Oh, man, y’all.

I knew we had houseguests coming this weekend, so I had to pause in the Great Declutter (briefly) to get the guest room partially ready for inhabitants.  What I didn’t know was that our houseguest was going to arrive a day early.

Now, this was not as big of a Panic Attack as it would have been, say, a month ago. (Thank you ChoreWars….), but I still hasn’t made up the guest bed or laid out fresh towels, or rearranged the shipping supplies that live in that room.  I CAN say that I wasn’t worried they’d find the room to be so covered in dust that they couldn’t FIND the bed, or have to lay out their stuff on a carpet of dog hair.  So, really, I’m pleased overall with the direction in which the house is going, even under duress.

I’m now down almost 1500 individual items in my studio.  More than that, overall, from all rooms.  It’s to the point that my Piles O’ Crap (of which there were many) are minimalized somewhat, and I’m even able to free up some of the copious “organizers” (read: crap receptacles) that I’ve bought over the years in order to keep the clutter corralled.

That’s the part that’s amazing me, I think.  I knew, in my head, that you can’t organize clutter.  That it’s just THERE, and you have to MAINTAIN it all or get RID of it.  One of the two.  All the organizers in the free world won’t help you if you have, oh, say, sixteen tubs of yarn.  (Not that I know anyone with that many…..uh….anymore. I cleared those out in November.)

Still, it didn’t sink in until I started getting ruthless with myself.  Being honest about how much time I have in a day, and what needs to be done to even just maintain a house of this size and this full of crap…er…valued personal items. My valuation had to change — a LOT — before anything was going to even think about getting done.

Before, it was so figuratively dark that I didn’t know I was in a tunnel of my own making.  (Probably a tunnel through all the crap, actually.)  Now, I’m starting to see the light at the end of it all.  I’m hoping that soon, I’ll find the actual end.  It means my chorewars points will dry up a bit (until I start painting and/or doing a *lot* more around here), but honestly?  Then I can dig in on the garage somewhat, and take a whole lot more points, even if the stuff isn’t all ours.  (I’m sure that’s where some of these mice are coming from, actually.)

Goodbye, SLOB…hello, light.

In some cases, literally.  This was the studio window this morning:

That is seriously a SHEET…pinned to the top of the windowframe.  This was for two reasons:

1.  I didn’t have any idea what I wanted for curtains, and

2.  Even if I did, they don’t make curtain rods that big.  Well, they do, but they’re a million dollars, and I’m cheap.

I’ve had the fabric to MAKE the curtains for about a zillion years now.  Or at least part of them.  I still want to make two more, for the middles of the window.  (That window’s, like, wider than my first apartment.  One curtain on each side won’t look like there’s anything there, much less keep out the light in the summer when it superheats that room to approximately the temperature of the surface of the sun.) I’m still not sure what I’ll do with the middle.

But today, I whipped up this:

Which is still pinned to the top of the windowframe.  It’s awaiting the tab-topper things to be put on.  But still, it’s a drastic improvement over the way things WERE, and that makes me very happy.  I’ll be amazed, however, if the two are the same length.  I’m not so good with the curtainy-goodness.  Or sewing in general.  Ahem.  (If we ever meet, ask to see the sewing scar on my left index finger, where an old machine tried to remove it.  Oh, but seriously.)

I got away from the alphabet there for a little bit during the first part of The Big Declutter ‘08, but we’re up to L, for Love.  What part of homekeeping do I absolutely love?

I like planning.  I get a lot of great ideas.  All the time, in fact.  And if I was only superwoman and had extra hours in every day, I might even do some of them.  But the decorating bits and the cooking bits, I can usually at least do passably.  And I really do love organizing…not that you could tell from my house.

I love that I’m making a *home*.  I love taking all these raw bits — all the detritus and accumulation of living, and making a place I want to come back to and that my husband likes to come home to.

Granted, we have very different ideas of what that IS, exactly, but he’s coming around.  (After growing up with a very warped idea of “clean”, he’s kind of getting a taste of the simplicity of the whole decluttered world, and finding out that it IS a little bit more peaceful.  I think if I keep it up, he’s going to eventually make that connection.)

I’m rambling, but you get my drift.

Need to finish that other curtain and press it before it gets too late and I fall asleep at the machine.  No sense in letting it take off the other index finger.

So I was minding my own business today, when the new Sundance Catalog arrived.

I’ve talked before about my insane love of this catalog.  Not that I order from it very often, since I’d probably have to take out a second mortgage on my kidneys to get what I want, but I’m inspired — a LOT — by the style in those pages.

I found this inside:

It’s a set of draper’s cabinets for some insane price (like Used Car Insane) that I can’t afford at this time, but what got me wasn’t so much the cabinets themselves (though those had me drooling a little bit, too), but the display.

Do you see those books and magazines?

They’re all backwards on the shelves.

Now, I know this is fully impractical.  I mean, searching for a book when you’re not looking at the spine is like trying to remember what all’s in your refrigerator with the door closed.  You’re going to have some issues with retrieval.  But the look of it… with the much more uniform-of-color page-sides out… is much less cluttery feeling than a whole lot of books tend to be.  My collection (which is still insane, by the way), is pretty eclectic, both in size and color, and I’m thinking that something like this, for the shelves with the most often-used stuff, that is, might not be a bad idea.

I might try it with a few shelves and see how it works for a few weeks.  If I forget what I have, I’ll turn ‘em back around.  It’s a quick fix.  (And if I forget what I have?  It also probably means I have too many books, but that’s beside the point.)

So we left off the A-Z list with my baking Issues, but C…  C is always for Cookie:

I’m all about the cookies.  As anyone can probably tell by looking at the size of my hips.  But cookies are THE ONE THING I can bake relatively reliably.  Sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, bar cookies — I usually don’t screw those up nearly as badly as I do cakes, pies, or breads.

That said, there’s usually one batch in there somewhere that comes out like little brown hockey pucks.   And I’m okay with that.  Means I’m human, right?

My favorite all-time recipe is one that I got from my mom’s Better Homes and Gardens Cooky Book (the one I recently re-found in the bookstore, rereleased for this new generation of bakers).  It’s the “Mary’s Sugar Cookies” recipe, and it’s in there, if you have that book.  (Since it’s re-released, I’m probably not going to list it here, just to avoid copyright infringement.  Not that I’m above using excerpts for review purposes.  I’m just sayin’.  It’s BH&G and they have Big Hairy Lawyers.)

Actually, that whole book is nothing short of fabulous, so if you’re looking to have more cookies in your life, pick it up.  It’s cheap and great to use.  And it connects you with generations of women who have gone before, making cookies for families before we were born.  I like that.

Off to see if I can’t make the bookshelves prettier, if not less functional…

The one, singular thing that I did while my husband was gone this past week was to take this wall, above, and turn it from white, pockmarked craziness into a slightly-khaki-tannish bit of loveliness.  That strip at the left, was my test, checking to make sure it wasn’t going to go orange on me, which it didn’t.  In fact, it ended up looking vaguely wonderful:

Granted, there are three more walls to do now, but this one, with the least amount of crap to move out of the way — it’s done.  And it’s not even remotely perfect, nor do I have the curtains sewn for the humongous window yet, but I’m still pleased as punch every time I look at it, and that’s worth it for me.

I think now is as good of a time as any to tell you all about this house, and why it presents such unique challenges, both in decorating and keeping it clean.  Make a cup of coffee or two and have a seat.  It takes some explainin’.

See, we don’t own this house.  We also don’t rent it.

No, we’re not squatters.  Though it feels that way sometimes.

J’s job is for his parents.  They own several businesses, for one of which he works.  The shop is connected to this monstrosity of a house, which his father built with his own two hands.  That part, the “own two hands” part, is fairly self-evident, by the way half of it’s not even remotely done, despite the fact that they lived here as a family for almost seven years.  His father is notorious for having resentments attached to good intentions — he meant to get back to whatever it is, but ended up being angry when anyone mentioned it, so nobody did.  And as a result, there are only two working lights in the ceiling of my studio (which used to be the kids’ playroom).  The bathroom lighting upstairs didn’t work.  Large portions of the infrastructure were salvaged (because his father is also notoriously cheap on things that he really shouldn’t be — like heating and electrical work.  Yipes.).  There’s no insurance on the house or its contents, because it’s so badly made that insurance companies won’t touch it with a ten-foot-pole.

It is, for the most part, an industrial building, also.  To see it from the outside, you’d never know that people live here.  The grounds, because of his father’s hoarding problem, look like a junkyard.  So when I tell people I live in a junkyard, I’m only half-kidding.  I’ll get pictures.  It’s kind of scary.

Before we moved in — they gave it to us to use, citing it as “company housing”, which amuses me on a lot of different levels — the house had stood largely un-manned for nearly twenty years.  And it showed.  I’ve mentioned the in-laws’ hoarding problems before, but seriously?  This entire house, which is almost five THOUSAND square feet (seriously), was entirely filled with boxes of trash.  The garage and most of the closets still *are*, in fact.  We rented a 25′ dumpster when his mother and I were trying to clean out all the stuff that they’d “stored” here, and we filled it three times.   Things like four or five old, broken television sets, a broken laserdisk player, old and broken furniture, two couches where an entire legion of mice had lived in the twenty years of vacancy….  it was unhealthy, to say the least, and downright scary.

In the nearly three years we’ve been here,  his parents have touched nothing that they left in our closets and garage.  (Which is, I kid you not, FULL.  FULL OF THEIR STUFF.)  They have added to it several times, but have never touched a single thing they left here. And a few times, they’ve even discussed charging us rent when the propane bills were too high.  (Understand, because of the salvaged furnace, which is an industrial-grade furnace that the FIL took from a demolished building, with a “last inspected”date of 1952, we don’t control how much heat it puts out.  We often joke that we have two settings — Arctic or Hellfire.  There’s no inbetween.)  When we mentioned having the building inspector come look at it to be rental-friendly, they backed off quickly.  (It’s never been inspected.)

No less than three times per year, on average, they tell us they are selling the shop and that we have to move.  This is roughly around the time I get fired up to do something with the place.  We painted the kitchen, for instance, and the next day, the shop was closing and omgwhereareyougoingtolivenow?!?  I think they have a radar for home improvement.  (Of course, they’re not selling the shop, because then they’d have to deal with all the stuff they’ve got stored here — not just in our house, but on all the grounds and in the shop, which is two-and-a-half the square footage of the house, and every bit as packed-tight with crap.)

So the house is in a state of sad disrepair, and we’re half-scared to do anything with it.  It needs new carpets, for sure.  It needs a coat of paint.  It needs ceiling repair in some places.  The fireplace, which is gorgeous by the way, needs extensive cleaning and repair.  The water is so bad that it turns everything from steel to porcelain to skin a nasty shade of orange, but they don’t want to upgrade the well.  (Which, by the way, was also salvaged.)  The back yard is scary, and we have mice in the winter, mosquitos in the summer.

All in all, it’s a giant, festering hole of suck.  And it’s HUGE.  Way more than we would need, if my husband hadn’t inherited the must-own-everything gene from his parents.  (That’s a rant for another day, though.)

I’m not whining about having a home, and a home, virtually, for free.  I know there are people with less, and I’m profoundly grateful for the fact that there’s a roof overhead, even if it’s a roof that’s crumbling and is constantly in danger of being taken away at his parents’ whim.  But it does lend a kind of uncertainty to my days that is unsettling.

There is much, much work to be done to the house.  And I’m now to a point where I just don’t care anymore if it’s not here tomorrow.  I need to bring some stability to my own days — to make my surroundings a warm, welcoming place for both visitors and for my family.

It will not be an easy task.  And I’m sure that the minute I invest in, say, a chimney sweep (chimney services technician, I think they’re calling them now), they’ll be all fired up about selling the place.  But I need this for me and for my husband.   I need to have a base from which to work, and to feel like we can grow our family without the threat of mouse poo or strange rot.  And if that eventually means that we have to leave here to find it?  Well, I’ll have this experience behind me, and I’ll have things cleared out to the point where it should be easy(easier) to pare down further if the situation demands it.

I’ll do a house tour over the next few weeks.  Show you what it really looks like inside, and what I want to do with it.  I’ll be formulating a Plan of Attack.  I’ll update the “About The Project” page when I’ve got a room plan formulated.

It’s time to stop living with someone else’s instability.  It’s my job to create new stability for my family, no matter where we might be.

Let’s talk for a second about the Sundance Catalog site and catalog, shall we?

I’m not a big catalog shopper.  And I’m really not into the type of “country” decorating that makes use of lots of little pastel pink geese or delft blue flowered wallpaper.  It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it’s just totally not me.  And it’s not my husband, either.  Thank God.

(Of course, if left to his own devices, thanks to childhood programming and his relentless drive to rebel against something, his style is  all about the gothy black punky bachelor-pad type lava lamps and black and silver. Yes, I know I used the word “black” twice.  It’s to emphasize the point.  Ugh.  I outgrew rebellion-by-goth in my late teens, and I ain’t goin’ back, man.  Just for the record.)

A while back, and I’m not sure how, exactly, now that it’s been a zillion years….I found the Sundance Catalog.

Can you hear the angelic chorus in the background?

It says something to me that through all the purges of extraneous stuff I’ve had over the years (always re-amassing a load of crap I don’t need later, but at the time, very thorough clear-outs…), I still have many of the catalogs I’ve received.    (I get maybe one a year, so it’s not like it’s a big stack.  But I did somehow keep all but maybe one or two.)  For me to keep them, and refer back to them, says things about me, most likely.  Or at least about what my fantasy life is.

I feel like the home is my responsibility.  That making a nice, clean, decorated one is my contribution to the family, even when that family consists of just my husband and me, and our four dogs.  (Yes, I said four.  There was a temporary addition over the weekend.  A tiny little jack-russell-type dog was outside our door and wouldn’t leave.  We’re looking for her owner, but we’re fond of her.  She might stay.  This is why I need babies…to stop the relentless inflow of dogs.)  I feel that making a home to which my husband can not only invite our friends, but also which makes him feel welcomed and relaxed and at home is a very important part of my “job” as a wife.

It’s not easy with him.  He’s grown up in a great deal of chaos.  His parents are both hoarders, possibly of a clinical type even.  Their 12,000 square foot home (that’s not a typo.  Twelve *thousand* square feet of space, including an indoor pool that’s unfinished, and seven bedrooms, four bathrooms.  Seriously.) is ENTIRELY FULL OF USELESS STUFF.  Stuff they’ve bought at auctions, garage sales, and dollar stores cover every room.  No surface is uncluttered.  All the closets and drawers are full of unnecessary items that were a bargain.

Thinking about their home makes me need a little lie-down to recouperate.  It very honestly makes me tired, and a little bit unable to think.  I can’t deal with that much clutter, though my tendencies to collect it are just as strong.

For him, this clutter is normal.  So we’re constantly fighting the battle against having too much stuff.  My tolerance level is so much lower than his, it’s scary, and a source of friction between us.

But that’s not what I set out to write about.

If it was up to me, and my life was ideal and I had some kind of magic money tree that sprouted hundred-dollar-bills every day, I’d live in the Sundance Catalog.  It’s country, but it’s that New Country — more ranchlike and cabin-y than duck-and-goosey.  Lots of wrought iron and kilim fabrics, clean lines and antique, recycled woods, all made by artisans rather than factories.  The art is well-selected, the accessories are evocative of one’s life and travels.  There is enough storage, and no clutter.

The bedroom above (picture ruthlessly ganked from the website) is what I’d do with my rooms, if I could.  Plaster-colored walls, warm fabrics and woods, inviting-looking linens.

This is the kind of home I want to make for us.  Lives pared down to the essentials so we can be with each other and not be distracted by all our stuff.  Beautiful, but in a simple way.

As my house gets cleaner through this Project,  I want to dissect this catalog.  Find what it is about it that gets under my skin and makes me want to live in its pages.  Find the parts of it that are so appealing and emulate them, but with a twist that fits both my husband and I.

Today has been amazing, largely due to the Project.  I was in bed last night at a reasonable hour, WITH my husband, rather than long after him.  I was up early, made him breakfast, started dinner, cleaned the kitchen, and continued cleaning up the house, and still managed to get my work-for-money done in the meantime.  I’m feeling the urge, after cleaning my physical space, to clean up my virtual one, too, and for the first time in probably five years, my email has been answered on-time and the number in the inbox is less than ten.  I’m so much more on top of things.

I’m anticipating that as the project goes on, and my surroundings express more of what’s really me, and I’m focusing on my marriage and on my duties within it, this trend will continue.  That life will only continue to get easier when I let go of the expectations of the world and just focus on what I require of me, and what my husband desires of me.

Harmony.  I’m starting to hear the first refrains, and I can’t wait for more.