 14.5 hours last night without even trying. I didn't really want to sleep that long! Then I spent some quality time with DH and now I have to go to work. Hopefully tomorrow! (Plus, DH did the dishes--woohoo!)

ok, it turns out we're not set with the "getting rid of old dry goods" at all. while checking to see what we had in the way of pine nuts for my pesto, i discovered open bags of dry lentils and chickpeas! my roommate's parents came to visit a few weeks ago from India, and they trashed the kitchen (mostly because they're just not used to how urban american kitchens work in terms of recycling, vermin control, tight storage, etc). i did a lot of damage control right after they left, but i didn't realize the extent of it. guess this is why our little four legged friends were so eager to come back...

You have to put everything in containers?

I quess you do. Hadn't thought about that before...cockroaches and so on are pretty rare here--and yes, I'm in urban N.A. city--though not an uber-urban city like NY!

I have a post about my progress on the previous thread (I'm always late to the party. I'm used to it)--but I'm tackling the second half of the upper--

I think I have two bottles of every vinegar known to mankind.

OK--my right arm has officially fallen off.

Someone else is going to have to put all that crap back in the cupboards.

I have no right arm.

from the last thread, about all your matching creamers and sugar bowls -- maybe you keep thinking you don't have a set because they're back in a cupboard somewhere, then you go out and get another, stick it in another little niche, lather, rinse, repeat?

do they match your dishes?

now what i'm wondering is how it's possible to have so many tupperware containers with no tops. did i buy them that way or something?

also, yeah, i need to get all the beans, lentils, flours, etc. into containers or at least something that can be sealed. i have dry goods canisters, but between baking stuff and rice, pastas, lentils, etc. we have more different kinds of things than containers. and you know what that means -- the container store!

speaking of dry goods storage, I just bought some great glass w/widemouth metal screw top jars (squarish, and kinda retro). They were about $5 each. I think the sugar and flour will go in there, although there's not nearly as much counter space as I thought there was (target makes me hallucinate, and then I get back to reality when I step inside my teeny space).

And! I got my package from reprodepot. The fabric - covered canvas went together easily (who knew I had thumbtacks in my toolbox?) and the wall above the couch is no longer bare. PLUS I have tons of extra fabric to make throw pillows or something.

Hah! Did some more weeding in the kitchen, we're respectable in the pots/pans department again now. Also weeded the kitchen linens which we seem to accumulate too quickly and confuse with the cleaning rags slightly too often. I'm trying to have out only stuff that gets used on a very regular basis (blender and kettle just about every day, knives almost every day, etc.) and that is working well so far.

Still no idea of a better tupperware storage system, we have SO MUCH and it's a little bit ridiculous. I think there is no realistic way to corral the lids, I try to keep them stacked by size and whatnot but it never lasts.

Incidentally, has anyone ever gone to a clock repair shop? I have a lovely old art deco style desk clock that I'd love to have cleaned and be able to use (it was my grandad's) but I'm worried at how expensive it will be. I'm trying to do the whole "repair" thing. I replaced my front door sweep b/c it's the worst draft in the house and finally finished touching up the paint on the front door.

Clearly it's break time.

Well, no, I didn't buy these creamers and sugars--well except for one set, antiquing with dh.....that's what's so odd. But yes, whenever I needed a creamer--I could never find it!

Do you think SKGR could pass along a "kid-friendly" recipe for lentils? I found two unopen bags and two open!

I also found three boxes of that stuff you use to make freezer jam--guess how many years I didn't get the raspberries picked in time?


Oh and I had two open bags of spaghetti. Dh decided to cook some for supper--passed me the bags to put away--one forward, one backwards--and you guessed it--I turned them on end--and whoosh--half a bag on the floor.

Anybody ever play "kerplunk? Sort of looks like that. Anyway we just left it (nobody likes cold spaghetti)--and, right now I think the kids are trying target practice with it--they're missing the garbage can anyway and it's flying into the dining room here beside me.

Gotta go.....

well that much less you have to find room for, i guess.

so wait, other people have given you creamer sets identical to the one you bought yourself while antiquing? that's crazy!

and it's funny from the last thread, you mentioned having several sets of food coloring kits -- i remember being a kid and needing them all the time for different projects, and never having any. it was like the one ingredient we never had on hand...

i have embarrassingly old and expired canned goods and i'm wondering how to get rid of them. it seems like i have to open and dump them -- any other thoughts?
thanks in advance.

Lol. No, no, opo, they aren't the same. One set is pressed glass with flaking gold edging (dh and I found those)--I have this sugar bowl in my cupboard ready to go all the time--then I have a silver set (currently the creamer is holding coloured stones, the sugar bowl has beans in it for counting).

Those I knew about, --the surprise was a beautiful ceramic set from a relative when dh and I got married. I thought I'd decluttered it a long time ago. It is gorgeous...just not my taste.

We just don't run with the creamer and sugar set, ya know?

Anyway...the kids got most of their spaghetti mess picked up--but I know I'll be finding bits of it all over for the next few days!

I spent all day running errands, and I bought a bunch of stuff, none of which can be put in place tonight. It's all waiting on other parts, that need to be purchased from yet more stores.

sigh.


On the otherhand, I've gotten a bunch of really helpful comments on my design dilemmas. It makes me think that maybe I can pull this off, afterall.

Thanks, everyone!

You can do it anna--just a bit more chaos and then...bliss.

Canned good never expire. If they aren't dinted or rusty, just wipe up the lids, throw them in a grocery bag and take them to your local food bank drop off.

And about the clock: I would think any reputable watch repair place could handle it. Here, I take mine to Sears.

Just checking in. I had a major repair come up that clogged up my whole place and put a pall on my Cure efforts. Most of that should finish up and clear out tomorrow. So, I'm still going to do my second Cure/deep cleaning. I will skip a few things this time, since I did them last time, such as touching all the walls. And I've updated my repair list, much of which didn't get finished last round.

Here's my Dumb as Toast confession for the weekend -- we wanted to do a one-room remedy on the more-or-less empty patio. So yesterday I looked out at the rain (yes, rain!) and realized that when I'd skipped "sit in an area you never use" because we use the whole place... uh... we had never sat on the patio. No wonder I can't get a grip on it.

I unpacked with the Cure book in hand so that the place *won't* need Curing later -- while that puts me off schedule, it's a HUGE help in setting priorities. It was the #1 reason that the bedroom was "done" to tidiness on the first day, so we'd have space that was peaceful, also why we now have a second living room floor lamp.

Guilty as charged on lack of color... though there's more blue in the bedroom than the photo shows, the living room is still in flux, trying to switch the emphasis from red accessories to green accessories while using the same stuff. Everything was accessorized "warm" in San Francisco to compensate for the chilly climate, and here it has to go "cool" so people don't collapse from dehydration halfway to the sofa.

Well, yesterday I popped into Target and bought a pack of cabinet knobs and will install them today on all the kitchen cabinets. Today I'm going out in search of a nice little curtain for that small window.

My next big thing now is cleaning (washing the walls, tiles, all surfaces). I think I will lose my right arm as well.

after the second week in a row where i don't actually have much curing to do because i'm set in whatever particular department (and flipping through the book to see that there's more of that ahead), i'm kinda thinking about doing something a bit unorthodox.

i'm going to finish out week three of the deep treatment, and then switch mid-stream to the one room remedy on my bedroom. i do want to figure out thelanding strip, which is why i'm doing week three rather than just switching right now. i might also end up rearranging the living room, but that may or may not happen during the next 6 weeks, and it probably won't require either deep treatment tasks or one-room concentration. it's just rearranging and adding/rehanging some art.

sure, i could use a Fall deep-clean, but i feel like my bedroom is a lot more important right now than reorganizing the cupboards and fixing the merely cosmetic damage to the bathroom door. right now i have the money to spend (to an extent) and the support of all of yall to help me get this done.

all that said, i took up the landing strip with R this morning, and he's rather gung ho. which is good, because i figured he'd find the idea of shoe areas and bag cubbies and all that a bit twee. it looks like we're going to set up some sort of shoe station, and i'd still like to find a good home for our bags and umbrellas littered around the living room.

The landing strip has been the other lifesaver concept while moving. Ours moves about every three days as I rearrange the furniture, but at least bills and checks can't get very *far* lost.

Having utterly failed at finding nice cut flowers that aren't brilliant autumn oranges (stores here over-compensate for the lack of seasons), we at least put a eucalyptus wreath on the outside of our Dead End for All Feng Shui front door. It's not the most creative answer ever, but since it's non-seasonal, it doesn't add to storage needs, and it's Not Beige.

The minute I find an orchid that's less than $25, it's coming home.

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for you very helpful advice! The conclusion seems to be that focusing on the bedroom is the thing to do. I do have a budget for some new furniture (planning to get some stuff for years bug I have such a hard time deciding) And I took the quiz as Alana suggested - my overall number is pretty high so that confirms it. And thanks to this picture:

http://la.apartmenttherapy.com/la/fall-colors-2006-southwest/13-lizzs-warm-handsome-apartment-013416

I now have an idea about how to encorporate a big-ish black flat-streen TV into a room without it being an eyesore!

In general, I'm insanely impressed with how much everyone is getting done - my major accomplishment for this weekend has been packing up some returns and gifts I've been meaning to ship out for weeks.

Dh and I took one look at the oven and decided to do it tomorrow!

Instead he's happily touching up spots on the woodwork where paint has scuffed off and I'm wandering around wondering what to do next.

We also had a dicussion about buying a piece of furniture and decided not to do it--so I'm feeling a bit bummed. I was looking forward to the thrill of instant gratification!

How is everybody today?
Sure seems quiet!

Weekend update: I found dining chairs! On Saturday, the SO and I sat in practically every dining chair in Ikea, including ones that I had skipped over before. The Ingolf in a lovely tomato red was the clear winner! I don't know why I passed it by before. :-p I'll go back to buy a pair tomorrow after work. Now I just need to pick a curtain fabric for the kitchen window. Eek.

I touched all of the walls in my place and found a few pockets of space in the bedroom that had been hiding behind doors, but I'm not sure what to do with them. I'll think about it some more when the Cure gets to the bedroom.

Oh, and pictures of the cleaned up pantry are on my flickr account (link in my name). I'm off to clean up the dining table and get some knitting done!

Today I put the ironing board out by the trash; I've been using a mini tabletop ironing board. I made the list of repairs. The only one I could do was replacing the light bulbs over the kitchen table. I can't reach the overhead light in the kitchen and I forgot to ask my tall friend to do it when he was here. I might have been able to tighten the knobs on my cabinet doors but I don't have the right kind of screwdriver.

My bike has been in the outbox ever since I got it; I just didn't know it was an outbox. :) I'm not ready to give it up yet, even though it's only purpose is to add to the clutter. I was going to put all of the books I can't fit on my 2 bookcases in the outbox until I remembered I had emptied the bookshelf in my bedroom when I bought the 2 in the livingroom -- so I don't have to give any books up yet.

Just thought I'd check in before starting on the kitchen. Sounds like everybody is doing well.

I've made a new floor plan for the living room, which I think will make the room look larger. Currently the couch is across the room length wise, with the new arrangement it will turn 90' so the back will be to the wall. And it works better with the new layout to have a soft comfy rug. I miss being able to stretch out on the floor and this will work better. I just need to get more cable wire so I can move the TV; I'll see later about have the cable run thru the walls.

I've cleaned the pantry, 'cleaned' computer clutter, and now I just need to hit hotspots & get the rusty medicine cabinet painted. And my football team won! Yay!

not much to report here, my outbox got emptied after a trip to the thrift store. Those people must either love me or totally hate me. Or maybe they just think I'm weird. But the tax deductions definitely love me.

The heat should come on any day now, so I made sure to store any items that have been living on the radiators in a better place. with my newly-clean bedroom closet, that was an easy task!

Oh, and we passed the "cook a meal at home" stage with flying colors - after going to the folk festival yesterday, and seeing all manners of food on a stick, we made chicken shish kebabs w/brown rice (in a hand-me down rice cooker). Tonight was party night at an old friend's. I'm planning to read week three tonight before bed to do some brainstorming as I go to sleep.

Well, between my last post and this, dh and I attempted our "one repair."

whoooohooooo! We tackled the worn spots on the wood floor in the living room. After much careful and cautious trial and error we got it done.

Dh says, "It's good to know we can do something."

Thank you, Maxwell!
I think he got it!

homemade pasta & cheese & pesto.

it's nights like this i feel i could totally live off the land.

found a hilarious 50's bar cart in the neighborhood secondhand shop. it will be my new bookshelf. yay, dramatically fewer crates in my bedroom!

i'm all about repurposing things, but right after posting my change of plans earlier, i noticed that, except for my bed and dresser, everything else in my bedroom is some form of crate. the 'oh, hey, i can turn these crates into some temporary storage!' thing is great for, like, the first month you live somewhere. and then a year later it just looks like you haven't really unpacked.

Good for you, opo.

I remember one year I used three crates for a bedside table (I tried burning a candle inside one of them once--what a stench when the plastic melted!)I used two more as a dresser--one for socks, one for underwear. Everything else hung off the 6 foot clothes rod hung along the end of the room for the "closet."

So, yeah, I was only there a year, and that was, oh, heck, omigosh, almost twenty years ago now? (I hate it when I realsie how "old" I really am!)

Anyway--my point is: I still have ten crates holding stuff in my basement. In fact, I have two stacked and use them as a place to put the laundry basket when I'm folding clothes into it.

So good for you for taking steps to get rid of them--else you may just have them, still, 20 years from now, they're such dang useful, but, oh so ugly, things.

Kitchen photos up. It was satisfying to work on this space, even though there are things still to be done.

I edited my dishes pretty severely, all those extra mugs, a teapot with a chunk missing from the rim, handpainted wineglasses with paint that flakes if you look at it wrong...

I moved a set of shelves into the bedroom (possibly future linen storage) and rearranged my small appliances and pots and pans.

I went shopping, obsessing over pendant light possibilities, and ended up with a lidded stoneware casserole dish, a serving platter, and a baking sheet, none of which are duplicates of anything I had before.

Cleaning out the fridge was probably the most difficult part of the kitchen assignmet. I have a hard time figuring out how much food I should have on hand at any given moment. It doesn't help that I don't cook much, I find myself skipping meals a lot, just because. I need to find a better way to manage meals and food consumption.

That said, I made the spaghetti squash recipe from The Kitchen this evening. The only problem, other than not really having a proper squash-cutting knife, was that my oven set off my smoke alarms until I opened a window and my back door. I will make it again, and I've actually been researching recipes.

Here's hoping I can keep the momentum going.

hmm I can't even start on my kitchen until weds I have midterms.

hey, there's nothing wrong with a wee bit 'o crate every now and again. they're really ideal for storage. just not really the classiest for bookshelves, nightstands, task chairs...

but, yeah, there was a time not so long ago when every bit of furniture i owned consisted of milk crates and a rickety old futon on a metal frame.

so it's very exciting for me to announce: right now, my bedroom is completely devoid of plastic milk crates! i got everything onto the bar cart except for one wooden crate which will be emptied with a bit more rearranging. i'm also still using this cool antique dairy crate as a nightstand, which probably won't change. but no more crappy scavenged mismatched plastic.

I must confess that I finally just finished Week 1. Well, sort of... I didn't do the kitchen floors yet since I figured I'll do them after I deep clean the kitchen. I realize it's tougher to do this if you share your apartment, but luckily my aptmate rarely makes a mess outside of his room. Except for the kitchen. We'll see how it goes. Thinking about my kitchen is a bit daunting.

What am I supposed to do with the mugs, cups, and dishes that don't match?

Put them in your outbox, Marilyn. You can make a decision about them later.

Well, with the deadline staring me in the face, this afternoon I put ABBA Gold on the stereo (desperate times call for desparate measures), and tackled the kitchen.

The big triumph was realizing that if I replaced the awkward glass lemon juicer with a handheld reamer, I could fit the rice cooker in one of the cabinets. Haloo! Hallay! Oh Frabjous day!

I also found another crome shelf unit that is short enough to slide under the work table, replacing the blue rubbermaid bin that was serving as a pantry before.

floors will have to wait for another day, but I unleashed my inner tweaker on the tea kettle and made it shine like the top of the chrysler building.

Alana - Congratulations on the floor! It must feel great to get that taken care of.

Wende - Sometimes grocery stores have a more interesting selction of potted plants - cyclamen, crocuses, narcissus, etc. - than cut flowers. When they get tired you can just put them on the patio :)

Wrtmaus - the best way to cut squash is to use a rubber mallet to tap your knife down into the squash. That way you can keep all your fingers!

Anna -- My method was to press a bit,remove the knife, turn the squash, repeat...yours sounds more efficient.

"unleashed my inner tweaker"

haha! that's so brilliant! i'm going to start using that expression for my more, um, obsessive, moments.

i once spent an entire afternoon scouring my roommate's white teapot with vinegar and baking soda...

Alana, what did you end up doing with the floor?

I removed the fake grids from our kitchen window. They're warped and ugly and have been bugging me for ages. I also throughly washed that window inside and out. It's a south-facing window that looks out on a backyard with trees and has really opened up that space.

Speaking of milk crates, I've found that they're great for contemplating new furniture. I put out milk crates in the approximate footprint of the furniture (obviously this works best for things like bookshelves or sideboards) and we can live with it for awhile and see if something would really work in that space.

Trilobyte: That's exactly what I'm doing with milk crates now. It's a good thing.

OK, so it looks like I'll end up being at least two weeks behind the rest of the group, due to a couple of avoidable delays, but I'm still trying to stay somewhat on target.

I'm planning on following up the whole hog deep treatment with a series of one room remedies.

Opoponax, did your roommate care that you scrubbed out his teapot? The serious tea drinkers I know would never allow someone to clean out the inside of a grungy teapot. Ever.

I took a ton of stuff to Good Will this weekend (not an easy task for a girl without a car) and my apartment feels so much lighter -- but looking in my front hall closet this morning, I had to admit that there will probably be another trip next weekend. (getting there!!)

I continued to cull images for my style tray - I've never done this for my own apartment and am finding it to be a nice discipline. Lots of images ... nothing perfect, but I am starting to see the direction. I will scan and load the rest of the images today at lunch.

By Sunday morning I had fine-tuned my plans - so I started sketching some elevations only to realize that one wall (of the four) was really awful - ackkkkkk. Back to the drawing board to work out some other ideas .... next thing I know I have two plans!! auuuggghhhhh It's going to take a little time to draw these ideas up and get them on the site (tomorrow evening?). Hopefully, I can get some photos taken by then too.

Worked on kitchen and dining room this weekend -- I'm one of those that have a kitchen that over flows its actual confines. I don't have enough cabinets for all of my small appliances and baking stuff so I have shelves in the DR for that. Plus I have horrible '70s presswood cabinets that cannot hold the weight of my Le Cruset so that is on the shelves as well. Plus DR didn't have its own week...

Didn't actually finish all because it was a lot to get done and we had our 4 year old nephew visiting for the weekend and I wanted to enjoy time with him.

Am very happy about how clean everything is that did get done. Usually I would just put things in the dishwasher and clean them that way, but for some reason I got the idea that I would wash everything by hand that was being cleaned as part of the cure -- I think this helped me edit and not just wash and put back. I hate doing dishes, but I got a great sense of accomplishment for this part of the project.

Put quite a bit in the outbox -- a co-worker of my SO that just graduated from college is coming over tonight to see if she can use anything before I put it out in front of my apt. building -- benefit of living in B'lyn, someone will always take what I leave out.

Only 3 bandaids needed to cover cuts received from cleaning various things.

I also got rid of nasty wooden spoons and spatulas and had fun going to Cooks Companion and Target for replacements. That was a nice treat for all my hard work.

The closet in the dining room acts a coat closet and a utility closet, but it was disorganized and crowded to the point of being completely disfunctional. Order has been restored!! I have all my "every day" cleaning supplies in 1 utility bucket, all of my painting supplies and paint on the top shelf out of the way and all of the tools etc. on a shelf that I can reach, but that is organized enough that things are not falling on my head. Moved my coats out of the closet -- I have enough space in my clothes closet -- so that there is actually room for guests to hang their coats. Crazy good.

Am going to one-room cure the kitchen sooner rather than later because it really needs to be completely gutted, but I'm less disgusted by it now.

Still have the lower cabinets to tackle tonight after work. And am falling behind on the extra parts of the cure -- sitting in one room (will be the office because I HATE going in there which is what prompted me to do the cure in the first place), getting a repair done... So I've got a plan to get that stuff done during this week.

Thanks to you all for your posts and they have definitely kept me going!! Am going to try to figure out how to post photos soon.

Wende - try Lowe's for orchid's under $25. Was totally surprised when I saw those. Don't know if it's a seasonal item, but then again, you live in AZ and not MN. I could never live in AZ or I'd be facing dehydration halfway to the couch all the time, haha!!

I really missed out on a lot here by not taking my computer home this weekend. But without having a real, proper place to put it, I'm less inclined to take it home anyway. Ugh, gotta work so I can keep the lights on at home and living in a place that needs a cure as opposed to a new cardboard box.

I wasn't at home this weekend, so no work on the cure, but I did put pictures up. All that's left of the kitchen is the fridge and emptying the outbox. Ahhh...it feels good.

It's good I have a lot of storage space in the kitchen except that I don't think I'll have time to empty all of the cabinets and drawers and re-line them. Is it OK if I skip that? I cleared off the counters last night. I put a food processor that I've never used (bought it from a resident who was moving out when I moved in) and a juicer that I think I've only used once in the outbox to clear space. The coffee maker is in the outbox too but I know I'll need that if I have guests.

Bon Ami is great!

Unfortunately, the dishwasher is broken so I have to handwash. Glad that Jacquelyn found it worthwhile. One good outcome of this is that the maintenance worker will actually be able to get to the dishwasher to fix it! :)

Yesterday I was wiping down the fronts of the kitchen cabinets, and thought "I suppose I should swipe along the top of the cabinet doors". Ack! Ick! I guess a person's supposed to do that every once in a while, right? Ack! Ick! Tonight I'll climb up on my trusty ladder and tackle the space on top of the cabinets above the sink where I have china displayed. I expect to be doing a lot of "Ack! Ick!" I also think I'll take the china down, and store it in one of the cabinets (still set up as a display, but only visible if I open the cabinet). I decided that Ack Ick was not a respectful or loving way to treat my grandmother's lovely dish-with-roses-on-it, or her cups and saucers from Scotland.

I found a red table runner yesterday (yay for stores that have their Christmas stuff out already, and yay for stores whose Christmas stuff doesn't all have holly leaves and other seasonal decorations on it). My kitchen is nearly good to go!

Smallcitybeth, if you want to either appall yourself or get lots of stretching exercise, don't forget the tops of door frames and window frames, the tops of the doors themselves, and the upper side of any smoke detectors that hang on the wall rather than the ceiling.

Finally went out to sit on the Cure-needing patio. Didn't last 10 minutes. It took exactly 175 seconds to determine that my initial plans for the space would have been a disaster. Yes, Paris bistro-type chairs would have been cute. No, no one would ever have sat in them. Oops.

The house will now take bets on whether I buy rattan at Pier 1 or at IKEA.

Skywaykate, if I pass a Lowe's, I'll definitely check it for plants.

I'm awestruck by the tales of kitchen progress. It's like an action-adventure movie for shelter-magazine fans.

thank you to the ATers who left suggestions on my kitchen's flkr site. I will look into the TSP solution.

I do like the black/white idea, except my tiles are white/forest green.

Marilyn, I'm not a coffee drinker and I just keep a Bodum French Press around for guests. The coffee is better (so I hear) and it takes up less space.

speaking of dusting...I just bought an oven-mitt looking thing at staples. It's a microfiber type thing, and boy does it make those "eww, yuck" dusting moments better. We live on the 3rd floor and run our ceiling fans constantly. I pulled off a ball of dust as big as a tennis ball off each blade. The mitt made it not go everywhere, so fortunately it didn't make my allergies worse than they already are. At target, I saw a kit of four microfiber cloths which might also be a good deal for those of you deep cleaning and struggling with "eww, ick" situations.

all this chat about improvement sent me on a 2 hour cleaning spree. the floors that haven't been washed in i-don't-want-to-think-how-long are clean, 2 loads of laundry are done, and the overflow of our coats from the tiny rack (and little space) in the hallway have been placed in the newly cleaned, rearranged closet.

i live with my boyfriend, in a small basement apartment (oh the challenge of not enough light!). it is (i think) about 150 sq feet. i think. thankfully, we have 2 ample closets, in particular one that has space for a small pantry, wine storage, coats and a lot of tools/tech stuff we keep.

oh, and we are in toronto.