We are still working to declutter the house as we work with my friend on her Staging course. She has come 4 times so far, and worked with me about 6 hours each time. We have donated & gotten rid of lots of stuff. We started on the office, and that is still in progress, but is stalled until the desk is in the office. We also worked on the dining room and Living room and kitchen. We need to tackle Josh's room, my room, the closet, and finish the office. We are not doing the girl's room at this time. She does not want to make them cry when she suggest parting with some toys! I don't blame her. I did that 2 months ago, and it was pretty bad.
This weekend our homework was to make a new L shaped desk for the office. We are part of the way there. It sounded so simple in theory, but as usual, the reality is much slower. Or it is if we are the construction crew. We have all the parts now, and the 2 long pieces are glued together. And lying in the living room. We had thought about a making laminate desk, or using some premade countertop or some countertop from ikea. But in the end, we went with Birch plywood and regular plywood that we are gluing together to be one thick board and adding trim on the ends. It will be attached to the wall with cleats, and supported by our existing file cabinets. We are going to stain it a dark mahogany. We are also going to paint out lovely red file cabinets another color. Probably Chocolate brown. I hope it looks good!
It took Karl awhile to get on board with the idea, but I think he is pretty excited now. Karl and I are trading sides of the room. I get more space, but I sew, scrapbook, and use a computer so I "need" more space. I did offer to share my sewing machine though. In reality I had three desk in here already, so I am just giving up the one, and moving all my desk space to one wall. My drafting table is too cool to part with, so it is moving to the home of the sewing machine. I will still scrapbook there.
We had started clearing the room yesterday so we would have room to build the desk in here and the loose stuff went into Josh's room. Today when Emily was getting ready for bed, she looked in here and said, "Wow, That is a really clean office guys!" The floor was clean, the desk surfaces were clean. It looks pretty good in here right now. Josh's room is a little cluttered, but hey, we can fix that soon!
I am also going to try to recover my office chairs since Emily decorated them with Sharpie other unknown things when she was 2, and they have never looked the same since. I will also make a pleated skirt for the desk. That will keep it looking very tidy, and allow some smaller storage areas underneath the desks. (ie. Karl's collection of computer towers, my project basket, trash cans and such).
It has been hard going through books and such to get rid of. I love books. I have book like Little House on the Prairie that I got when I was around 8. It is an old and cherished friend. You can't give those away. And then there is my Tintin comic book collection. I love those! I can't give those up either. I did decided to share my Calvin & Hobbes Collection with Emily. I retained reading rights, and she promised to take good care of them. She said she want to keep them and give them to her kids. I did not think that was a great idea, but let it slide right then. She is a little concerned because Calvin is a naughty little guy, but since Hobbes is a Tiger, what is there not to love?? I might even let her read of a few of my treasured favorites next year.
Since our wall of books is a little intimidating to potential home buyers, I put some books up in the closet on a shelf to lessen then initial impact. They won't be seen, but they are not in the trash or donated. Maybe at some point I will be able to part with them, but not now. I was also crushed to see that a textbook from college is currently worth $.01 on Amazon. I got it for $50. The current edition is $95. Note to Self-sell upon finishing the course. I thinking about taking a bunch of books to a used book store. I would get a trade in amount for them only, not cash.
I think Karl thinks I am nuts for worrying about future buyers so much, but he mentioned tonight that we could move somewhere as soon as 6 months from now. We just don't know. Also, when am I ever going to have someone willing to give up her time to help me sort through my things. It really helps if she holds the things and I evaluate them instead of touching them myself. If I don't hold it it doesn't seem so bad to part with it.
Karl did a little dumpster diving and rescued a few things I had gotten rid of. I think he does not trust me.
Funny rescues-He resuced some sheets of beeswax-he thought they were noskid mats he could use in the garage. he he! It gets pretty hot in there. He would have nicely waxed shelving. I got rid of them again since they were not able to be turned into candles anymore. they were all creased and mangled from 5 years of storage.
Yesterday he rescued (for the second time mind you) an empty scrapbooking tape dispenser. I was shocked. I tried explaining to him, that sometimes a thing is just trash. I could not figure out how an empty tape refill would be useful. (We were taking about when to donate when to chuck) he was going on about how you could still use it by unrolling the paper. Finally I told him, look, there is nothing there, it is an EMPTY tape dispenser. (the paper had torn off the wheel at the end) He said, oh really. What is that white stuff? I explained that it was the wax paper separating the tape layers. Finally he saw the light and chucked it for the last time.
On the other hand he did rescue a crossstich kit I started 4 years ago, and I have to admit, I felt bad later about that one and wished I had donated it instead, so I was grateful to see that again. and he gave the girls a pad of paper that I had chucked. That was good too.
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