Tell about your big projects, obstacles, outcomes (and treasure!)

[Anonymous]

For those of us who are struggling with getting things done at home. This is NOT a thread for laundry or dishes or dusting, it’s for tackling a bigger project, like decluttering a room, or building something, or taking on some new responsibility, something that challenges your ability to stay with a project for more than a few hours.

What project did you take on, what obstacles did you encounter in getting it done, what was the outcome of the project, and what treasure did you uncover (if any)?

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[Anonymous]

I’ll start. This project started off as something very simple, but my ADD made me compulsively keep going, that was a benefit.

ESTIMATED TIME: 10 minutes

I was only going to clean the bathroom floor, no intention of doing anything further, although the bathroom was definitely in need of a major cleanup/decluttering.

It was so impromptu that I got on hands and knees and sponge-cleaned the floor and baseboards with a spray bottle of vinegar and water. It looked great! Toilet needed cleaning, so I cleaned that. Thought I was done there.

I came back when the floor had dried, and noticed that the walls had spider webs drooping here and there, so I got out our floor duster that has a reasonably long extension and swiped the walls and ceiling, and the light fixtures until there were no more webs. That looked good.

But now the plastic bins of cleaning supplies, skin products, etc. that litter the bathroom counters looked VERY dusty. This is where I decided to launch into the BIG PROJECT phase.

ESTIMATED TIME:

Half an hour

I got a garbage can and paper recycling bin, and proceeded to empty the contents of the medicine cabinet, counter tops and under-the-counter. EVERYTHING came out on the floor to be examined, thrown out, recycled or returned to its rightful place. Every plastic bin got washed and dried.

GOAL – to throw out anything we never use, or haven’t used in a year’s time, and reorganize things so we can see them.

THREW OUT: old medicine, empty bandaid boxes (there were quite a few of those, or ones with only 1 bandaid in them), tampax and pads (ummm, not needed for a few years!), gift items that have never been used like bubble bath (I never take baths), old cleaning supplies that we never use because we found a better product, several electric hygiene products that were almost 10 years old and rarely used (elec toothbrush, elec flosser, waterpik), orthodontal products for when I had braces, etc etc etc. I gave up the thought that I usually have that “someone will need or want this, I should give it away”. Just deal with it NOW. Filled 2 tall kitchen garbage bags, and half filled my office recycle bin with product boxes and paper.

RESULT: we can actually see things in our medicine cabinet. There are NO baskets on the bathroom counter, and there is only one basket on another cabinet that wouldn’t fit under the counter. We have a place to put something down that’s not next to the sink. The whole room looks clean, uncluttered. I’m not afraid to look at it (previously I saw it as something to ignore because it required work).

ACTUAL TIME:

3 hours (I have no clue about time, how long something will take)

OBSTACLE: I wanted to do something else yesterday, and this job started taking more time than I thought it would, but I could see progress, so I kept going.

TREASURE:

I found a neat little zippered travel case with clippers, comb, etc that I will take to work.

TIP THAT WORKED FOR ME : leave stuff on the floor so you’ll have to deal with it. Don’t put anything away until you’ve decided where it will go, with other items like it. Don’t do this if you are prone to leaving things on the floor (like my husband).

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[Anonymous]

Grrrr!!! I posted here about my monumental effort organising my laundry cupboard, but somehow it didn’t post. So unfair!!!! I will try again, but might condense it somewhat, as I don’t think I can write the whole thing again.

MOTIVATING FACTOR – Hubby had a friend coming over and there was no room in the loungeroom to sit. And the lounge is also the first room any visitor sees when they walk in.

STARTING POINT – Loungeroom. We recently got an ensemble bed and lost the storage space underneath it, so we put all the stuff from under it into the loungeroom until we could accomodate it elsewhere. I moved this stuff into the bedroom (shoving it wherever it would fit, just to get it out of the lounge) and vacuumed the loungeroom carpet, which had accumulated cat hair dust bunnies and feathers from a costume I had helped make recently.

NEXT PORT OF CALL – Our bedroom. The stuff from under our bed could not stay where I had put it, as it was in the way. I took everything off the shelf in our built in robe, and went through it all. I culled all my winter tops, putting the unwanted ones aside for charity. I put my bags (from under the bed) up there, along with my much smaller collection of winter tops.

I then cleared out the stuff from the floor of the robe. I found a bag of old clothes, so I sorted those and some went to my daughter, and the rest to charity. We had a plastic box full of our old linen, so I refolded it all to make it fit the box better, and gave it to my son, as he has our old bed. Other linen was put aside for cutting up. My box of shoes (from under our old bed) went into the space created by removing the linen box, and everything else was put back neater than it had been. I found some trouser coathangers in my stash of stuff from off the floor, so I hung up a heap of pants, which created space in the shelving unit (where I had stored the pants folded up). Then I could put my small blankets on the old pants shelf (they never had a spot previously). I managed to store all my bits that had lived under our bed, and only ended up with our old queen size quilt to find a space for.

MOVING ON TO – The laundry. I had always planned to make room in the laundry cupboard for our spare linen, and I had the quilt to find a place for, so to the laundry I went. Our cupboard there had been worked on in fits and spurts over the years. Some things were in labelled boxes, and the games had been moved off the top shelf when we got out new shelving units through the house. Our spare single bed quilts and big blankets are now there. I had collected old shoe boxes to put other stuff in, and they have been empty and taking up space in the cupboard for years.

PROCESS – I left the linen on the top shelf, and left the cleaning chemicals on their shelf, but moved them to one side. Then I took the existing boxes out, one at a time, and sorted through them. Boxes without lids were exchanged for the shoeboxes I had been saving, so they could be stacked and use space better, and every box got labelled with the contents. I ended up with one shelf full of boxes for – Batteries, Glass/mirror cleaning cloths (because they get used for other cleaning and ruined), Sponges/scourers/old toothbrushes and scrubbing brushes, Mop heads/dustpans/brushes, Shoe polish/spare laces/insoles/waterproofing, Rubber gloves/gardening gloves, Hooks/tapes/glue, Light globes.

I found two spare plastic crates and put them in the bottom of the cupboard. In one of them I put general purpose, washable, cleaning cloths (mostly old flannels or cut up towels). In the other one I put all our reuseable shopping bags, which had created a mountain on the floor next to the washing machine.

I ended up with spare boxes without lids. So I used them to store the chemicals. I grouped them into categories – garden/outdoor stuff (which cannot be stored in the garage due to the heat), rarely used stuff (BBQ cleaner, turps, metho etc), and commonly used stuff (floor cleaner, laundry soaker, bleach, etc). Hopefully this will cut down on the amount of time I spend finding stuff for the rest of the family, as well as reduce the amount of things hubby buys more of simply because he has a “boys look” and can’t find it!!

THREW OUT – Surprisingly little. A broken bike pump, a few screws, wall brackets for the kids’ electric toothbrushes, a couple of containers of cleaning products that had dried up, crusty sponges, and old shoe laces.

MOVED ELSEWHERE – Tools! They seem to accumulate in our laundry cupboard, but there is no longer a “junk” box to chuck them in, so hopefully they will stay in the toolbox in the garage. I also put bike pumps in the garage, along with a container of drywall screws, a tin of varnish, pruning shears, and some painting gear.

TIME – About 8 hours, though this included time spent having meals, and dealing with the laundry I was washing/drying at the time. I never bother to estimate time in advance, as I am useless at it, and I work better if I just tackle something and do what I can in the time I have.

OBSTACLE – Running out of containers/boxes that were suitable for what I wanted them for. I could have continued my trend into the garage and kitchen if I had found boxes to store some of the stuff I moved there (instead it is in a single box, ready to be sorted later).

TREASURES – The baby screwdrivers I could really have done with last time my glasses broke! More lingerie bags than I knew I had. But the biggest treasure is the extra space – a whole shelf, and the floor space by the washing machine.

TIP THAT WORKED FOR ME – Containers!! Of any kind. While I was pulling things out, I had spare boxes to put stuff in. One was for the garage, one was for stuff that did not have a place (much of this ended up in boxes in the cupboard, or being moved to other parts of the house, as I progressed). And I had a small box for all the little bits and pieces to go into until it was time to sort them.

Having containers to put things in as I sorted meant I could shove it all out of the way if needed, and I also didnt’ feel the stress of having to finish, because I knew that the stuff was contained and would not end up in a pile that got kicked everywhere if I walked away for any length of time. I am much more likely to go back to sort things if they are contained. A pile of stuff would result in me looking at it and not knowing where to start, and then giving up.

RESULT – The stuff from under our bed has been put away. I have a tidy walk in robe (my part, anyway!!). The contents of the laundry cupboard are now easy to find, stored in such a way that they are hard to mess up, the frequently used stuff is the most accessible, and there is a free shelf for our linen (that currently sits in piles throughout the house). A bonus result is the extra floor space by the washing machine, where I could put a shelving unit for improved storage of the buckets, dirty shoes, and the backpacks that seem to migrate around the house without finding a permanent home.

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[Anonymous]

Hmmmm….that wasn’t very condensed after all lol 🙄

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[Anonymous]

Fantastic post, KrazyKat! You’re inspiring me to take the next step and declutter the bedroom. Anything I haven’t worn in a year (going through all the seasons) and that is buried in a box is a target for purging. And since we don’t travel anymore, why do we need the suitcase collection? — oooh! just thought of something, I could always put seasonal clothes in the suitcases. That way I can still be hopeful that we’ll travel somewhere

I agree, having containers to put things in to pre-organize before putting them away or purging them is key. I am lucky to have my own business, so I bring home empty corrugated cardboard cartons. Unfortunately can’t get my husband motivated to put them together and clean up his clutter, but that’s another story.

Thanks for following a similar format, it really helped keep me interested in your project!

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[billd]

KrazyKat – geesh, do you have ADHD or something? That post rivals mine!

Project: Barbara wants built-in cupboards for her fabrics (she currently has about 40 plastic bins or tubs, like the rubbermaid ones, loaded with fabric, plus 2 closets, 4 oak cabinets, etc. She wants to wrap the fabric on “half bolts” and store it all on shelves for easy acccess. This will involve half the north wall, the corner, and 1/3 of the east wall of the room where her quilting machine is, floor to ceiling, OAK, with doors.

Time to completion? Unknown, but I expect several weeks of “free time” (weekends, evenings, etc).

About $4,000 if we hired it done – which she was going to do. I said “let me do it, it will be cheaper, and if I need to buy more tools, I’ll have them when this project is done, and it will STILL be cheaper”

STUPID ME.

I spent 1 day so far….. got a base or platform made for them to sit on (basement room, carpeted, there’s a small ledge at the bottoms of the walls, so I’m building a 3.5″ platform to sit the cabinets on so they can be back against the wall and off the floor)

Got to the point of putting varnish/poly on and started to wish I was doing something else.

This was after just one day. Just wait until I decide I’d rather be working on my cars…….

Trip to town for some more oak. Get back, realize I don’t have a plywood blade for my circular saw, and don’t have a plywood dado bit for my router………. town is 30 minutes away.

Short list, was SO sure I’d remember everything. Another trip to town tonight.

Positive – I’ll have some very nice tools when i’m done, and STILL will save a couple grand.

I can also start several parts at one time, have it in various stages so if I get tired of staining, I can cut another shelf, or put some edging or trim on.

Obstacles – Barbara is right – I start and never finish large projects, heck, I don’t finish small projects. She will indeed need to keep after me on this one. When I’m into it, I can relax. I have to do a lot of thinking, measuring, figuring things out (I have NO plans, just a paper with some notes and figures on it) Designing it as I go. We’ll see how long i can stick with this…………

Other than the garden shed I built with no plans, or the porch and closet I did with no plans (other than scratch paper drawings) this will be the biggest for me. And, it will have to be near-perfect. Barbara is a perfectionist and insists things fit nicely, are plumb and square, and look VERY nice.

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[Anonymous]

Sometimes when I try to do too much in one day (and actually DO it), I’m so tired and burned out, that I avoid any task related to the one I did for about a YEAR! “All or nothing at all” seems to describe me.

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[billd]

Sounds familiar………

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[Anonymous]

I will be interested in hearing the completion of this project, billd! Are you for hire? we could use some custom cabinets for all our clutter 😮 oh wait, the goal was to get RID of it.

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[billd]

If I could do this sort of work, and car restoration for a living, I’d quit my job in a heartbeat.

I love being creative. It’s in my blood. My ancestors were pioneers, blacksmiths, farmers, law enforcement, military and clergy.

Planners, speakers, creative people.

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[Anonymous]

billd, The verdict is still out on the ADHD 😉 (but my assessment appointment is soon). Well done on attempting such a large project. I wish you all the best for it. I also really enjoy creative projects, but if I hit a hurdle then things grind to a screaming halt, whether I am still in the planning stage, or mere minutes from completion. It’s the one reason I will avoid doing such work for a living, unless it is in partnership with someone, despite my enjoyment of all things creative.

MonkeyBarb, I know exactly where you are coming from. I have done that too. The worst is when I spend months sewing costumes for a production, while ideas brew in my mind for what I will do for myself when I have free time, and then I never want to see my sewing machine again once the costumes are done!

no_dopamine, I use my bags for storage to a degree. It’s a good use of otherwise empty space…but remembering that something is in them is not always easy!!! I just keep spare camping gear in our hike packs, and other holiday paraphenalia in the trolley bag I use for most trips away.

Sorry, we’ve hijacked your thread a bit here, and steered it away from its purpose. I’ll have to plan another big project so I can post again lol 😉

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[billd]

>>but if I hit a hurdle then things grind to a screaming halt, whether I am still in the planning stage, or mere minutes from completion.<<

Same here, and my home, shop, garage, desk, old report cards, all shows it..

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[Anonymous]

Yes, KrazyKat, I was thinking I need a big project again too! I did have one new project today full of issues and frustration but it’s 10:30 pm and too darned late to be on the computer.

Out of sight is out of mind for us, better just get rid of the surplus clothes and luggage.

billd, my ancestors were also pioneers, farmers, clergy, cabinetmakers, police, watchmakers, music professor, church musicians, small businessmen, photographers, etc. Lots of independence in my blood, that’s why I can’t stay with one thing or in one place for long, I get restless for the next thing.

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[billd]

Same here. Check out places like Dickerson Church, Ohio, etc.

http://www.timesreporter.com/news/x1639214417/Cadiz-church-to-sponsor-Civil-War-re-enactment-tribute-to-soldiers

>>

Technically, I’m a “Son of the American Revolution” as Thomas was a great (insert proper number here) grandfather. the family was among the first over here, coming we believe from a Captain from England. The family split, one side staying more north, getting into politics, governors, congress people, one a secretary of the Navy, while the other side moved west, opening up new lands, founding towns, etc.- I wish I had more of the family history, but I suspect I will one day, as my parents have a lot of stuff.

Most lived very long lives, but there’s a history book from some place in Ohio where it is said about one who was a blacksmith and builder that he “worked himself to death”.

Your list sounds like a list of things I have interest in and have in my background. I guess that leads me to another project I started a few years ago, and that now sits UNfinished – ancestry – family tree. I got a LOT of info, even some things my parents weren’t able to find correctly, I really want to take it up again and do more. I’ve covered our family all the way back to Captain John Dickerson from England, and pretty much all in between, where it falls apart is more recent – after a great great grandfather, William, moved to MO and settled and farmed, it sort of falls apart.

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[Anonymous]

This project doesn’t sound big, but it was a huge thing for me to accomplish.

GOAL – To decide how I wanted to get to and from an interstate destination. Mum is paying for me to see a close friend for her birthday – we both celebrate our 40th this year, and our birthdays are only three days apart. This trip is my birthday present from Mum. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go at first. I really don’t like parties, and wasn’t sure I wanted to spend my birthday going to a party that wasn’t even mine, but this friend has kept in touch despite my poor efforts to maintain contact, and I really wanted to see her for her milestone birthday to say thank you. She has also made time for us when she has come here to visit family, and I felt it was time I returned the favour.

ESTIMATED TIME – Yeah right!! You really expect me to be able to do this. As per usual, I made a start, and kept going until I finished. I guess I hoped it would take half an hour or so, but I made sure I had much longer, as I hate to do such “projects” with a deadline looming, even if the deadline is only bedtime.

MOTIVATING FACTOR – Mum is paying for it. I originally had to wait for my roster, so I knew that I had the weekend off, as well as how many days off either side of the weekend to play with. If I could have booked earlier, then we could have bought cheap plane tickets, but waiting has resulted in the cost of tickets going up. I didn’t want to cost my mum too much by delaying any further.

THINGS TO CONSIDER – I wanted to take my daughter. She has never been on a plane before, and we could do some fun “tourist things” together during our trip. I also was hoping to be able to take my son too, as he gets along well with my friend’s boys. Hubby was happy to go or stay – he left it up to me. I knew he would prefer to stay home, so I let him off the hook 😉 I had to consider how much school the kids would miss too. My son has missed lots of school already, so I really didn’t want him to be away too long if he came. Also, there are accomodation costs. We can stay with my friend for a couple of nights, but I wouldn’t intrude any longer, as her hubby has to work and her kids go to school on week days.

PROCESS – I opened plenty of tabs on my internet browser!! Searched up plane fares and then freaked!!! Man it was expensive!! Told my kids the cost for three of us to go, and they promptly both offered to stay home and let the other one go. How sweet of them!! Thought of the train as an alternative, but found it only goes three times a week, when it used to go daily. We would have to leave friday morning, spending all day on the train, and return tuesday, arriving at tea time, with me having to return to work that night 😯

Looked at train there, and plane home. Not a great deal cheaper, but a possibility. But taking the cheapest option would involve arranging accomodation. Looked at accomodation and got bogged down in finding somewhere to stay for just one night. Not easy. And the added cost would take the train/plane option up to the cost of flying both ways!

Going by bus would mean travelling overnight Friday and thus being tired for the Saturday party

Contemplated driving. Hubby not happy, as he hates the thought of me driving all that way by myself. I didn’t like the thought of wasting the 8 – 10 hours it would take to drive each way, as well as not having an adult to share the driving.

In the end I got myself all in a muddle. Didn’t know whether to train it both ways so I could take my son too, and put up with being exhausted at work on my return, or whether to fly with just my daughter. So I rang Mum to help get me grounded again. She said it was up to me, but just talking it through with her helped to sort out the mess in my mind. Narrowed it down to train there and plane back, or plane both ways.

Decided on flying both ways, with just my daughter. Taking both kids would firstly cost my mum too much in airfares, as well as it would add to all the other costs also (food, entry fees to tourist places like the zoo, and travel around the city). My son was promised an interstate trip of his own in the next year or so (as he will travel alone, quite happily, to visit an uncle or friend, but my daughter won’t travel alone). He is also going to stay with my mum while I am away (and she will spoil him rotten!!).

OBSTACLES – The biggest thing was not being able to have everything in front of me to compare. There were too many variables, with all the different methods of travel, all the different days I could travel, either two or three of us travelling, and the unknown cost of accomodation. I really had to narrow things down in order to wrap my brain around it all.

TREASURE – I get to see my daughter take her first flight. I missed my son’s, as hubby took him, so I am pleased I will be there for my daughter’s. I get to see a close friend and her family. I have been to the same city twice before (as an adult), so not having to worry about getting lost is a BIG bonus for me 😉

TIP THAT WORKED FOR ME – Having my mum to talk things through with. She helped me reduce the options so I could get a handle on things. She also “grounded” me, if that makes sense. I had so many thoughts flying around my brain and she helped pin them down and cull them.

RESULT – Flights are booked, both kids are happy, hubby is happy, and I am looking forward to a nice trip away, seeing my friend again, and showing my daughter the sights. The party isn’t quite my thing, but the rest of the trip is sounding really exciting.

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