As the Christmas ornaments have been packed away for another year, I am often left with an intense feeling of needing to do a major overhaul on all the things in my house. Call it post-Christmas clean-out, or a January overhaul. Either way, the stuff that has accumulated over the past few months, was neglected for at least half of that, and the babies it had along the way cause for an overwhelming amount of CLUTTER!
The cabinets and closets are full to the brim of things we just had to have at the time, yet no longer need. The bookshelves are a mess of unorganized, unread and covered-in-dust piles of books that I often refer to as precious or must-reads. The clothes that we’ve outgrown, no longer wear, or have gone (dare I say it…) out of style are heaped haphazardly on the floors of our bedrooms. And, let’s not even talk about the garage… (Oh, no we don’t talk about Bruno….)
The STUFF is taking over.
Okay, maybe it’s not quite that drastic, but oftentimes in January, I feel that it is very real. Too much stuff in a small space equals one crazy lady 🙋♀️ In case that emoji doesn’t come through on your screen, let me repeat: My hand is raised up high on this one!
While I am not one to subscribe to New Year’s Resolutions, I definitely have an intense draw towards making things new, fresh, better as I toss out the old calendar and replace it with the new one! I often hear a daunting echo in my brain as I do this yearly ritual, “New year, new you…New year, new ….” (Fill in the space for whatever it is that is in need of a “new” anything.)
The last few years, we often had a new and daunting list of extensive projects that needed to happen during the next twelve months. During that first year (new year, new home and new property,) the list was so overwhelming along with my husband’s first trip out of the country and my unexpected health issues, that we barely scratched the surface of projects. By the time we made it to last year’s calendar change-out, we had learned a valuable lesson of scaling things way back. Manageable. Simple. Organized.
Yup, our main focus for last year was to finally create a proper order of all the things lurking in the garage and shop. We took video, we made goals, and…. we are still! STILL! STILL not finished. This project of epic proportions is still lingering and in need of wrapping up. We (and by we, I mean my Handy Hubby!) have taken great pains to organize all the tools in the shop area and created an entire-wall cabinet storage system that works!!
Yet, I had hoped to finish out the organization of the garage as well, once it had been mostly cleaned out. I bought paint for the cabinets that Nathan installed early last year, and a friend gave us their leftover backsplash wallpaper for the wall behind the washing machine and dryer. It really looks great…. in my mind. So, here’s to hoping it gets finished in the next few flips of the calendar.
Anyway, this year’s project list is so simple that we didn’t even make a video of it as we have in years past. The goal for this year: finish what we started! Seems reasonable, right?
Now, if you want to catch up on our Projects…
The Good List: Four Projects to be Completed in 2021: From this list, we have now accomplished down to #3, almost completely. The shop has organization and the framing up for the shop “room.” Number 4, the kitchen project, is as started as it can without interrupting the flow of daily eating. We swapped out the glass cook-top for a stunning gas range and full-sized oven!!! The kitchen sink was also exchanged for an extra-large single basin with commercial-style pull-out faucet. These two swaps make the kitchen functional for a family who cooks….a LOT!! (We will one-day refinish the cabinets and swap out countertops, but neither of those are necessary to the daily use of our kitchen!)
Some cleaning videos for you….
