Finishing Touches

During my unfinished furniture shopping extravaganza, I picked up two wall shelves for topping off the reorganization frenzy in my room and the upstairs bathroom.

I needed (OK, wanted) a shelf behind the tub in the bathroom, for tubby toys and soap and things. I painted it this ridiculous minty green because I had already painted a small cabinet in the same bathroom the same color.  It works for me. So does the shelf.

I finished a similar shelf to hang in the sewing corner of my bedroom/sewing room/office.  Right now it sports jars of pretty ribbons, buttons and a knitting bear, as well as some of my stuffed animals from childhood--a bunny, a chick, a big and two hippopotamuses. That cracks me up.  Who has one hippo toy, let alone two? Me apparently. I hung a bit of rick-rack across it for pinning up inspirational pictures. I don't have much inspiration at this time, so instead I hung up some cards.

And for fun, I got this tiny pastel floral banner from LiliaRose on Etsy.  I love vintage hankies, but never know what to do with them (I've made curtains with them before, but the sun destroys them).  These sweet little pennants are perfect.

 Finally, I got a 13-moon calendar from So Wabi-Sabi.  The funny/embarrassing thing about it is that I bought it after (because) C and I had a "discussion" about whether the 12-month calendar is just arbitrary and if 13 months wouldn't make more sense.  Meanwhile, the calendar is designed as a tool to raise human consciousness, and the proceeds were to help fund the creator's peace walk. So take that, C!  Just kidding...after I got it, I quietly hung it up without any "see I told ya so's."  See? My consciousness has already been raised.

Now, when I started this process of cleaning, decluttering and reorganizing every room in the house, one month at a time, my goal was to make my house so clean, it stayed clean.  So, how has it worked so far? In the parts of the house I haven't tackled yet (those would be all of the public parts of the house, that people see), it's been a disaster, because my focus on the rooms I'm working on, has caused me to neglect (more than usual) those rooms.  But, in the rooms I've done, it's actually worked fairly well. No, the rooms don't stay clean by themselves, but if I stay on top of things, put stuff away (clean laundry, finished books, craft projects, etc.), then all I have to do to clean my room on the weekends, is dust and vacuum.  Not that I get to it every weekend, mind you, but when I do, it's not onerous at all (which implies I should probably get to it every weekend).  I try to tidy up the upstairs bathroom every night while I'm getting ready for bed, and, instead of noticing a filthy sink or mirror and thinking "I'll clean that Saturday," I try to just clean it right then, in case I don't get around to cleaning the bathrooms on Saturday.  The boys' room, has been harder though.  They are like little entropy machines. I had tried to lay down the law, "Nothing on the floor, ever!!" But, as usual, they ignored me.  Instead, I try to encourage them to pick things up each night before bed, and help them clean the whole thing every other week or so.  So far it hasn't gotten as crazily messy as it usually gets, but I have been amazed by how quickly they mess it up.