tis a beautiful thing..

my new sewing & crafting table all ready to go!

my sewing machine & overlocker live on the top, in season fabrics, machine pedals & rubbish bin underneath...
the plastic drawers hold works-in-progress (sewing & knitting), patterns & tracing paper (ok, el cheapo baking paper ;-) ), and felting fleece...
the built in drawers hold sharp things in the lockable one, felting & knitting tools in the middle, and sewing notions in the bottom...
and stashed in the back are my tracing/cutting board (aka hunk of MDF) & 1m/40" steel ruler.

the stack of fabric on the right, in front of our new curtains *insert happy dance here*, will live elsewhere, once there is an elsewhere for it to live in ;-)

doesn't it just bristle with potential?! :-D

lounge transformation!

in the beginning, there was this mess...
followed by some small changes, and then some bigger ones..

well yesterday i was struck by a giant fit of whim, and did this-

which turned into this-

and this-
(oh yeah!! my own sewing & crafting table!! bliss...)

and let's just not talk about this-
ok?

so i'm not exactly finished, but i'm starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel!

mammoth mission done!

before

and

after

thank you to my friends, trade me peeps (the remaining ones are listed currently), waipu SPCA and the New Lynn Lions foundation for helping me rid myself of a ridiculous amount of books!

now to fill them back up again with all the ones we kept.. *sigh* ;-)

what i would like..

would be to extract a few boxes of stuff from the house, then just walk away..

yup i have a major case of apathy & hopelessness..

it's not so much the deciding what to keep & what to get rid of that is the hard part (actually it's very easy!) it's actually getting stuff out of the house that i'm really struggling with, and also not being able to get rid of some stuff i hate ie- furniture because we can't replace it at the moment..

like on the recent tv show "the big stuff" they would tell the participants to toss anything that didn't 'fit the vision' of what they wanted their house/life to look like.. well that's all very well & good if a tv show if buying you new furniture & storage solutions for africa! But here in the real world we have to put up with a mish-mash of inefficient, unsuitable & asthetically displeasing items indefinately..

and again, it's a lot easier if you have a handful of free skips & recycling bins provided & dealt with afterwards for you too.. but instead we have flimsy rubbish bags, expensive dump fees, rare-as-hens-teeth (and possibly on the cutting board altogether!!) inorganic rubbish collections, and a sallies shop that never seems to be open! and don't get me started on 'buyer must pick up' auctions on trade me...

*sigh*

sorely tempted to set fire to the house, but a) it's under-insured, and b) the people in the adjoining house probably wouldn't thank us! (even though they have gutted their place twice in the past 4 years! ;-) )

play area finished!

the kids toy space is now pretty organised & streamlined.. from this to this-

bit nicer huh?

it's now very functional, especially with the addition of the lovely wooden table & chairs, and much more baby friendly too, with the dolls house off the floor, and smaller toys on the top shelf of the re-purposed bookshelf (hidden benefit to clearing out books!). Yes, we still have the castle, it is now home to a box of books, a box of dress-ups & playsilks, and a doll's cot full of dolls & teddies. The crates of wooden blocks & train tracks now live in cubbies under the dolls house, and the kids art work is now displayed in their own gallery on the wall too ;-)

and the toys are predominantly & increasingly made from natural materials too :-)

and i just noticed that we have an orange balloon in almost the same place in both the before & after pics! how odd, it's not like we usually have them, the first was from a birthday, this one is because lil' miss found a stash in our emergency kit! lol...

finally ready..

i'm pretty sure that is is all the books that we will be

getting rid of!

heh heh there's a few of 'em huh? ;-)

but wait, there's more!

(this doesn't include the stacks previously pictured on this table!)
and for those of you who have never bought a Safe-n-Sound Meridian car seat, this box is roughly 70x48x48cm.. and overflowing..

and it's STILL not all of them..

and all to find new homes! i have no idea how to display them so people can rummage through them easily..?!

books, books, books, books, books, books, books, books..

these are what i am getting rid of, so far.. i've only just started sorting so this is only some of what is to come!
four & a bit of these heaps...

plus these..

and these...

resulting in-
ahhh.. that's a bit better! we might even be able to get rid of a little bookshelf now!

so that is one big bookshelf & one box down - two big bookshelves, 2 little bookshelves, and 6-7 boxes to go.. plus the kids ones of course!

study update..

well.. despite the good news with our bedroom & lounge, i only have bad things to say about our study :-(

i had been making good progress, but unfortunately the door handle had broken off, and i hadn't gotten round to moving stuff *out* of the room..

sure enough a toddler got in and trashed the place! everything that was carefully sorted got spectacularly unsorted, everything that had been put away got tossed out again, and so on...

so now that we have fixed the door handle it is back to square one & mission five for me :-(

lounge progress

we attacked the lounge a wee bit this weekend.. not exactly planned, but good nonetheless!

the main change is the tv/stereo unit..it's quite visually dominant in our small lounge, but it looks heaps more unified, and having the speakers up there gets rid of the cables that were running around the walls & stops toddlers pulling the overs off all the time & posting things into the horns! the nappies underneath still need sorting though..

the other breakthrough we made is the dining table..
i hadn't actually posted before pics of this, but i'm sure you can extrapolate from the state of everywhere else!

before pics of the tv unit are here..

bedroom update!

finally the promised pics of the bedroom changes!

the wardrobe is heaps better, we've gotten rid of the stuff all over the top of the drawers, the fabric is much tidier (still not the ideal home, i know), we've both tossed the clothes that we hardly used, and i've gone through the drawers, now 2.5 of them are empty! And the remaining ones only hold what they should and are all tidy :-)

it's a similar story with the kids drawers, and we're working on keeping the top clear all the time..

you can check out the hideous before pics here, here & here..

mission five

Mission five
finish sorting the toys in the study

mwahahahahaaa!

sunday update

i've been hard at work in our study today, making heaps of progress! but i won't post a pic because you'll just laugh..the floor & shelves are still completely covered! but in my defence that is just because i am sorting things in there ;-)

i've been rearranging the books to make better use of the shelves size-wise (because we have more to home in there!), and separating fiction from non, and getting the heavier books off the flimsier shelves!

we've tossed most of the tapes (the LP collection remains..) and our ancient cd-rom stash, a 26 year old forest green laziboy (bought as a nursing chair for me!), and i have started on.. The Toys (insert ominous thunder here)

so today...
2.5 supermarket bags of rubbish
1 big box of stuff to give away
1 big box of D&D books to give away
1 laziboy to give away
1 supermarket bag of paper to recycle

Saturday update

well, i didn't get started til after midday, but..
i got our bedroom finished!!

i'll post pics when it is a bit sunnier (and once i've cleaned a wee bit!)

so adding to the tally-
1 supermarket bag to give away
1 big box to sell
1 supermarket bag in the rubbish
1 small box of stuff to live in other rooms

woohoo!!


and i've made a start on the study too, mostly just grouping the stuff into smaller groups to sort through separately at the mo, and organising the books a bit more to make better use of the bookshelves..

it is seriously daunting though, i had a good amount of momentum in our room, but the sheer volume of it all, and the nature of it (lots of things that *might* be useful for the kids, or nic-nacs that belonged to my mum or were given to me by her but that i don't necessarily like anymore..) make it a much, much more challenging task :-?

ah well.. shall press on, and we will overcome! :-)

weekend plan #1

we're all home this weekend, so the MOTH is going on 'babysitting' duty ;-) and i'm waging war on the house! (and feeding the baby, obviously)

soooo.. my plan of attack is...

our bedroom -
* mission #4 as previously posted..
* refolding the nappy fabric stash so it is tidier until is finds a better home
* sorting the remaining two drawers (candles & misc)
* tidying the top of the drawers..
then that should be our room finished!!!

then all going well, i'll move on to the study (insert ominous rolls of thunder here) -
* sort through toys & hopefully toss lots of them
* sort through paperwork & hopefully toss most of it
* find spaces for the books & hopefully keep most of them ;-)
* toss the ginormous tape collection!
* sort through the wardrobe & any other misc stuff in the room...

sadly enough that is probably heaps more than i can get done in 2 days.. but i'll give it a go! :-D

extreme decluttering!

we came to the conclusion that our VCR was dying :-( the power button was broken, as was the stop/eject one, and 70% of the remote too. And it had taken to turning itself off every 15-30 minutes as well.

so it has been replaced by...
ohhh yes!
which means the dvd player is on the out too! so we've reduced our lounge appliances by one, and an added bonus is that the old ones were both silver, this is black so matches our stereo, much tidier looking!

and it also means that our generous video collection will be reduced to-

and also no more blank tapes getting scattered all over the floor!

woohoo!! :-D

and it was only $299, so not too painful, thanks again dad!

#3 done - #4..

mission three done!
not for the first time, i've gone through my clothes & tossed out a bunch more stuff! there are still a few good-intentions & 'just in case's clinging on in there, but if i do get invited to a wedding or something i can't afford to rush out & get something new! and besides, i'm picky ;-)
nonetheless..
- 1 big box to give away
1/2 supermarket bag to give to friends
1/2 supermarket bag to sell
1/2 supermarket bag in the rubbish!

ahhh feels good! (though slightly naked!)

i also did an extra cull in eli's drawers :-)

mission four
sort through the mystery boxes in front of the wardrobe..

#2 done - #3..

mission two complete!
i won't post a pic, cos it's not exactly enthralling looking ;-) the stuff remaining is a bit of a jumble until a declutter elsewhere & consolidate..

soo.. remaining is 1/4 of the original
1/2 to give away (1/2 a small box)
1/4 in the rubbish! (1/3 of a supermarket bag)


mission three!
go through my clothes & underwear again, and toss out old shoes..
always a fun & easy one :-)

mission 1 update & mission 2..

mission one all done! :-D

1 small pile each to wear now
1 small pile each to grow into
1 supermarket bag to be stored for 'next time' (??!)
2 supermarket bags to give away!

so the little kids clothes have been reduced by 2/5ths! and the remainder are all tidy & sorted

edited to add - eli's clothes now fit in one drawer, but i'm going to reduce it further (how many onesies does one kid need!?) & alexis' in two.. their 'to grow into' clothes now fit in one & 0.5 drawers respectively :-)

mission two for todaysort out my 'toiletries' drawer, since i don't use pretty much any of this stuff!

mission one

for tonight.. this is the box i have just filled with clothes belonging to the two littler kids that i need to decide whether they're still in use, to grow into, to be stored, or given away... doesn't include the ones i know we use all the time..

harry potter & the goblet of fire is there as a size reference ;-)

edited to add - this is just the stuff in our room, doesn't include the old things of alexis' that are in the roof.. they need sorting too