Pictures of the Back Porch Over Haul

A major contributor to the back porch madness. His relentless pursuit of cat food leads to many a mess!! But I do love that restless nose!!

I'm glad somebody was excited!!!!

So um, just a little dust, nothing that would require a high powered hose or harsh chemicals!!

My super duper helper!!

He really got into it!!

Add some cat food, random tools, paint, camping equipment and heat pump filters to make one grand mess!!

Cats are NOT clean animals.

A lovely combination of cat hair, cat food and dust. It smells even more toxic than in it looks.

Ninny's favorite spot. Yuck!

A VERY productive day

Today didn't start out so great. Starring blankly at West Wing reruns on Bravo at 10 am on my second cup of coffee. I really thought I'd be doing good to get out of my pajamas.
But I think staying in a bit longer in the am helped me keep from overheating before I could even get started. (It has been so incredibly humid that it's hard to breathe much less muck around)
Robert got home and between 5 and 8 we knocked it out! He got all the mowing done and all the weed eating inside the fence. We drug out all the junk off the back porch, and with the water hose and WALT's help it looks and SMELLS like a whole new room!!!

While scrubbing I had a few minutes to think. I know most all of the pictures I have posted are bad. And they are accurate, for that moment. Given a 24 hour notice Robert and I have always been able to make it presentable. The perfect example is the photo on the front of my blog. A week before that picture was taken we had the whole family over to eat Christmas dinner.
So I have the ability to clean. I scrub the back porch out every summer. What I am searching for is organization. Not just to achieve it, but to maintain it.
A critical part is to no longer function at 25% past maximum capacity. Unfortunately the building is already full again and I feel like I need to have another "lighten the load" sale in order to move more out of the house. I am also making the effort to limit what is coming in the house.

But in a way I am really proud of myself. Like I said above, given 24 hours notice all this nonsense could temporarily disappear. I didn't have to show this to the world. It's a new level of honesty, of not putting on that happy face and pretending like everything is under control. This blog and its unflattering pictures are me at my most vulnerable in years and years.
Perhaps when the house is finished it will inspire me to take my guard down in other areas as well . .

A moment of pure beauty

This set of pictures are somewhat inspired by a series from the Pioneer Woman, but the love displayed is completely real and unretouched. . . . .

The Latest Breaking News . . .

The build FULL of yard sale junk (and some of my art supplies, but mostly JUNK)

At least there is a path now! This should look VERY different by next week!

This may just be worse than last week, but it is this week's project.

Would it help if I said that this is where everything on it's way out sit before it gets gone?? But check out that fancy magic eraser mop --- I am so excited about that!!!

Still a disaster.

The bathroom sink, once again fit for human use!

The bathroom was this week's project. It went MUCH faster than the winter work. It's amaing how much floor space we have when the laundry is done!!

Bathroom shelves, some work left to be done, but it's functional.

The living room floor. A marked improvement. I' m not sure we'll ever get past the lived in look.

My one man wrecking crew. He's such a hamm.

One of my lasting improvements from the winter blitz. These house all of WALT's arts and crafts and he knows where everything goes!!

The laundry room. Not much difference, but I am caught up with my laundry!!

The bed has been made every day for a week. And yesterday it was stripped clean and had nice clean sheets and pillowcases put on. TRUE LIFE ALTERING PROGRESS. The box to the left is the latest to be added to the yard sale pile.

The bedroom floor. Nice huh? Now that it's clean, it's in obvious need of a paint job (this is WALT's baby room) WALT is voting to keep the red trim and paint the walls yellow. I am vetoing that motion. I have black laquer furniture that I am not willing to part with, so any ideas on a wall color?

As previously posted on facebook . . .

Just in case you missed it, I am having the 2nd (of at least 3) yard sale.
There are 4 or 5 boxes here in the house ready to go, and some yard toys gathered by the gate, and then of course the entire outbuilding full of junk.
I truly hope to do well, and by well I mean have nothing left to carry back in. I would like to have enough cash to have a grand old time of mega popcorns and drink refills at the drive in Saturday night, but the real goal is to get it GONE.
Anything that didn't sale in the first sale that is still sitting Saturday afternoon is heading straight to the DanPaul Closet.
Anybody that is going to be in the Gate City area, it should be a good one, even have mom in on the action!! so stop buy, throw down some pocket change and take a box of goodies with you!!!

Just like starting over . . .

The back porch, which is always ALWAYS a disaster.

The laundry room, which is a kind of controlled chaos.

Ninny, the reason for the backporch madness.

View of the side yard, and the main house entrance. Where projects linger in pergatory.

The original out building, and my future art studio. At the moment it is FULL of yard sale junk.

The entry way, or reception station, or perhaps the imploding recycling area.

The kitchen, it's looked worse, it WILL look better.

The kitchen sink, my mortal enemy.

That's all the Countertop space there is.

I clean off the table and we eat, and 45 minutes later, it's all back.

Even the dogs are messy.

The bathroom sink, where science experiments occur everyday.

The scientific materials.

Robert lived on the couch for the last two weeks with some type of plague and it shows.

Another "lovely" view of the living room.

l

o

o

Too busy cleaning to post . . .

Nobody believed that title right??? Good. Though it was partially true, in spirit anyway. I had planned to post on Sunday and Robert demanded a deep cleaning of both the living room and our bedroom. I HATE HATE DESPISE HATE LOATHE HATE cleaning with my husband. He takes the O.H.I.O. rule to some rare artform and just moves so fast and seems to simply chant "What do you want to do with this?" "What do you want to do with this?" "What about this?" "And this?" There is not time to sit and hold and think and absorb and decide and it makes me furious. In fact in devouring the now infamously debunked memior "A Million Little Pieces" and he was talking about the Fury and oh how I could relate to the inner rage of cleaning along side my husband.
And yet . . . In less than five hours the living room and bedroom were truly clean. Done. Only daily upkeep needed. No boxes to sort through later. No maybe piles. No shelves still lingering with potential yard sale items. Just a trash can full of trash, an overflowing box for the yard sale and a clean and freshly made bed. I HATE HATE DESPISE HATE LOATHE HATE when my husband is right.

In other news, I have a new plan for motivation. I am going to take pictures of my house every Saturday morning and post them here. They will no doubt often be accompanied by excuses but I think it may keep me a bit more dilligent in my maintence phase. So this week my goal is to get the digital camera and the laptop talking.

The yard work also continues to move forward. I have finished the flower bed. and then promptly bought more clearance flowers and am in the process of planting those. The yuccas still need work and I am momentarily out of potting soil and mulch, but my shoulders are sunburned and nothing has died yet. So it's going well. Pictures on that front soon as well.

Summer vacation has FINALLY arrived so post should be more often and hopefully more positive in nature. Now if you will excuse me, I have laundry to swap out . . .