More Cleaning and Stuff

Sorry for that last post. I really had to get that out (no pun intended), but I know that not all of you appreciated that. 😆

This weekend has been quite full of work here on the homefront. I had to do some programming both days for work to make sure I could meet a deadline of tomorrow for an application I was writing. I lost a day this past week, due to feeling ill. Add to that some major changes that came through early this week and I had some serious work to do. I just can’t code when I’m not feeling well. It’s hard to think and usually dangerous to even try, as I tend to make more work for myself in the long run.

I had ordered new “L” desks for our home office a few weeks ago from an online store. We have been trying desperately to clean out the room because the new desks are large and were going to take up the entire back wall. To install them required us to clear the entire room, except for the bookcase. The black laser printer on the file cabinet was rolled into the closet (once that was mostly cleaned out). The computer cart that had my iMac on it was disassembled and moved out into the hallway, along with the iMac. The printer cart with my color photo printer on it was emptied of its contents and also moved into the closet to hold printing and other large office supplies. This left my desk and Terry’s desk, both of which were along the right wall. The new desks were also going to take up half of the left and right walls, in addition to the back wall, so we still had work to do after that.

However, the desks arrived in their boxes (the whole way from Canada, in less than a week after they were shipped) over a week ago, so last weekend we were anxious to pull open at least one of the boxes and assemble one of the desks. Since the area where my desk was going to reside was open and ready to go, we decided to tackle mine last weekend. I was a little anxious, as I had read a bunch of reviews that talked about how difficult the desks were to assemble, that the instructions were inadequate and yadda yadda yadda. It turns out, it would have taken us about 2 hours, if we hadn’t made a mistake on one piece and had to pull several others apart in order to redo it. In fact, when Terry put his desk together yesterday, he was able to do it almost entirely by himself in 2 hours or less. No clue what people were complaining about.

So, my desk is in place and, as of yesterday evening, fully loaded up and ready to go. I even have the dock for my laptop hooked up to the switch and ready for a productive day of work from home. Yippee! Terry has loaded his desk up, as well. He was even able to fit the iMac on his desk, so it won’t go to waste (hopefully). When we finish cleaning up his old desk and the floor, we will have a ton of floor space that we haven’t had in years, I think. Enough that we should be able to setup an inflatable mattress on the floor to handle more simultaneous visitors, should the need ever arise. Since we only have one spare bedroom, it doesn’t hurt to have additional sleeping space, just in case.

Terry has even started loading up my old desk in our home office (which was moved into the space where his desk had been sitting) with his electronics equipment that is currently sprawled out on a card table in the family room. I will be really happy when he clears that off so that we can fold up the card table and put it back into the basement. It will clear up a good bit of floor space in our cramped family room. Once we finish finishing the basement this winter, we’ll be able to move the Gazelle down there and free up the last bit of space in the family room. It will be like an entirely new room!

I’m pretty excited. This cleaning spree that I’ve been on for weeks has really been paying off. We have thrown away probably a dozen bags of trash, along with a lot of empty boxes and boxes full of more trash. We have donated several bags of items to Goodwill, along with our old 36″ tube TV that we replaced nearly two years ago (Christmas) and had been sitting in our garage, taking up valuable space. Terry’s dad helped us take that one to Goodwill while he was visiting with us briefly (less than 24 hours) a few days before my birthday. Of course, he left a small snowblower in its place for me to use on the sidewalks in the winter, but hey, we’re trying. 😉 He actually took our little gas-powered generator with him, since we no longer need it. So, there was a net gain in space or at least cleanliness.

I also started cleaning out the kitchen pantry. It has been in dire need of a good purge for… well… years. I was able to tackle the floor and the top shelf in the evening one of the days this week. There are still 3 shelves left to go. In the meantime, I looked out in the garage and found the extra shelf that I want Terry to install between the bottom shelf and the floor. I need to measure and mark the new shelf so that Terry can cut it down. It needs to be cut by hand with a hacksaw, so I would prefer that Terry do it; however, I may do it myself, as I’ve been feeling really independent lately and have been doing a lot by myself. I am woman, hear me ROAR! Anyway, once we get the new shelf installed, I’ll be able to move all of the Tastefully Simple items that have been being “stored” on the floor in my reading room for months into the pantry, freeing up space there.

My goal, basically, is to free up as much space in the house as possible. Well, my real goal is to clean up the house, but a serious side effect is freeing up a good bit of space and I couldn’t be happier because the house has been feeling really cramped lately.

I still need to re-clean up my craft room. Remember how I said that I reorganized it and cleaned it a couple of weeks ago? Yeah, well, I had a major series of crafting binges, so there are projects all over, in all states of progress. I still have all of the rubber stamping and scrapbooking supplies out everywhere because I have one paper bookmark left to put together for Terry’s step-mom. While everything is out, I think I’ll whip together two paper corner bookmarks for myself, as well. I have enough unread real books that I can still use bookmarks. I also had the inspiration to make a beaded book cord for Nan, as well, so that is in progress, with beads and supplies laid out all over the place. I will get it all cleaned up, though. Before Christmas. Or over Christmas. Whatever. 😀