Tag Archives: January Cure

January Cure, Assignment 5

08 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Home and other Repairs, Home Decor, January Cure, Uncategorized

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Today I am supposed to sit in an area of the house where I rarely sit and contemplate on a problem area, envision the room empty, and rebuild that problem area in my mind, imagining how I want it to look and function. Can I just say here that there probably isn’t a place in my house where I couldn’t sit for hours doing this? Not even on my freshly changed patio and backyard. There’s always something that could be added, changed, something that could work better. I’m beginning to see that the January Cure, isn’t. It’s the 2015 Cure.

Today, I have meditated on the Office/Outbox. While this room is being used as the Outbox, there’s nothing I can do to start the changes I need in there, but I can imagine them and begin the plan. It’s an odd rectangular room with one window,  4 bookshelves, a wall shelf,  a double closet, a desk and a trundle bed. Even without the collected gleefus that’s been shoved in there from every closet and corner I’ve cleared, it doesn’t function well and it’s anything but attractive. I need it to function as a guestroom/office/craft room. It will need to accomodate a sturdy queen sized bed, craft table and computer desk. It will also need to be accessible to wheelchairs. Umm.. yeah.

The second half of today’s assignment is to pick a project from my list to do this month. I’m ignoring their “this month, in about three hours” recommendation. I’m staking claim on the <insert heebie jeebie causing music again> Laundry Room. This room has been the number one problem in this house since the day we moved in.

The laundry room is really a short hallway leading from the main house into the garage. It’s also the only wheelchair accessible point of entry to the house. It’s also where everyone enters when visiting. Why no one uses the front door I don’t know, but there you have it. The doors were build wide enough to allow for wheelchair access. But the room itself is so short that when both doors are open they overlap and bang into each other. invariably knocking into the sliding double doors behind them which hide the laundry closet. With the front loading washer and dryer in there (I chose front load because it’s easier for me to get clothes in and out from my wheelchair), I can’t back up more than a few inches while opening either appliance without knocking one of the sliding double doors off it’s tracks. Bottom line, the room is a nightmare.

This will be my month long, every spare moment, project. I have wood, I will build storage. My son and I build a backyard filled with furniture including a beautiful storage bench, I know we can insert a storage bench in the laundry closet. I have drills, I will remove doors. I have imagination, I will figure out something to cover the entry into the laundry room so that I don’t have to stare at the washing machine.  I will build a better over head shelving system that actually works and that I can actually reach. The room will have a “landing strip” and a way to hang coats. All in a space the size of some walk in closets. Well, that’s the plan anyway!

First I’ll get rid of the clutter. There’s a lot in there. Good things I’d use if I could reach them, but most of it is stuff I’ve long since lost the use for. John is home today and can reach the things on the shelves that are too high for me. This will be a clutter free area by the end of the day.

Before

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January “Cure”

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in General Farm Stuff, Home and other Repairs, Home Decor, Rural life, Uncategorized

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There are several sites I visit every morning in my quest to finish William’s to-do list projects. I found them when I was searching for ways to DIY the backyard furniture. Every day they have articles that help me accomplish at least the things that need to be done before I can tackle an item on the list and often have ideas on ways to do the items on the list.

This year one of the largest items on the list is laying tile in the bedroom. Well, there’s no way to tile the bedroom until said bedroom and closets are organized to the point they can be easily cleared to lay the tile. Apartment Therapy is doing their annual January Cure (http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/collection/january-cure-2015-468) and I elected to participate. Lord knows the house needs cleaned and organized, but also, the lack of organization is in the way of completing Billiam’s List.

Of course, the very first thing on the list is FLOORS. Our assignment from Jan. 2 – Jan. 3 was to vacuum and clean floors and rugs. OH, and buy ourselves some flowers first to make ourselves feel better about it. Well, the flowers were supposed to come first, and I bought them, but then had to find space on the cluttered counters to put them, which meant cleaning space on a counter before I could get to the floors.

Manual wheelchairs and upright vacuum cleaners are not happy together. I have bruises, scrapes, and a lump on my head from each time that damned vacuum attacked when I moved the floor attachment so much as 3 feet. I don’t even want to know how high my blood pressure rose while constantly having to disentangle the cord from the wheels and brake handles, and why the hell can’t manual chairs easily roll over a cord no thicker than 1/4 inch?! The floor is my nemesis, the vacuum is possessed by the spirit of Ted Bundy.

In spite of the 6 hour battle with the vacuum, I did manage to get the rugs clean, for a day, and all but the heaviest furniture vacuumed under. It was time to mop/scrub/pray over the floors. Mopping our tile has produced less than pleasant results forever. If I use nothing but clear water, the result is two days of living in a house that smells like a combination of locker room and kennel filled with dirty wet dogs. If I use anything at all to combat odor, I get a sticky film that does not come up no matter how many times I clean rinse it. The end result is always that it looks better and smells better with coffee stains and barn dirt than it does after I spend a day mopping and scrubbing.

Again, please don’t tell me how well vinegar works for this. It doesn’t. I continually believe that vile, smelly liquid will work and all I end up with is vinegar odor added to the kennel/locker room aroma of a sticky, haze covered floor.

Yes, it would be easier to hire someone to come in and clean the floors, but A. I can’t afford to hire this out every week and B. I’d have to have everything organized first so that furniture could be moved out of the way. I live in a puzzle box. If one thing needs to be moved, 4 other things have to be moved first.

So, in the first three days of my January Cure, I managed to place cut flowers, vacuum three rooms, clean rugs, and partially mop/scrub/pray over most of the main room. No. There are no before/after pictures. At this point, I’ve just made a bigger mess.

Our assignment for today is to move through the house, and make notes on things that need to be changed, organized, cleaned, and repaired. I’m afraid my list will be long and arduous. Once the list is completed we then narrow it down to the 3-5 items that will make the most difference in each room. That smaller list will be almost enough to put me in bed the rest of the day just thinking about it. However, I’m fairly brave at home so I intend to see this thing through. I’ll play heroic stuff on the stereo and cowgirl up.

If you’d like to join me in house cleaning and organizing hell, pop over to the Apartment Therapy January Cure (http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/collection/january-cure-2015-468) and come commiserate or brag with me. In spite of my struggles and abject failures, the house has GOT to come out of this better than before.