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A running theme throughout our book, Living the Savvy Life is to stay organized so you know exactly what you have and where it is. When it comes to organization, I’d say I’m about an 8 on a scale from 1 – 10. In the house, I can generally find exactly what I need at any given time… that is, in the house.
A big monkey that has been on my back for the last year is our attics and outdoor shed. I say attics because we have two. The remodel in our house was done in two stages – the actual house and then a few years later, our studio (a detached garage that Paul uses as an art studio). During both remodels, our “stuff” was continuously shifted from one place to the next as we tried to get it out of the way of the construction.
Once the remodeling was complete, we never made it a priority to go back through all of our stuff and organize it. I decided to use the impending launch date of Living the Savvy Life as my leverage to get this massive project complete. After spending a fantastic Thanksgiving in Healdsburg, Paul and I dedicated Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday to the project.
We started with the outdoor shed. I was little worried that we might have water damage as we experienced several significant storms last year, but everything was in good shape. We found my old fencing weapons, cans of paint and about 18 martial arts trophies. I didn’t realize Paul and I had done that many tournaments until we pulled them all out.
The attic in the house was a little more tricky. There is no drop down ladder. Using our tiny little step ladder and a boost from Paul, I found a practical application for all of those pull ups I’ve been doing. In our attic, I found the witches hat I looked everywhere for last year (bumping my organization skills from an 8 down to a 6) and several boxes of memorabilia.
In total, the shed and the attic in the house only took us about an hour to go through. The real time consumer was the attic in the studio. Even before the remodel, it was built for storage with a drop down ladder. Fifty percent of the attic was organized and in good order. The other 50% was sheer CHAOS.
It took us two days, but we managed to purge and organize everything in the attic. We have our snow gear and toys in one area and our holiday decorations in another. We have Paul’s artwork and supplies in another area and about 16 boxes of books (apparently we need to invest in a few more bookshelves) in another area.
Anything that we no longer need or that doesn’t hold sentimental value was kicked to the curb… well, actually, to our porch. At this moment, there is a 10’ x 3’ space filled with baby gear, clothes and other items that we no longer need that is awaiting pick up by St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop. I am so happy to know that others will get good use out of the stuff we no longer need. None of those items were doing anyone any good by sitting in our attics taking up space.
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