Some days I am full of energy, and others I wake drained. Today is in the middle. But before I get into that, let me catch you up on the weekend.
As you know from my recent posts, I'm "re-claiming" my home from the clutter I've allowed to collect in the drawers, shelves, and cupboards. I like things tidy. But I have really let the hidden spots go during the last few years. I was working on inner order (within myself), and now I'm ready to tackle some external order of a deeper nature than what's immediately visible.
See, we've taken some trips over the last 10 years, and have had the chance to stay in some lovely places. I felt so at peace and calm and refreshed by some of these settings. I stopped to examine my heart and my emotions then, and to discover what elements promoted that sense for me.
I realized that the lack of clutter was a big part of that peace. When I opened the lower cupboard in the bathroom of one of the vacation homes we visited, and found only what I needed there, (and could actually see the shelving in the cupboard instead of having it piled up with various bottles and boxes,) I liked what that felt like. I am something of a pack-rat. I have difficulty throwing silly things away, like packaging ("I might be able to use that for something. . . ."), ALL receipts (my Mom always kept them for tax purposes), and expired things.
However, keeping the stuff has become more cumbersome than letting it go. I'm pleased to say that I am now in a place that I'm ready to let that stuff go, and I've been working on it a little at a time. www.http://bemorewithless.com has been a positive inspiration there.
So that's a bit of background for my daily efforts at re-claiming order in my home.
Saturday I decided to tackle our tea cupboard. Actually, it's just a shelf in the cupboard of our butler's pantry. It's a nice-sized shelf that will hold a full-size coffee maker, tea pots, boxes and bags of tea, coffee grounds, filters, recipe boxes, you get the idea. A big space. I pulled out all the boxes of tea, and went through everything. Turns out, no one really likes fruit tea, so I discarded that. Old coffee that never got used also hit the trash. Boxes for tea bags that only had 2 sachets in them were emptied (and the tea put into another container with loose sachets of tea). Coffee was collected into one basket, and things were moving forward when I remembered, I had a cushion to re-upholster for a friend, and it had to be done Saturday! Yikes!
I set right to it, and pulled out all the staples on the underside. Whoever last upholstered that seat got really carried away with the double piping trim on the front. They used about two solid inches of staples along the sides, and hidden staples between the piping. It only took about an hour to get the staples out. Always makes my hands sore and sometimes scraped up. Some staples are more stubborn than others. And these were so thin, they often broke off. These had to be hammered down because there was not enough of the leftover stem to get hold of with the needle nose pliers.
I put the new fabric on, and it turned out quite nicely once it was well stapled round the bottom. I had a bit of trouble with the double piping, working the electric stapler into the right position, trying to hold the piping apart (it rolled together as it should when finished), and carefully squeezing the trigger while pressing hard to make sure the staple went DEEP inbetween the piping. I missed a couple of times and had to pull the staple back out. Still, it turned out fine, and I was glad to have it done in a timely manner despite forgetting for a bit!
Here's my sneaky Sunday pic:
Yesterday was a holiday (on a Monday), and I decided to spend my creative, de-cluttering time working on our Christmas decorations that are still quite pretty, but are now ready to be put to rest for another year. Here are a few pics of the process.
