Sunday, June 29, 2008

If You Give a Mom a Cabinet

Have you ever noticed how remodeling, organizing, and cleaning projects rarely stay neatly within their own borders? One thing often leads to another.

Re-organize one area, displace some items which need to go somewhere else, re-organize that someplace else, displace more items...

Tackle a cleaning job , notice the dirty area under it, clean it and discover major grime in the area next to that...

Attempt to remodel one thing and suddenly realize that the things surrounding it no longer match or look very worn by comparison. And one room flows into another, you know...

These projects can have a way of flowing and spreading until you're engulfed by an ocean that you never even saw on the map! That's where I've been lately. I've been paddling furiously on a raft in the middle of an ocean of all three project varieties. S.O.S.!

If I ever reach shore, I'd love to share with you the very special story of our adoption. Amazingly, I've never written it down in its entirety. It is something that I have promised myself I will do before becoming totally embroiled in planning and launching the new school year, so you'll either soon read the story, or read of my arrest for child neglect. Stay tuned!

That is all.


Unless you are further interested in my project ocean. If you are not, please, I beg of you, read no further. Save yourself!



Our house does not have the best physical arrangement for our family or homeschooling, and it's added some extra stress to the daily mix. You name it, I've tried it. This spring, the situation deteriorated sharply when Boy #2's full drum kit moved in, displacing homeschool materials from the third floor into a gigantic heap in my dining room. I wracked my brain for an inexpensive, creative, still attractive solution for school, and came up with nothing. (I'm kind of known for creative organization, so that's saying something.)

Meanwhile, like every other area in our 108 year old house, our little kitchen has its own issues. One is that there has never been enough room in the kitchen to actually store the dishes. They've been living around the corner in the dining room. There's a space under the kitchen counter with two bar stools for my four children, also not exactly fulfilling our needs. So why not purchase a cabinet for that area under the counter, finally bring the dishes into their rightful kitchen homeland, and then organize those homeschool materials in the dining room cabinet? We'll do it! Hooray! I'll soon be down to the business of organizing and planning life and school. A little expensive, but very practical, quick and easy, right?

No, no, nooo...

Because the configuration of the cabinet means that this will fit best here, and that there, and now where should those go, and that really needs to be re-organized, too...

Because we can't relocate things into dirty cabinets, in a dirty kitchen, in a dirty house...

And because I'll need to pick up some handles for the new cabinet! And why would we search out shiny gold tone handles to match the 1980's knobs we have in the rest of the kitchen, when we like fashionable antique bronze?! Of course we'll have to replace the rest of the kitchen knobs, but knobs are a simple, inexpensive little update, right? It IS probably a good time to replace those breaking door knobs, too-- antique bronze, of course. Which will really make the shiny gold switch plates look out of place... And, well, hey, while we're at it, let's get rid of those tacky gold light fixtures, too... Oooh my, how those new lights really illuminate how badly the kitchen ceiling needs to be refinished! And I'm not even going to mention how that doorknob shows on exterior of the house, too, where there's a shiny gold kick plate and a boatload of interdependent work to be done, from tarnished light fixtures, to siding, to... to where?

I do believe that if time and money were no object, the logical endpoint of this might not be found until we had replaced our house entirely... with a brand new one... in Hawaii... with new cabinets... which will need handles...

Somebody. Please. Save me from myself.

4 comments:

Owlhaven said...

Sounds like you will be BUSY!

Mary

Anonymous said...

Wow busy busy!

Debbie said...

You are hilarious! I completely understand this insanity. And homeschooling does tend to take over every corner of the house. It was a never ending battle at our house. Still is. Whenever you make it to shore, perhaps you have some good ideas for our house! P.S. Had fun Monday. The kids had a blast. Go figure...rain and all!

secondofwett said...

Can relate sooooo well to what you're saying....I can get that way just cleaning off my dresser....you get it looking just so and it looks wonderful...and you say it'll always look this way (not)....but my biggest problem is than what do I do with the leftover stuff....the stuff that's lived on the dresser for the last few weeks that I now have to figure out a new place for!...and then it starts...the domino effect......