Oye. So last Wednesday I cleared out everything visible in my kitchen (except the pictures all over the front of my refrigerator), in my master suite bathroom (except for soap and tooth brush with tooth paste - hey, that drawer under the counter I never use is coming in handy now!), and in my guest bathroom in anticipation of the professional cleaners I was expecting to come make them beautiful. Or at least clean, as those are three rooms I rarely clean in my house. The owner of the Plymouth franchise of The Cleaning Authority showed up only minutes past schedule, did a walk through, and explained everything to me. Good so far.



But this post isn't about the cleaners. It's about me telling my selling realtor I'd have my condo "show worthy" by the end of the weekend. Well, it's almost the end of the weekend and guess what? Of course, I'm not ready.

The problem started after I got home from work on Thursday. The kitchen looked... so empty. All my vases and show glass are hiding in cabinets. The fruit was chillin' in the refrigerator instead of out on the counter getting ripe. And just looking at all the open, empty, pretty, clean space made me feel a little empty inside.

The master suite bathroom was the same, but being so small to begin with it didn't affect me on its own. But when I started thinking about how I have to "declutter" the whole condo, it made me sad. I can't live in such an empty environment! Where's all of me? So I was unmotivated Thursday and did nothing.

Friday I ended up out with friends I hadn't seen but for 1 minute in over a month. Sorry home, needed to rekindle the friendship.

Saturday morning I made some personal progress and was ready to start cleaning and removing that which is me from the condo again! But my Grandmother called, and so I spent Saturday afternoon with her.

Saturday night I put in a lot of work. But this was also when I noticed a room I hadn't given any thought to yet: the utility closet, which doubles as the laundry room. Uh oh! Too bad I hadn't thought to include that in what the cleaners did. I spent 2 hours or so making my washer and dryer sparkle, and cleaning the one shelf, part of the floor and spot checking the walls. The little room looks fantastic now! But I hadn't planned on having to do that one.

The rest of the night was spent emptying the hall, which included boxing up all my photo albums and year books. Which of course meant I had to look through them all before I could do so, more time out the window. I don't regret it! I had fun reminiscing. Just took time is all.

Today I did some work in my bedroom in preparation for my cousin and step-cousin coming to help move things. So now some items have made it to the garage, and my bed is all fixed up nice. I also went to the Home Depot and got everything I needed to fill in all the nail holes for the pictures and plaques I had taken down around the house. I sanded and putty-ed those up. And then found out the white paint I bought does not match the white color of the hall walls. *sigh* Guess I'll just repaint the whole hall. It couldn't hurt. Lastly today I got the bar between my kitchen and dining room cleared off. Not a simple task since it's where papers and things go to live until I get around to doing whatever needs to be done with them. All that means is I got through some tasks that had been set aside in addition to getting another part of the condo "decluttered".

But I have learned, repeatedly, this week that decluttering a home is NOT like cleaning it. Cleaning is washing and vacuuming and putting up loose items. Decluttering is even beyond organizing. It's go through every individual thing, determining if it's to be thrown out/recycled or kept, then finding new permanent homes that are out of sight for those things or packing them up in boxes and storing the boxes somewhere else, then cleaning the places those items were. Whew. Lots of effort, and definitely plenty to show for it. But more work that you might think.

So now I have to call my selling realtor and let her know the condo won't be ready to show at least until next weekend. But at least I got my motivation back to make that happen, and I should be able to schedule time during the week to continue this quest for a show worthy home. The word undaunted comes to mind. We'll see. :)

Labels: Home Buying