Busy Weekend!

I'm one of those people that works in spurts. Things can pile up around me for months on end and I just let them be. Then, one day, I've had enough and it's time to deal with it all. I am aware that if I dealt with things as they came at me, and didn't let them pile up, it would be easier, but that's just not the way I see the situation. I get so annoyed at having to constantly deal with little things that I'd rather ignore them until they become a big thing that can no longer be ignored and then deal with it once and for all. So goes the saga of my den.

We have a two bedroom apartment. Up until this weekend you might have actually heard me refer to it as a one bedroom plus walk in closet. As that is more or less what the den had become, and really felt like. For the last three years that room has been the holding space of all things we may or may not need or want, but didn't want to get rid of for whatever reason. So while the rest of the house is relatively neat most of the time and most things in the rest of the house have a place (even my yarn has a home in all the cubbies and drawers I got for it a while ago), the den is not neat by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore, for all these years I have been convinced that it was just a very tiny little room so what could we do about it anyway.

This weekend was my breaking point with the den. Thanks to a certain love of an online game that shall go unnamed, Grant and I spend a fair amount of time in there, and this weekend we finally agreed that if we're going to continue to spend time in there it can't be left in it's current state. So we threw caution to the wind and started extracting everything from of the den in order to move it into the living room. We're moving out of the den you see and when we move back in it's going to be a whole new den. Everything is coming out - all furniture (which includes a couch, recliner, two desk chairs, a desk, a filing cabinet and two bookcases), all boxes, all books and all the closet goodies (which includes a good portion of my stash). I really should have taken a before picture, it was quite full.

We learned two very interesting things starting this project. First, the room is actually quite large! We measured (so we will have dimensions when buying new furniture) and learned it's a 10' x 11.5' room. I mean really, that's not bad at all. I was convinced it was probably 8' x 10' at most, clearly all the clutter had me confused.

Second, Dyson makes the best vacuum in the whole wide world. We took our 20% off coupon to Bed, Bath and Beyond and bought one this weekend when we started the spring cleaning kick (before we decided to move out of the den). Our old vacuum just didn't seem to be working very well, so we broke down and bought this one. Oh my goodness, it is the best thing since sliced bread!

The couch in the den has long been the napping place of the cats as it's in the window. So, needless to say, the thing was a little on the furry side. Once we pulled it out we decided to try out the vacuum on it, to see if it really worked all that well. All I can say is it was amazing! The couch looks practically new. We were going to give it away, but now I'm thinking of keeping it. I just can't believe how much better it looks.

As if all this cleaning and moving wasn't enough, we also spent a good part of Saturday afternoon balling yarn. I had a credit at Creative Hands (I bought too much yarn for the mystery gift) and so I used it for a winder. Talk about addictive passtime for two engineers! Grant and I kept taking turns using it. We went through a good portion of my living room stash yarn before we made ourselves get back to work. Totally silly I know, but I don't know how I managed without this thing. It makes such lovely little center pull cakes of yarn.

So, all in all, a lot was done this weekend, but there's a ton more to do this week.