At any other time the living room and dining room in our home, while far from perfect, were certainly the least cluttered space, mostly because they do not have closing doors to hide the mess. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Or at least that appears to be how I try to fool myself, like a kid told to clean their bedroom, stuff it in the closet and under the bed, "look Ma, all done. Can I have my laptop back now?" However, at the present time, all the "under beds and closets" (rooms with doors that close) are already at capacity themselves; as explained in a previous post, we kinda got hit by an avalanche of events. And to be perfectly honest, though I'm writing this for Saturday, I myself am several days behind on the challenge and tomorrow won't change much as I'm gone all day again, lol. So for those of you concerned you're behind or not doing much, you're not alone ;).
The living room is generally our in-between place before we call it a night. After supper is done most families retire to the couch to watch some TV and/or surf the net. We should make this room a place we like to hang out not just crash and burn. Personally, I've found if it is not a huge cluttered mess I'm
more likely to shut the TV off and encourage a family game night or go for a walk. Weird maybe, but there it is.
Let's begin again at the entrance and move to our right, Cha Cha Slide style ;). ♪♫To the right, to the right, to the right♫♪ Have your boxes ready for sell/donate items, etc., don't forget the bags for garbage and recycles too; I know we did a surface clean out at the beginning of this challenge, but now we're getting into the nooks and crannies. Couch diving, here we come! You can work in rounds by choosing to start with one project, then moving onto another after that one is done, say grab all the out of place items into a box for putting away later, then go through drawers in the side tables and such, then move onto another specific task or work on one shelf unit, or one piece of furniture at a time.
My personal modus operandi, if you've not already guessed, is the "pile and junk it method". I haul pretty much everything into the middle of the room, clean/dust and vacuum the furniture, then I plop myself on the floor (actually, with my joints it's more of a fall to the floor) then go through that big nasty pile. Start with the largest items, usually before I sit down for those, and work down until all that is left is literally garbage. If I go shelf by shelf, desk to table, I actually am far less likely to get rid of what needs to really be gotten rid of. You see, that beautifully empty, dust-free shelf or table top? I don't want to fill it back up with a shit load of crap again making me far pickier about what can go back. But that is just me. As I've said all along me pretties, you gotta do it youuurrrr waaaaay (key Tony Bennet, I think, can't remember and I canna be bothered to look it up lol). This is also a good time to vacuum the upholstery, test an inconspicous area first but that stain remover I mentioned before is great on couches. Give your real wood furniture a polish as well, two parts olive oil and one part lemon juice mixed together and a soft cloth and you can make that mahogany shine. Now, you guessed it, do the same in the dining room. Bam, done!
There has been some discussion about dusting door and window frames, wiping walls and cleaning floors. By all means do a quick sweep and vacuum, especially after piling all that shit in the middle of the floor. But as for the rest, we have a day for that coming too as we'll be doing this in a special, cleansing way to rid our homes of the last bit of grime and negative energies. So patience me pretties, we're getting there! ;) Have a stupendous Saturday!
Love & light,
~Síonaínn ** ƸӜƷ **
Ps. Decorating will also come next week, do start thinking about things you'd like to add to make rooms Samhain ready and cozier for the coming winter.
