Our living room is now an Official Disaster Area (R). Of course, it's also a tribute to just how damned small this place is ... there is no place else to put these packed boxes! You'd think they'd somehow take the place of the stuff that's packed in them, but, ummm ... no.
I am ready to admit that we have far more stuff than the average couple. Okay, fine. So shoot me. I have hobbies. I have a life. I have stuff.
Fortunately, I now also have a bigass house to live it in. My only and worst fear is that we'll manage to junk the place up as badly as we did this one ... you know, expanding to fit the space. I vow to be extra vigilent to never, ever let that happen.
(Remind me to post about this one year from now, and see how I've done).
I mean, I don't get it ... what does 'everyone else' do? Where do they stash their stuff? When I look at pictures of pristine houses in Better Homes & Gardens, and there's nothing in them but the bare necessity of decor ... what do these people do after work? Do they just sit on their pristine sofas and watch their pristine TVs-in-an-armoire? There's nothing personal out. There are no half-finished knitting projects laying about, no stacks of magazines to read and clip articles from, no haphazard notebooks with gardening ideas in them. Where are the bills laying about to be paid? Where are the guitars and bodhrans? Where are the bottles of booze and soda pop and shot glasses? Where are the goofy "Niagara Falls" ashtrays or "OBX" drink coasters? No laptop computers laying on the living room floor, no phones on chargers on the kitchen counters, no remote controls for God's sake!! No phones, no boats, no motor cars! Not a single luxury!
Are these pictures of the houses of real people??
That's it ... I'm sending in an article to BH&G when I get moved ... How A Real Person Decorates Their Real Home. Day-core for the fiber-enthused masses.
Bah. Those are fake homes. I should quit looking.
So anyway ... I packed for several hours today, finishing 1 or 2 boxes downstairs, then finally getting the courage to tackle the upstairs, and doing about 18 boxes up there. I ran out of finished (taped and ready) boxes, and decided to call it a day. I mean, it has been a day ... I was up at 6:30 (on a Saturday!), took Tyler to the groomer's, ...
... went in to work for 2 hours, where I felt like I was having an early Monday, as everyone was there - even the boss. Who knew?
Then I came home and have been packing off and on ever since. And it's now 5:00 p.m.
And my back hurts. Yeah, I think I'm done.
Although I also think I'm clever. This ...
... is an ingenious idea. In this box are random knick-knacks and items of decor. I don't want to go strewing these about the house till we move in and get settled, and decide what areas need something, and what they need. I don't want to just clutter the place up willy-nilly with my old junk. So I'm packing all items of decor like this. That white paper on the outside is an inventory of what's in the box. It's taped over completely with clear packing tape, to protect it from any potential weather and keep it from getting torn off the box. And all 'decor' boxes are going in the basement.
Then, once I settle in and begin to get an idea of what items I'd like to see out, and where, I can easily find them without rooting randomly through dozens of boxes. That's the plan, anyway.
I'm not inventorying every box, just the 'random decor' boxes ... though every box has a label as to where in the new house it's to go (living room, kitchen, bedroom, Imaginarium) and then a little tag line underneath giving a broad overview of its contents (books, baking stuff, linens, books, shoes and accessories, books).
Yeah ... I have an unGodly number of boxes of books. I didn't realize how many were still here, as I donated about 12 or 15 copy-paper-boxes of books to the library in the last year. Sheesh!
I am currently astounded at the sheer number of boxes I've labeled "Imaginarium." It looks like 95% of what I own is headed up there. I keep looking at the pictures of that space, and thinking, "It's so huge! What am I going to do with all that?" Well, if the number of boxes headed that way is any indication, I'm having no trouble filling that space entirely.
It's a little disconcerting. Am I going to have nothing in the main living area of the house? What in the hell all do I have to put up there anyway?? Well ... many, many books. Boxes of sewing stuff, as well as stuff for embroidery, weaving, knitting, quilting, etc. So I guess that's not so crazy. I mean, who of you fiber freaks could look around and say that if you had to pack up your entire house, less than 50% of it would be your personal fiber-freaky stuff? (Okay, more hands than that, please!)
I'm consoling myself with the fact that I do in fact have other household items I just haven't packed yet. There are linens. There are bunches of kitchen stuff. There's the TV, DVD, VCR, stereo, movies, DVDs, CDs ... bath towels, the entire hall closet, and the medicine cabinet in the bath ... phones on chargers, laptop computers, remote controls ... all that kind of normal living stuff. It's not all yarn and books!!!! Really, it isn't. Mostly.
Oi. I'm too tired to type. And anyway, I don't care ... it's worth $90,000 not to have my washer and dryer in my friggin' kitchen anymore.
P.S. The real kicker is that I haven't yet convinced myself that we're actually moving ... my brain is telling me this is all just a weird exercise in inventorying, and after awhile, I'll unpack it all and settle back in. I'm sure I'm going to be quite shocked in two weeks when I wake up in a strange bedroom and can't find the bathroom. Or the washer and dryer.
3 comments:
Your welcome, as always.
As far as those picture houses....I have two theories:
CGI
or
They stash all that other stuff in the basement before the photographers show up.
Oh, and the picture of your kitchen reminded me of something.
Is the new kitchen floor as comfortable as the old one? You know how the drummer has that knack of passing out in kitchens.
Rhys
Of course those are real houses! The media would NEVER lie to us. Maybe the houses are like my grandmother's house, she had a morning room and a parlor, both perfectly appointed in antique furnishings and decorative pieces and sealed behind locked doors. I think she went in only to dust. WE certainly never got to enter those rooms. We were banished to the back sitting room.
You could always shove everything into the wall of cabinets in the kitchen.
I'm enjoying the clever ;p
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