Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Made Some Progress! – Front Room April 2016

For this month’s blog, I have decided to continue with the practice of providing an overall report on room progress rather than breaking it down into the four work areas.  Afterward, I will provide some goals for April.  At the bottom, I did include the March 1, 2016 (left) vs. April 1, 2016 (right) pictures of the four areas for reference.  I feel really good about the progress I made this month.  My progress definitely falls more in the realm of cleaning up than planning the future redesign, but still I was working on things that needed to be done.  Plus, you can actually see noticeable improvement in the pictures.

As I just said, most of my energy was spent in the cleaning up portion of the project.  I unpacked three boxes from the living room section.  Two of these boxes were full of books, which were sorted into the basement (my husband’s books), the garbage (very old CPA review books), a little white shelf that I brought up from the basement (textbooks I need to consider whether to keep or not), and a smaller box (novels that I am definitely keeping).  The remaining box had a couple of my stepson’s toys and a whole lot of Styrofoam peanuts.  The toys are currently sitting against the wall in the living room and the peanuts have been thrown away.  I also took one of the boxes that were under the window to goodwill.  It had been packed up in a prior month and never actually taken to the donation center.

Over in the desk area, I did some work on the two piles of paper I created last month.  There is an odd mix of junk mail, catalogs, old schoolwork for me, old schoolwork for my stepson, etc.  I literally have to go through each piece and make a decision to keep, throw, or review more carefully.  As I go through the pile, I file, toss, or put each paper on my desk as appropriate.  I also made another dent in the folder on my desk that contains keepsakes.  I created the pages in my scrapbook for one more year, so now I am only two years behind.  In the center of the area, I moved the Kitchen Aid mixer, the Breville juicer, and an old thermostat into the kitchen.  These still need to be unpacked, cleaned, and found a permanent home, but at least now they are residing in the right room.  I pushed the sewing machine, craft boxes, and other scattered boxes against the wall to neaten the room a bit.  I also broke down the kitties favorite boxes along with the ones that I emptied out this month.  Some of these have gone out to recycling, but there are a few still on the floor ready to go.

The only progress I made on the redesign part of the project is one furniture store visit.  I took a trip to the nearest Ikea, but I do not think it is the right type of furniture for this project.  There were some shelving options and a couple of chairs that I might keep in mind as I am finishing it up, but most of the furniture is just too minimal and cheap looking for what I want to do with the front room.  I want it to look relaxing, comfortable, and inviting, but not like a college dorm room where the only criterion was cheap.

There is my update for March.  Overall, I think I had a really good month.  Looking forward to April, I do not have high hopes that I will make much progress.  It is my fiscal year-end close at work, and I am likely to be overworked and exhausted pretty much the whole month.  Therefore, I am only tasking myself to go through some of the remaining boxes in the room.  If I feel like shopping on any weekend, I will make my trip out to Crate & Barrel to see what they have to offer.  I have high hopes though that May will be the month I really can kick it up a notch and start making actual purchasing decisions.


See you next week!

  

  

  

  

No comments:

Post a Comment