Sunday Synopsis: William Morris Project - Days 1 through 6!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I will be posting about the William Morris Project on Sundays to give a run-down of what was completed that week prior. 

There were a few days this week that the temps dropped below 40 degrees. We hadn't turned on our heat yet, and when we did we only set it to 60 because it was supposed to warm up again and the cool house felt nice. Well, it felt nice to be snuggled up under throws on the couch. It did not feel so nice to be up and moving around. So I fell behind and played catch-up on Sunday. I'm really glad I didn't give up. 

The quick & easy projects are quickly disappearing and soon all I'll have left are the ones that require some serious motivation. There are still some that can be handled quickly, but they're just the kind of projects that overwhelm me before I begin. That will be a hurdle I will have to get over.

I'm really happy to be doing this, and very grateful to Jules over at Pancakes & French Fries for inspiring me by sharing her 31-day project last year! 

Well, on to the summary of what I accomplished these last six days:

Day 1: Purge table under window in living room

Before

After

The table under the window tends to be a catch for things we need to stack just before company arrives. There was a car charger for a phone that neither of us have had since May. There was a small pair of binoculars, a laptop battery, and a set of earphones that belong with an mp3 player. There were multiple spiral bound notebooks, which I relocated to the bookcase. My sketch pad and drawing pencil were in there, which I relocated to the "art basket" in another room. When my laptop was able to move with me, I used the digi-doodle pad in the living room; but since my laptop is now stationary I went ahead and moved that as well. There wasn't much left when I was finished relocating. I gave the table a quick wipe down with Orange Oil and asked Sweetie if there was anything she would like to have accessible on this table. The only thing she wanted was the 10-key attachment for her laptop. The only things I wanted were a spiral bound notebook and the 3D Pin Art tray and Etch-A-Sketch (which I couldn't find). I won't be putting anything on its top because that's where the cat sits.

The contents were mostly spiral notebooks, electronics, and magazines

I can never resist planting my face into one of these!

Day 2: Purge & Organize Nightstand on my side of the bed

Before

Before

Sweetie requested that I not touch her nightstand so I just did mine. This worked out well because I only had about 15 minutes of "leftover" time for the day and a quick project was exactly what I wanted.

THREE bottles of Tums, LOL! I get heartburn as soon as I lay down for bed quite often, so I always keep a bottle in the drawer. Apparently when it empties, rather than toss it in the trash can - which is right there - I kept putting it back in the drawer. ??? 

The only stuff on/in my nightstand that actually belonged there were the alarm clocks, a case for my glasses, a bottle of Tums, a book, and a pen.

After

After

Day 3: Purge & Organize the entryway closet

Before

After Sweetie's on the right, mine on the left Sweetie's winter accessories in the basket My winter accessories in a bag

I came away with a huge box of stuff to donate from this purge! I'm sure the cold weather outerwear will be very appreciated by someone. I don't want to donate that sort of stuff to Goodwill because I feel like the people who really need it won't be able to get it from there. I need to find some place that has a free closet for the homeless to access. Other than outerwear, we got rid of a ton of ball caps, visors, reusable bags, a few backpacks and a pair of water shoes.

During

Day 4: Gathered items for electronics recycling event.

The pile

A highschool in a nearby city was doing an electronics recycling event. The gray tub n front had a bunch of little stuff (radio with missing cord, keyboard, mouse, broken vcr, cell phones, and a Palm Pilot - does anyone even remember what a Palm Pilot is? LOL). The weird looking thing behind the gray tub is a screen from a console television. Sweetie had me disassemble a console so she could make a dog bed out of it. The electronics recycling center charges 40 cents a pound for televisions so I was putting off the expense. This sucker was heavy. The event was charging a flat rate of $15 which I decided was worth pulling from savings to pay for!

Day 5: Purged under kitchen sink

Before

After Commonly used bottles in the pink tub Laid plastic under the "leak-able" stuff.

What a mess! Some of the bottles in that pink tub were put there by my mother when she had come to help clean right after we bought the house in January 2010! There were a bunch of duplicate cleaning products, as well as products for cleaning tools we no longer owned. There were things that made more sense to go somewhere else. When I finished it was still more cluttered than I'd like, but I really didn't want to toss the cleaning products that we can use. So once I'm out of the homemade solutions, I'll start using those again until their gone.

Day 6: Purged under bathroom sink

Before

After Cleaning supplies on the right Dog supplies on the left

The bathroom sink went much faster than the kitchen sink. Most of the stuff got moved to the linen closet - which will be dealt with another day. We make our own "wrinkle release" spray out of diluted fabric softener, but I don't think I really need to keep the entire bottle under the sink. As with the kitchen, there were a lot of duplicate cleaning products. The hidden liquid plumber would have come in handy a few months ago when we resorted to making volcanoes in the drains and fishing the debris out with old toothbrushes. Ew. 

Six days down. Twenty-five to go!