Me on the bathroom floor scrubbing yesterday. I left it spotless, only to have Ursula throw up on it hours later.
• Cure Clock: 7 weeks to go
• Assignment: Read Week 2: Clearing the Path
• Cure Members: 1,207 (join here)
This weekend was the most beautiful weekend New York has seen in months. Warm and sunny on the first day of spring, I got to throw open the windows and do a full day of cleaning on Sunday as I cracked the ice on the new Cure. As I said last week, this Cure for me is about decluttering, but first I needed to clean. More on this below, but first a little quiz to see who we've got out there this season:
Warm?
If you checked "Warm" you may find it hard to let go of things and feel an strong sense of attachment to both objects and people. This is your strength and your weakness. You are a feeling person and as much as you may love all your stuff and feel that the very "character" of your home is made up of it, you will overlook the degree to which it may be bringing you down, burdening you with weight (both real and psychic) and otherwise getting in the way of THINGS YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE. That's the important thing - doing those things you want to do.
Your goal? Attach yourself to the dreams, plans and people that really matter by letting go of the old stuff.
Cool?
If you checked "Cool" you may think that you don't have big problems with stuff or that you are smarter than all the others who checked "Warm" at this point. Best not to be too smug, for your coolness is YOUR strength and your weakness. You are a thinking person, and as much as you are NOT too attached to your stuff, your home may need a little bit of heat, a little TLC and your attention to make it the comfortable place you desire.
If you're cool, you may need a little help moving IN, finishing up and keeping your space clean and cozy, as opposed to dusty and uncomfortable. You may not cook very often and your fridge may be empty.
Your goal? Remember your dream for your home, think of this as a totally doable new puzzle that you are going to figure out and don't underestimate how big a deal it's going to be when you transform your home. And the first step is rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty - you will be surprised how much fun it is.
Not Sure?
Don't worry about it right now, but I guarantee you you'll know by the end of these eight weeks. :-)
MY PROJECT
After resanding the butcher block I wax/oiled this table and all the other butcher blocks in the kitchen with beesoil.
I find cleaning extremely cathartic and much easier in our relatively small apartment, than when we're staying out in the country at my family's house. If you swing a vacuum, you can pretty much hit everything.
Aside from being outside in the great weather, I wanted to just use last week to get my hands dirty and get the easy cleaning done. Next I'll move on to the decluttering and then finish with some color upgrades - probably in the living room.
Here are my highlights.
Sara emptied the fridge of all the old food we'd been sitting on for a few weeks. Here are the containers, bound for the dishwasher.
Out went extra garbage from the old food we threw away, in addition to taking out the recycling, which had clogged the hallway since February.
I went around the house and wiped down all the windowsills and the tops of all the artwork. I was shocked how much white dust each one had sitting on it. Take a look!
In addition to all this cleaning, I watered all the plants and put them outside on the fire escape for the first time since last fall. Then wiped down a number of doors that had bad hand marks on them and vacuumed 1/2 of our apartment. This week I finish the cleaning and start to rip out the closet clutter, one at a time.
Post Index
Week One - Cambria's Weekend Prep
Week One - Sarah Rae's Show & Tell
Week One - Maxwell's Intro
Info
Hey, we're going to be highlighting comments and questions from our discussion board tomorrow, so check it if you haven't already. With only one board this time, we're hoping to start to curate it and make it more useful.
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Comments (15)
Love the watch on the wc. I keep one in the shower cabin so as not to lose track of time :) The dust tutorial is adorable by the way. And the photos in the post index are very appreciated.
Let's have a contest where Maxwell cleans the winner's house!
If you've done your cure correctly, he won't have much to clean!
It would be funny though...:)
I definitely trend cool, but my husband trends warm - he loves holding on to things just in case, or just because, or out of habit, or whatever. This is one of the biggest causes of social unrest in our home! I would happily throw things out (even stuff I sort of needed . . . more than once I have ended up buying something just like something I once got rid of), and that makes my husband very edgy. I, on the other hand, get very edgy living around piles of papers and a basement full of furniture we don't use.
I couldn't even bring myself to take "before" pictures of my house because I think of the clutter as so temporary that I don't want to immortalize it even in a digital pic! It's like I'm thinking, it's not what my house REALLY looks like.
Is there a cure for blended families like mine?!
I'm wondering the same as Amy_F, but in our case the roles go the other way. My husband lives in another country right now, so luckily he doesn't have to see how much clutter I've managed to build up - but I have to clear a real path before he arrives for Easter next week... *deep sigh* The state of my mind, if you were a fly on my wall right now, is like a true farce. Thank you thank you for the Cure!
Amy_F: I have to laugh -- I don't want to immortalize the clutter either! I keep thinking I have to get rid of the clutter so I can take a photo. But then, it's not a true "before" picture.
Thank all of you who are braver than I am and have shown what real people's homes look like!
I already ripped things apart to paint last month -- but have a long way to go until everything is neat, tidy and organized.
It's already week two and I am having to do week one & week two! I signed up on Friday and had visitors come in on the weekend. I feel a little deflated. But, I know I can do this!
I found that both my husband and myself are warm people. Lots of stuff from both of us! (Kids too) i have done so many cleanings in their rooms you don't want to know. Maybe when I get myself together they will follow.
i got rid of so much stuff these past two days!
i also cleared out the paper/cardboard packaging from the cupboard and transfered everything into labeled glass jars. awesome.
scott & i are tracking our before and after here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/twigandleafbotanicals/sets/72157623652677792/
I am definitely a warm person and I have a hard time refusing family objects even though they are not to my taste. My mother-in-law recently went to a home and getting rid of even nice things is difficult but I want our appartment to reflect us and that is hard enough because my husband has little interest in decor or things. To build a common vision for the appartment is difficult.
I just discovered www.phillyfreecycle.com . Where you can post what you no longer need, but it is still in usable condition, and if someone needs what you've posted, they email you and come pick it up. It's a great way to keep usable items out of the landfill. And, trust me, nothing is too small or too large to offer. The flip side is that if you need something (I'm looking for a bookshelf), you can search the listing to see if someone is giving away what you need. Nothing is ever sold. This is purely a "pass it on" type thing.Since I am a very warm person I plan to list a few things. I'm sure this is in other cities too. It started in Arizona in 2003 (I think). Anyways, I thought it fit in with the cure's goal nicely.
I am definitely a warm person and hubby is most definitely a cool person. He is military and with all the moves he has done he has managed to pair down his belongings and basically came into the marriage with a TV, clothes, and some military gear. I on the other hand still have a box of old books from my room at my mom's house from when she moved.
Anyway, I am still working on catching up with the reading and have yet to clearly define my "vision." My main goal is to SERIOUSLY declutter and get rid of stuff we no longer need/use. We'll be moving again in another year or so and I don't want to keep moving boxes that never managed to get unpacked from the last 2 moves.
Anyway, we started with some serious cleaning this weekend. My husband rented a carpet cleaner and did the entire house, I took everything off the kitchen countertops and cleaned them and the appliances. I cleaned out the clutter from the fridge last night, this weekend I will actually clean the shelves and drawers in the fridge. I finally finished my project chair cushion and am returning the sewing machine to my friend tomorrow. And finally, we spent the afternoon Saturday cleaning outside and doing some much needed yard work and gardening. Oh yeah...and the dogs got baths too!
I feel like we got a good start on our Cure. Now to just catch up on the reading. :)
I second (or fifth or sixth...) the blended family! I'm totally warm and my husband is totally cool.
We moved cross country this past July and I was out of town right before the move. I [cringe] gave my husband permission to throw out things that I wasn't majorly emotionally attached to. And he ran with it. I wouldn't have been able to do it. I would have had a break down. He got rid of so much, I still cringe sometimes thinking about it.
But, we still have some things that I'm holding on to. I'm getting better about getting rid of un-useful and unloved things, but MAN is it hard.
I want to have a space where we can entertain and have friends over for meals, unfortunately the little bit of stuff left over from the cross country move is inhabiting the space where a table would go in our tiny apartment.
At least we don't have a storage unit anymore...
I'm seriously addicted to AT and read it avidly whenever I can.
That having been said, I was super excited when I came back after a long hiatus to have see that The Cure was starting in a week! I couldn't wait...
* * * Flashback * * *
My husband and I (then fiancée) moved into our current apartment over a year ago. We had been living in a small (350 ) square foot duplex, and aching to stretch our legs. To save our sanity (we kept bumping into each other in the AM), we moved into a larger space despite the fact we did not want to "expand" our stuff to fill the larger space.
More than a year later, we're at the new place but haven't decluttered enough so that I post to AT's Small Cool. Luckily, we're still under 1000 sq. ft...but every time we get to the point where it looks really cohesive, it goes back to looking like a train wreck within a week or two.
In conclusion, we simply have too much stuff to keep it neat at all times. Both of us take turns being "warm" people, who like to craft and repurpose items so we constantly tell ourselves to stop adopting strays. I'm already well into Week 1-2 (though it took me until today to post a picture) so I'm hoping that we'll be right where we need to be at the end of the 8 weeks!
I'm having so much fun! Husband and I set up "purgatory" in the living room behind a couch and have SIX bags of stuff ready to go out. Somewhere. We've been sofa shopping for our one room makeover (the living room, duh). We are warm people (I feel ya ratheartsbikes) so i'ts good to clean out. It's weird, sometimes I'm sort of scizo - want to madly declutter and then don't do it for months. Weird. Chicphillychick - I bet NY has freecycle and I better find it!
Anyway, I'm off for spring break next week - woohoo! - so I'll be cleaning. Some floors have been done, but I'll do some more. There's a limit to what can be done in my disgusting 1930s rental bathroom, but I'll try. I don't think I have the stamina to paint - especially since in the next year or two we may move, but I figure I can redecorate and clean up a bit.
I'm posting a proposed sofa and chair with a rug similar to ours and drapes similar to ours. Ideas? Too modern? Do they go? Click here.