Two days of cleaning has yielded an apartment that looks like it might actually be inhabited by an adult. The counters have been scoured, the burner pans soaked, and the storage cabinet cleaned out and organized. I even washed all my canvas bags that I use for groceries / travel / any task imaginable. The carpet is vacuumed, the linoleum Swiffered, the bookshelves dusted (but only because I rearranged furniture).
All that is left to do before my parents arrive tomorrow is put new sheets on the bed.
And so I celebrated with a box of Harry & David Royal Riviera pears. Otherwise known as heaven. We call them perfect pears in my family. I made the mistake of telling my mom I had them. Now she expects me to share.
Spice collection, pared down. So glad to find a use for my pretty Ikea tins! Now the large one contains all the “overstock” stuff, like extra curry powder that didn’t fit in a jar and the big jar of black peppercorns. The medium one contains the bags of fancy salts. And the small one contains our dried chiles de arbol; it’s so nice to have them in a real container. I haven’t yet bought my nice pretty glass spice jars (mainly to replace the McCormick ones), and there is no real organizational system yet apart from trying to pull the items we use more often to the front, but already this is so much better.
So I was sitting in the parlor when I heard the chairs scraping against the kitchen floor. (cleaning shit and pictures that you don’t care about)
Sorting through the pantries during my “hurrication”. (Shown here: mostly baking supplies.) Things I have concluded:
1. Enough with the one-time-only baking projects requiring specialty flour. If I buy rye flour for rye bread, I had better be planning to make more than one loaf.
2. Similarly, specialty vinegars. We had 10 bottles of different vinegars! We use two of them regularly, two more of them periodically, and the rest maybe only once or twice. It’s a problem when you find your vinegar has turned. Funky.
3. It seems I enjoy the idea of tea much more than I actually enjoy drinking tea. Or, rather, I don’t really have a habit of drinking tea, even though I do like it. Yet we have umpteen boxes of tea (no attempt to count). I am now on conscious alert to drink the damned tea until it’s pared down to the handful we actually do gravitate towards.
4. Spice collection, I’m coming for you next……
Generally this was a sobering reminder to keep tabs of what’s in the pantry. It’s great to buy and cook fresh food, but the pantry is the backbone. Quit forgetting that we already have cans of beans before buying more for that night’s tacos. Having to toss expired canned goods is infuriating and wrong, especially when I’d been hoping to donate some of our supplies to storm relief. No more!
Pantry inventory is always a great idea!
So the Invisible Corner in our house is actually an Invisible Room — the laundry. It’s such an invisible room that I took a before photo of the bit I thought I was tackling:
and it was only after I started that I found two whole other areas (under the laundry trough to the right, and on top of the freezer to the left) that needed unfucking too.
And, okay, it doesn’t look like much in the photo, but all that crap had been there for most of the nine months we’ve lived here. I had no idea what was in the green bag (ancient, dead cleaning supplies and a random box, all BINNED). And there was an amazing amount of soap scum under it all. *cough*
Invisible
RoomCorner Unfucked! \o/
The front room was a dumping ground when we moved in here a couple weeks ago.
While the rest of the house was coming together, this room was taunting me.
This was last weekends progress. The desk was $25 on craigslist, and being metal, it took my husband, my roommate and me to wrestle it into the house. Luckily this is the front room.
Today it’s finished:
jeely Asks:
unfuckyourhabitat Said:
I suspect the reason your workspace is cleaner is because when you’re at work, you’re in “get shit done” mode. Your mind is task-oriented, and you fully expect to be dealing with things that maybe aren’t fun, but that you’re getting paid to deal with.
When you get home, all of that switches off. You’ve just been doing it all day, after all. What you need is to designate certain times as “work at home” times, not for doing your actual job, but for unfucking your apartment. I find it easier to do when I first get home from work, since I’m not fully out of that mindset yet.
Dear Unfuck Your Habitat,
Thank you, THANK YOU, THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART for what you are doing. Before my friend linked me to UFYH I would put off chores until the last minute and have anxiety over how dirty my home was until I cleaned. I used to have nightmares about my parent’s stopping over unexpectedly and seeing the dishes in the sink or dust in the corners of every room. I just could not motivate myself to clean when there was T.V. to watch or internet to browse or naps to be taken.
Not anymore. I’m not saying we’re perfect by a long shot, but it’s getting a lot better. Clothes are going in the hamper. Dishes are going in the sink. We made a chore chart of things to do each day and not one of them takes more than 15 minutes to complete, and we’re actually doing them.
This morning I stumbled into the kitchen to make my coffee and remembered I left the dinner dishes from the night before. Feeling unsettled, I set a 10 minute timer thinking “Screw it, what I don’t get done in 10 minutes can wait until after work.”
I managed to get all the dishes into the dishwasher, all the pots and pans scrubbed and into the dishrack, and I even had two minutes left over to bleach the drain and do a quick wipe on the counters. All before my first cup of coffee!
So again I say thank you inspiring and motivating me to get off my ass and take a little pride in my home. You are the best!
Sincerely,
Shauna E.
P.S. Drain volcano is the coolest shiz ever…!
Your words, they…
Living room status: unfucked!
That green rocking chair has had a pile of crap on it for MONTHS - since just after my 3.5 month old baby was born. It was actually making me depressed every time I looked at it, but I haven’t done anything about it until now.
Now the couch looks decent, we actually have a chair to sit in, and I have all my money for rent amalgamated in a stack under my wallet ready to deposit next time I leave the house. Wooo! also, bonus dog photobomb.
Today I decided to take pictures of the house now that we’re (almost) finished decorating. Hats off to UFYH for helping me light a fire under my butt and finally keep the house neat and organized all the time:
Looks awesome!
