Cleaning the Pit
Jan. 2nd, 2013 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_lucy21I am cleaning my pit of a room today. No, seriously, "pit" is the right descriptor. I'm not taking photos (because I do have shame, here), but if you remember that show Clean House and you think of a typical before photo, you'll be about right (not Hoarders- I'm not that bad). My tolerance for disorder and clutter is way higher than the average person's- it's an ADD thing. I like it when things are clean, but I'm also not programmed to notice when things get "unclean" to a point when reversing them would be effortless. This is programming I have tried and tried and tried again to change and I really seem pretty incapable of it. Although, for some reason, I can manage better in shared spaces. In the living room, for example, about 75% of the clutter hanging around is mine, but overall, the room just looks lived in, not super messy.
(I will also note for my own sense of self worth, that I'm talking about clutter and random junk for the most part. There aren't dishes or food or things like that around in my room (overflowing waste basket, yes, but there's not food in there). And I do keep kitchens and bathrooms at a sanitary level of clean. They don't sparkle, but there's not dishes molding on the counter, either)
I'm doing this in 30 minute chunks with 10 minute breaks because otherwise, I get overwhelmed. So, in the first 30 minutes, I have managed to sort all the clean laundry and pull everything out of the cupboard and go through it to get rid of stuff that doesn't fit, pull out stuff that needs mending, etc. Most of the clean laundry is now in the cupboard and I'm now doing the same with the dresser. And there's the timer, so back to it...
11:30: Now the clean laundry is all put away and the dresser now has the out of season clothes and work out clothes. I have unearthed a number of things that don't belong to me (my room used to be storage when I wasn't living here) and those will be exiting to the basement. I have one corner cleaned out (mostly this is where the things that didn't belong to me were) and a whole bag full of clothes to go to Goodwill or some such. The majority of the dirty laundry is contained and ready to go to the laundry room (I can't actually do laundry right now because my dad is home and he is using the laundry machines for some reason). I'm also thinking there's going to have to be some furniture reconfiguring, because the main purpose here is to make it so I can move my stuff from the garage to my room (most of it. The kitchen stuff and furniture will go to the basement), and some things are not logically placed at the moment.
1:30: Huh. This may not be as bad as I thought it was. Once the vast majority of the laundry was contained (I'm still finding random socks) and moved out of the way, and I moved the yarn stash (in several boxes) out of the way, things don't look so bad. I still need to rearrange things in the closet to put the yarn stash away, but first I need to get to the closet. But I was anticipating a many day task, and it may only be a two day task (minus laundry. That'll take me a few days to process).
4:30: I stopped around 3:30 because my back had had enough. But I'm really pleased with my progress. I got everything cleared out from in front of the closet, got the yarn stash put away in the closet and cleaned out the hard to get to corner near my bed. I also hauled most of the trash downstairs, and moved my DVDs downstairs to where the actual DVD player is (why they were in my room to begin with, I have no idea). There's a big pile of things that need homes (it's way more efficient to just make a pile of stuff that I need to think about than to sit and think about where it's going to go when I do this) and I still need to tackle the area in front of the dresser and the top of the dresser and the desk. And the laundry, of course. But that's a very good start. I should be able to move furniture around by the weekend and then I can start moving my stuff up (or, more likely, getting someone to move the boxes for me and then I can unpack them).
(I will also note for my own sense of self worth, that I'm talking about clutter and random junk for the most part. There aren't dishes or food or things like that around in my room (overflowing waste basket, yes, but there's not food in there). And I do keep kitchens and bathrooms at a sanitary level of clean. They don't sparkle, but there's not dishes molding on the counter, either)
I'm doing this in 30 minute chunks with 10 minute breaks because otherwise, I get overwhelmed. So, in the first 30 minutes, I have managed to sort all the clean laundry and pull everything out of the cupboard and go through it to get rid of stuff that doesn't fit, pull out stuff that needs mending, etc. Most of the clean laundry is now in the cupboard and I'm now doing the same with the dresser. And there's the timer, so back to it...
11:30: Now the clean laundry is all put away and the dresser now has the out of season clothes and work out clothes. I have unearthed a number of things that don't belong to me (my room used to be storage when I wasn't living here) and those will be exiting to the basement. I have one corner cleaned out (mostly this is where the things that didn't belong to me were) and a whole bag full of clothes to go to Goodwill or some such. The majority of the dirty laundry is contained and ready to go to the laundry room (I can't actually do laundry right now because my dad is home and he is using the laundry machines for some reason). I'm also thinking there's going to have to be some furniture reconfiguring, because the main purpose here is to make it so I can move my stuff from the garage to my room (most of it. The kitchen stuff and furniture will go to the basement), and some things are not logically placed at the moment.
1:30: Huh. This may not be as bad as I thought it was. Once the vast majority of the laundry was contained (I'm still finding random socks) and moved out of the way, and I moved the yarn stash (in several boxes) out of the way, things don't look so bad. I still need to rearrange things in the closet to put the yarn stash away, but first I need to get to the closet. But I was anticipating a many day task, and it may only be a two day task (minus laundry. That'll take me a few days to process).
4:30: I stopped around 3:30 because my back had had enough. But I'm really pleased with my progress. I got everything cleared out from in front of the closet, got the yarn stash put away in the closet and cleaned out the hard to get to corner near my bed. I also hauled most of the trash downstairs, and moved my DVDs downstairs to where the actual DVD player is (why they were in my room to begin with, I have no idea). There's a big pile of things that need homes (it's way more efficient to just make a pile of stuff that I need to think about than to sit and think about where it's going to go when I do this) and I still need to tackle the area in front of the dresser and the top of the dresser and the desk. And the laundry, of course. But that's a very good start. I should be able to move furniture around by the weekend and then I can start moving my stuff up (or, more likely, getting someone to move the boxes for me and then I can unpack them).