I'm holding nothing back today. It's not going to be gory or gross; I'm just a little embarrassed to share these very unedited and uncropped photos of how we've been living...
Long story short - we're coming up on our fourth year of living in what was supposed to be a very temporary place. The goal was always to stay here a year or two, get some savings, then get a bigger place. Well, despite over two years of chasing after bigger places - from buying a house, to moving a bigger place in here, to building, to getting a giant metal dome and building a house inside it somehow - we're realistically no closer to getting out of here than we were two years ago. Sure, we've got some paperwork filled out, we have a Realtor, and we're in talks with a builder - but none of those steps feel like progress. And every one of those steps has been painfully difficult and fraught with what feels like a hundred things to stub our toes on.
Earlier this week we ran face first into yet another of those stumbling blocks - and I just couldn't take it any more. Nothing seeks to be going the right way for us to get out of here, and I'm tired of living such a temporary-don't-toss-that-we-might-need-it-when-we-move-don't-decorate-we-won't-be-here-long-just-live-with-toilets-that-require-opening-the-tank-to-flush-because-fixing-them-is-out-of-the-question-after-three-failed-attempts-and-you-know-the-second-we-install-working-ones-we'll-get-word-we're-able-to-move-life. While I desperately want to pop the oh-so-hated seam covers off the walls (if you've been in an older modular/trailer, you probably know what I'm talking about), cover every inch of this hideous faux-wallpaper in primer, then drown the walls in paint colors I like -- I settled for going on a major purge of the house.
Do I love this? Is it sentimental? Is it valuable? Is it something I've used in the last 4 months? If none of the above, it pretty much went out the window. I can't say the house is down to only the things I love most or the most useful things, but there is a whole lot less being stored in precious inches of extra space just in case we need it down the road. I might regret being so harsh if we ever do move, but unless miracles happen, that'll be so far down the road I just can't live for that day any more.
Ready for the bad and the ugly? I can't promise there's much 'good' - but what's happening now is certainly better, even if it is still 'in progress' and a long ways from either an 'after' or a 'done.'
Here's the office/sewing room/library before.
Looks messy and cramped? Yeah, it was. We each had 32 inches for our chairs at our desks, and I had another 32 x 30 space for my chair when I was at the sewing table - but that was it for free space. We basically had a walkway through the room to the bathroom and desks, but every other inch was filled with furniture. Since my fabric stash didn't all fit on the black baker's rack right inside the door, I had stacks of projects on every possible surface (except Greg's desk and chair).
Now:
Obviously the rug needs a vacuum (what's new) but look at how much space between the back of my sewing desk (left edge of the first picture with the denim sewing machine cover on it) and Greg's dresser (which doesn't fit in our bedroom no matter what we do). We've gone from 32 inches or less there to 60 inches. It is only 44 between the dresser and the bookcase - at the lower left edge of the same picture, but still, it feels like way more room! The black baker's rack went to another room, which freed up space for the dresser on that wall. The most exciting change of all though was taking the two big bookcases out and bringing in the green hutch for all my fabrics and projects.
How much better is that!?
Most of my stash of cotton/quilting fabrics fits on the top shelf and a half - though minky, bolts, and my box of fabric from my grandmother and great-grandmother (mostly fashion polyester, but I'm not willing to part with it) are in other places. Almost the entire bottom shelf is dedicated to projects I'm currently working on, with a little stack of further out but already sorted projects on the top right (Christmas stuff mostly).
Part way through I reorganized so my iron, as well as a red box of other in progress (but not right now) projects had a better home. The other cubby is full of vintage sheets. I should really use more of those...
And since making this many changes in the office impacted other rooms in the house, here's what happened in the living room:
Both the bookcases and the piano are going to be so much more accessible now than they were. I've already used both more times in the last 24 hours than previously this month -- and not just while moving everything over! You can barely see it in the first before photo, but off to the left of the piano wall there's a hallway that leads to the room we use for sleeping (which contains our king size bed centered with 12 inches of walkway on either side and not much else). Surprisingly, this whole hallway feels better and bigger now when we walk out to the piano music stand rather than the side of the hutch -- even though the music stand is closer to the opening! I've lost track of how many hours this took, more than six, but rehanging all those pictures took about an hour in this room alone!
I'm exhausted and the whole project has taken several days just to get to this 'in progress' point - but I am feeling so much better about living here another few months (or years, if I have to). The house feels a good 12 feet bigger overall - and in this small of a place (with this much junk), that's huge.
Now, I'm off to finish a book and enjoy my improved living room!
