Friday, February 10, 2006

My Own Clean Sweep




Anyone else love this show? I am attempting to use tricks from the show to organize my house as well as my life. Although I'll have to do my sorting inside the house as opposed to on the lawn. I do think that would likely work better, since who the hell wants to carry all of that junk back INTO the house? I will also be lacking the assistence of someone forcing me to let go of all my junk. I bet DG would LOVE the opportunity. But she is only allowed if she helps organize the rest and designs the rooms just like the designer on the show ;) My husband would help, but has the same problem with purging his own things (though is better at it than I am.) He would whimp out as soon as I made my case for keeping every single picture my oldest son made in preschool. He loves me too much to make me part with anything sentimental.

The big garage sale won't be until June when our neighborhood hosts one. But if I start now it will be impossible to let that opportunity go by.

So which room first? How 'bout 2 like the show.

My husband and I both have our own office type rooms across the foyer from each other. Mine was the former dinning room (we have a large kitchen so we put the table in there and divided up our office spaces.) It is at times kinda cute to have our desks sit across the hall from each other. I have been known to send "hey cute guy across the hall" emails. Insert collective disgusted with sapiness "awwwwwww" here. However, it is very anti- feng-shui, and not even the least bit aesthetically pleasing. Especially since we live in a pretty constant state of disarray due to four kids. This is further complicated by three of them having staggerd residential rotations with other households half the time, including their own hords o' STUFF that travels to and fro.

So... I decided to keep my husbands side the office. It looks like a place where people mean business with all his miliatary decor- did I mention he was a Westpoint grad? My side is going to become a library. I will have tons of bookshelves (with books of course) and a couple of reading/studying areas. It will be the family "quiet zone." Ha Ha Ha.... we'll see about that one.

I have been surfing the net looking at IKEA and Container Store organizational solutions but even these "cheap" stores would prove expensive. So I went to Pat Catans (crafty store) and bought 14 photo boxes (2 for 5 bucks) and various paper maches sets that resemble the popular hat boxes sold for a lot more. I also bought a cool basket set for 14 bucks on sale that would have been fifty or more somewhere else.

Oh- and I found these prints I want to use in keeping with fantasy reading themes. I'll look for more as I go.









I think I am also getting 2 small chairs which would be the perfect size for two different reading areas. Just need some floor lamps and the time in between nursing (that is feeding as well as 'back to health') Anna to organize.

I am a pack rat. DG knows this and has always been dying to see me organized. My father suffers from OCD (undiagnosed) and has horded himself into qualifying for appearances on Dr Phil (not that he'd ever go.) Since I don't want to end up like that I have lived my life hording but purging. I am determined to break that cycle and be able to toss toss toss without hording in the first place. I feel as though I never catch up.

Today I am taking before pics. The room is actually unfairly at it's worst due to my having shoved a few extra bins in there to sort through. They arrived after our speedy evacuation of my other house when it sold a few weeks ago. But that will only make my transformation more impressive!

Then when I'm finished I'll post them on here. There's my motivation.

Wish me luck!

Z

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice informative post =)
We have something similar to Clean Sweep over here, although I can't remember the name of it lolol.
Yeah DG you should go to J's house and re-design her rooms. Let's see what you are made of *running, ducking, weaving, ahhh it's safe now ... thwack! Oh hi DG it's a lovely day isn't it* :P

Zen Davis said...

Btw Gareth...

I apologize for the poor spelling and grammar of the post. I'm still going on about 2 hours of sleep a night and maybe a half hour nap or two during the day (not today though unfortuately.) Hopefully I have corrected all or most of the worst offenders. (DG willlikely find more, as she has perfect grammar the way some have perfect pitch!)
Anyway- I added pics of my prints that I found online too :)

Z

Design Goddess said...

Good luck with the project Z! I wish I had the time to help you. You know you'd be left with just the clothes on your back by the time I was finished. Ok...so a little more than that, but you get the idea. And, don't you just love Pat Catans??!!!

Gareth, yes it is a lovely day. :)

Zen Davis said...

I know you would help if you could DG. But perhaps it's better I learn to fly alone as far as organization is concerned. Oh- and I was so motivated (due to the possiblilty of inlaws coming tomorrow from Indianna) that I got half of it done yesterday while Anna miracualously slept for 3 hours. Now inlaws aren't able to come, and in my haste I forgot the before pics! Oh well. DG doesn't really need them. She's seen my organized chaos before :)

Z

Unknown said...

Spellig mistkes, wha speling mistaes ... I had't notced any?! ;)
I love the dancing bears pic. Really nice.
Yeah Design will find the spelling mistakes. That's because she is the best. At least that's what she keeps telling me. She has me soooo brain washed that I actually believe her now =)
You should climb into a microwave oven and get 8 hours sleep in 5 minutes :)

Zen Davis said...

I'm afraid I won't quite fit in the microwave yet. Still have 25 post pregnant pounds to lose first. I'll let ya know when I can get in there. But hopefully by then Anna will be sleeping through the night.

Oh- and thanks for the spelling support Gareth :)

Z

Anonymous said...

I LOVE Clean Sweep. Can't wait to see what happens in your house.

The Husband is a complete pack rat - but he's been finding the joys of organization now that we're in a small house with an overly-loved toddler (read: many gifts).

Re: debt poor comment you sent. I think I'm lucky in one respect - my husband married and divorced so young the first time around, the only debt he took away was a washer/dryer on a Sears card. Meager is a good name for existence. I finally just told him that we should consider working till we drop dead rather than retirement. Fortunately, he loves his job.

And now I have to figure out how to carry on better conversations between Blogger and LJ, esp. considering that I have NO idea what my original Blogger password was way back when....

Zen Davis said...

Hey bookchick! Good to see ya again! Yes I am addicted to this show. I will be doing a pack rat blog soon, as well as a debt blog. This week is crazy, so not sure if I'll get to those. We are in the process of rearranging all the kids rooms so that Anna can have her own (and get out of ours!) It was nice to have her there for these past couple months, but now we need to give her a place to sleep where we don't have to tip toe around her :) Plus it will be nice to decorate a nursery for a little girl :)

Z