Spring Cleaning (Sort Of)

I often get teased about my house cleaning habits.  My son even says I'm obsessed because I tend to like things done a certain way.  I may be particular, but, obsessed?  I just don't see it.  I was thinking about this while I scrubbed the toilet seat hinges with an old toothbrush.

It's true that I do a lot of cleaning.  I put the dust rag, vacuum and various antibacterial cleaners to work every day, but I also have this quirky personality trait that allows me to procrastinate about things I can't see.  This quirk applies to closets, drawers and spaces that I don't have to look at on a regular basis.  It's like selective OCD.  If I see it, it must be clean, but if I can close the door, I can forget about it (for a while).  Eventually, it gets to me and I go on an organizing bender.  Over the weekend, I did just that.  It started when Mr. Willoughby and I finally installed the shelves in a cabinet that we built for glassware (over a year ago).

I look at that cabinet every day because it's in our dining room.  You can't get into the kitchen without walking past it, but it was easy to put off installing the shelves because our glassware was being stored in various other places (we have a LOT of glassware).  When we received our new margarita glasses, just before Christmas, though, there was no place to put them.  The kitchen cabinets and the china cabinet in the dining room were all full to capacity so we could procrastinate no longer.

I couldn't get a photo straight on because
the flash reflected in the glass and whited out the pic.

As I said, we built the cabinet over a year ago.  We bought an old, handmade cabinet at the flea market because we wanted the vintage leaded glass door.  It was poorly constructed and falling apart so the seller had a price of $8 on it, but immediately offered to let it go for $5.  We brought it home, took it apart and used the door, the hinges, the knob and some of the original wood as well as new wood, and trim molding to build a new cabinet.  We ordered glass shelves from a local glass shop.  It's been sitting in the dining room, empty for the most part, since it received the final coat of paint last summer.

Close up of the pattern on the door.

Along with the new margarita glasses, it also holds some of the pilsners and various cocktail glasses that were being stored in the kitchen.   That, of course, meant that we had newly available space in some of the kitchen cabinets, so we tackled that next.  Everything was sorted and organized.  We also got the new kitchen goodies we got for Christmas put away.

The most daunting task, however, was cleaning our home office.  That room has become the "catch all" for everything that doesn't have anywhere else to go.  Piles of paperwork, boxes of craft and project supplies, books, photographs, ebay items, the list goes on and on.  It's a small room to begin with and it was bursting at the seams.  It took an entire day for two of us to get through it all, but two bags full of trash and one box full of donations for the Salvation Army later, it's clean and organized.  Would you like to see the photos?  Yeah, that's not going to happen just yet.  Presently, it's furnished with cast offs that I'm anxious to replace.  There are two old bookcases that have seen better days, a shabby chic tin-topped table (much more shabby than chic), a computer armoire that's far too big for the room and a few other pieces I could live without.  I adore the vintage office chair, but it's not very comfortable, so that needs to go, too.  We're not even going to discuss the wallpaper.  I couldn't find what I wanted at the store the day I bought it, so I chose the pattern I hated the least.  Stupid thing to do, I know.

Not kind to the behind!

The future plan (very near future, I hope) is to rip down the wallpaper, paint the walls, install built in bookcases and replace the computer armoire with a desk that fits the size of the room.  When all of that happens, I'll post some pictures.

For now, the organizing continues.  The closet in the laundry room is calling my name.

Willoughby