Eating an Elephant

"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." That's the saying and the advice I've received from countless folks on tackling the various overwhelming projects on my plate. At work, this is pretty straight forward for me, as I have extensive project plans, back dating the tasks from the deadline to start, ensuring all pieces are accomplished. I do great with deadlines. My office however has become quite cluttered. Too many piles of papers, unfilled documents, and just general untidiness. There is no deadline, so therefor I don't have a project plan. I am determined to take a couple bites from that particular elephant at the end of the day, giving my self my last hour in the office to focus on order. 

At home, next weekend is going to be set aside for DD1's former bedroom, my office. If I can get the furniture out and move what isn't staying, DH and I can pull-up the mangie carpet and tacking, and do a deep clean underneath of the floor before we put a new remnant down. I'd like to say we can find the remnant, and have it all ready to go down on Sunday, but don't want to over promise myself. It will be a few more bites at the house elephant, though realistically with our May schedule, we'll still be chewing until June. Did I really say June? 

I  need to put my work Sam hat on and treat my house the same way. DD2 is in school until June 8th. I'll use that as my project deadline. If I get farther ahead, I can give it a wrap early, but here is my grid. It is a work in progress, but you get the idea. This is a play on a tool I use regularly at work and don't know why I haven't applied it at home. I'm going to create additional grids for other areas, ones that do not need DH involvement such as our bedroom (I'm not moving out heavy furniture or pulling carpet-yet). If you have ideas or suggestions, please share. I hope I'm on the right track with my elephant house. 

Task	Resources Needed	Target Date	Completion Date	Notes
Clear Office –Store Furniture not going back
Purge Closet-old DD1’s items for donation or throw
Pull Carpet and tacking
Prep floors for new Carpet
Repair and paint walls
Lay new carpet
Put furniture back
Organize office for function		June 5
Office Complete		June 8

Overwhelmed on Where to Begin

The trunk I want to keep, but where?

I think I've lied-lied to myself for sure and maybe hinted through this blog that I've accomplished more than I have on pulling my office together. I've accomplished nothing more than thinking, and moving clutter around. The plan for years, particularly now that DD1 will  now just be a guest when she is home, is for me to have a lovely office in her old bedroom. When we got the new floor downstairs, we moved furniture into that room, plus tons of other clutter. It became unusable, and we still haven't done anything with it. I see the photos in the Saturday post of the My Scandinavian Home office update and think, "That is exactly the feeling of space and order I want." My blog friend Scarlet at When Robin's Appear, has mastered an attic space and I just wish I could fly her over from the UK to be my planner and interior decorator.

The room is perfect office space. It gets nice sunlight, has a shelf that runs along two walls due to it being in the lower level of a three level home, created by the partial basement wall. It's a space I can shut the door behind me if I am done working, as opposed to the computer armoire now being used at the back of the family room. When we turned it into a bedroom for DD1, we bought a closet unit that has nice organizational capacity, perfect for use for my stockpile of gifts, holiday disposable items bought at season's end, and to stow away projects not being worked on. 

Mirror, removed from dresser.

I am overwhelmed at where to begin. First, we need to decide what to do with the furniture that had been in the family room. We rather like the sparseness of the room, though still are waiting to buy a TV stand. There is an old trunk, which I absolutely love, and a contemporaryish oak book shelf, but neither  fit the current room. There's DH's old  desk, which, I think I'll just use in the office, but it really needs a wall of it's own. We need to decide if we will keep or get rid of DD1's old dresser and mirror. I'd love her to take it, along with the head board for the twin bed, and a night stand, but it was too big for the truck we had when we moved her so  still need to store for a while. I want to keep the mattress and frame and use as a day bed in the office. We could try and sell it all, but again, I think DD1 does want it for her spare room, or a possible house in the not too distant future. It  is a nice suite of furniture. The last item is a little red child desk, used by DS, and then later DD2 for crafts and coloring. It is the sweetest little thing, made by DH's grandpa, so a family piece we can't get rid of. It could be a cute little piece in the office, if room, for a future grandchild or great niece or nephew to play at while I work. 

 The room needs to be emptied completely as it needs new carpeting, which we thought we would do ourselves with just finding a padded remnant. Now that we solved the exterior problem that was creating the interior water problem, I feel fine putting carpet there for an inexpensive spruce up, even though I'd prefer tile, or to extend the vinyl planking. I suppose I just need to dive in, make some decisions, and move forward. Remember that procrastinating challenge? Well if I can get this done by end of April, I will declare success.

Wanna Be-Scandanavian Homes

Clean, but not sterile. Bright, but not glittery. I love the look of Scandinavian homes. One would think with all my Norwegian and Danish blood, a little of the design standards might have made their way to me, but alas, I swim in  a shabby chic, heavy on the shabby, mixed with unoriginal store showroom designed living spaces. I drool over this blog, My Scandinavian Home. Granted, for me, some of the pictures of homes and rooms that are featured move into the sterile category for me, but I long for the rooms with bright walls, simple furnishing, and not a stack of jumbled papers or clothes anywhere. I admit to keeping the Ikea catalogue as a coffee table book to help draw a little inspiration. 

DD2's room is the closest to where I have embraced it, with her white furniture, and pops of color on her bedding. However, still too much stuff and mess (Christmas gift bag still on her desk), and her green and blue walls, her choice, scream American teen. 

Little touches-her pillow from London, peace blanket made by her sis, Rags,her puppy  from childhood, and more books than a typical teen, with many more still boxed up, that she is deciding whether or not to keep.
 

My little office nook, mostly because I can close the cabinet/desk doors on the paperwork clutter, is the simple look I would like to have in the whole house. All the closets in my home are larger than closets from modest homes built before 1984, and from what I can tell from some British home shows, most UK and European homes. Still, I struggle with finding enough storage space. I know this is a stuff problem, more than a design problem, but would like to tackle both. 

 I'm off to take a look at a couple Thrift stores today to see what I might be able to create or re-purpose into a television stand. I think heavy dose of white or Scandinavian inspired colored  paint and sand paper might get me the look I want for cheap. Who else is a Scandinavian design fan? Who has ideas of how, with spending little to no money, I can get some of the look and feel of these spaces?

A Few Frugal Wins in September

I've got to do some serious figuring as to where we are in savings towards my end of year challenge, compared to the output on house updating/repairs that were already saved for and in our spending plan. I perhaps should have started s separate bank account, or at least a ledger of outgoings and inputs, but I'll spend some time in October when the VISA (for floors and miscellaneous house expenses) and  garbage (for dumpster and some hauling costs) come to see what we actually added above planned spending to the bank balance. As the flooring surprised me at how expensive it was, yet didn't phase DH, something is amiss in our budgeting for the house, so we need a good sit down on that. Despite the outpouring of cash for floors, new gutters, and miscellaneous house purchases, and  assorted DD2 expenses, there were many successes on the September financial front. 

Grocery shopping and school lunches: We managed to keep spending on groceries, not counting her part to my target of $300.  I was not so careful in keeping the specif receipts, but within a 5% margin of error, I am going with a final of $286. I did put $50 in DD's lunch account, but she has been taking lunch a minimum of 2 days a week, so a reduction from last year of  $17.60 a month. There were days when we just weren't planful, or she liked what was on the menu, but still at this rate,  that's $158 more in my pocket by school years end. 

Cleaning, Health, and Beauty: A major target sale combined with manufacturers coupons stocked me up for probably all of October as well in cleaning and toiletries and personal supplies. The purging of my kitchen and bathroom under sink cupboards cabinets yielded a long term supply of women's razors plus cleaning supplies for the rest of fall. Dish cleaner and laundry soap is all I can think that we will need until November. 

Freebies: The above Target purchase also netted me $25 in Target gift cards. A coupon for a free 8 by 10 print at Walgreen's meant I could get a semi formal family picture, taken on the cruise, then cleaned up (it was quite blurry and had weird things in the back ground) by DD1, to update the last one taken over nine years ago! While not professionally done, I look at the one we had on the cruise in 2007, and quite frankly, this one isn't any poorer quality and I can imagine we paid plenty. DD1 brought a bag of picked apples home last weekend after picking more than she and her friend could use after their fall day out the previous Sunday. I think of apple orchard picking as entertainment with the bonus of fresh fruit to bring home, so with that perspective, the apples were sort of free.

Gas: We've been fortunate that gas continues to be lower than it has been in years. Add my minimum of $0.05 off per gallon and an additional three days I didn't commute to the office, I kept below the budget. 

utilities: DH negotiated an addition $5.00 off per month for our Direct TV, and got the NFL package thrown in for the duration of the season. We would never spend the money on the added package, but a happy husband, without any new toys, is a bargain!  

Home making: I wrote a few weeks back about repainting towel shelves in my bathrooms. I am happy with how they turned out, and it at least temporarily, feel more positive about the shape of my home until we can source the best deals on a real bathroom makeover upstairs. Some hand towels I bought a while back, and a new on clearance shower curtain and rug for downstairs spruced up the generic white hospital look, spending a grand total of $28 down stairs. I popped a few pictures in below.

I feel fairly content as to how September went. Income is still nothing to rave about, and with that the budget will remain tight. We had a few expenses that frustrate me, and a few such as wedding, shower, and other gifts that are just part of life.We have scrimped in areas, but I do think we could do better. I don't feel like we have done without-not in food, experiences, and home life.In fact, I am feeling loads more satisfied with every bag of clutter removed and every item donated. I really do not want any more meaningless stuff in my home. Unless basics we really will use, I feel free from buying things just because it was a good deal. Clutter and chaos are not frugal. Use it up, redo, and make do, has to become part of my actions not just a sound bite. How was your September? Were your goals, spending, saving, or others met?

What was white, chipped, and flaking got a spray of granite.

Clearanced towels and my "babies" in old glass picture frames.

Downstairs freshened with new shower curtain, rug, and hand towels.

 

New Driveway and Life and Times

I'm trying to do patches of work from home today.  We have had storms off and on this week, and all power and phones are cut from the office, making even remote access impossible.  We were all sent home under an emergency provision clause. I have work I can do without accessing the work servers, plus we have a limited but hard to navigate outlook web mail server, so will check in a few times. It's loud here though. One of our projects on the house list was to get the sidewalk and apron around the garage redone with new concrete. Not a cheap venture. We also needed a new coat of black asphalt.  As luck would have it, the neighbor is having the same thing  done so DH walked over to see what they might do ours for. 

Not only were they willing and able to do the sidewalk and apron, but  for a quote the same as what we were going to spend with only asphalt, they agreed to do the whole driveway in concrete. That's  less than 1/2 of what we had for other quotes for a concrete driveway, so we never pursued. DH jumped on it. Doing the jobs back to back saves the company at least an hour of labor for 1/2 dozen men, plus the equipment is already here. I think they were surprised at how long the drive actually was when they measured, but held at the same quote. That's $5,000 of our home improvement set aside eaten up, but then this was the priciest thing on the list and on budget. The curb appeal will be immense, and once I finally get my shrubs taken care of, and a good power wash to the porch-maybe a new coat of white paint, and scrub the porch bench, this improvement will go miles in my appreciation of my home, at least from the outside.

My broad community is in the news in the way a community never wants to be there. Just a few miles from my office, on a road I travel every day on route to work, there was another police involved killing of an African American man. There are no words other than tragic to talk about this, and I say that before any details are studied and conclusions reached. Fear, discrimination, prejudice, and preconceived opinions all led to the tragedy I surmise. There were a few flowers by the roadside, where I assume the tragedy happened. My heart breaks for all involved, and I pray justice, whatever that turns out to be, is done. News coverage in Minnesota alternates between this, and the republican hearing of the FBI probe of Mrs. Clinton's e-mail debacle. It is a sad, crazy, and pathetic world sometimes. 

But then it is beautiful and happy, and filled with joy at the very same time. I have some extra time home with my family, even though we are all doing our own thing, we can have an impromptu, budget, lunch together. While rough weather is expected later this afternoon again, it is wonderful now, and I am going to take pup for a good long walk as he is in defense mode against the workers and quite stressed. I'll post this a little later, as I may want to add, but by then the walk will be done, and he should be settled down a bit. It's a little cooler, and I have eggs to use up from the stockpile I bought at $ .49 a dozen, and have an egg bake in the crock pot. I'll freeze most of what I bake for the weekend and next week when I am gone. Austerity is not going to get to me as I know I am luckier than most. Too bad crap news has to be what reminds me of that.