Crazy Cat Lady Chapter 4 - The Aftermath

f0xh0les

Split the gloss painting into 4 jobs, left hand side skirts / right hand side skirts / bannisters / balustrade, or whatever. 

Cut up that elephant into bite size chunks.   You really are blowing this up into elephant territory.   Don't forget to plan a really nice reward for yourself for all your  (finished) hard work.  Then you  will be able to say you have totally finished the top floor - not doing that again for a couple of years  = Priceless.

janb5

Didnt you say that DD is quite a dab hand at painting?  Masybe do it together and you can offer to pay for one of her beauty treatments etc as an inducement/ bribe? 

crazy_cat_lady

It's not skirtings or the bannister f0xh0les - it's the fact that there are 6 doors to do. And the 2 downstairs ones are brown varnished wood, so need priming before I can do any white. You're right though - I am just repeatedly putting it off for no good reason other than my complete and utter laziness. Once I actually start then it'll be done in no time - but I still haven't started yet.
Nor are my wardrobes finished, but let me explain at least... about 10 minutes after I finished on here last night, dd arrived and asked me how busy I was, and I made the mistake of answering with a 'not particularly'. What a fool 'In that case can we sort out the cupboard in my bedroom?' The cupboard in her bedroom is a massive walk-in cupboard that goes over the top of the stairs, and has been a dumping ground since she was a baby and her now bedroom was our spare bedroom. It was on the list of things to do, but I had also been putting that off - I gave the excuse of it being half five in the evening and a bit late to start and she came back with 'we don't have to finish, just make a start'. She knows I wouldn't be having any of that though - so off we went. It took over 2 hours, generated 11 bags of rubbish, 18 cardboard boxes to recycle, 7 pairs of curtains to go to the charity shop along with 4 cushions, 6 completely unusable pillows. a broken fan, an old printer, an old tv and an ancient laptop (with a wireless dongle no less!) Also found a CD I've been looking for for weeks, and a bag of stuff belonging to the ex which also went in the bin. DD also wanted the carpet in there replacing with the leftovers from her new carpet - which was a more difficult job than it sounds. I made dd look for a tip slot while I broke my back shifting stuff and getting the old carpet up and trying to put the new one down. Turned out she got a slot for today so we packed the car straight up - except there was too much rubbish to fit in the car so we're going to need another one sooner rather than later. (Tip slot not car)
I was absolutely shattered - carrying bags of rubbish downstairs and to the car and packing it is infinitely more difficult than the joy of unpacking at the tip. I left dd to hoover and put stuff back and by the time I sat down it was after 9pm and dark outside so that was me done for the day. I was in bed and asleep before 11 and woke up just before 6 feeling as stiff as a board. No idea what I've done to my shoulder but it is sore and stiff this morning. Got up, showered, dressed, fed cats and then saw my mam - her COVID test came back negative and she had been out and bought me new curtains for the living room. Didn't have the heart to tell her how many curtains I'd found in the big cupboard. The washing machine had pulled one of my living room curtains to pieces at the seam between the lining, and I mentioned to her that I was going to look to getting it repaired, but she went into full on 'new curtain' mode and wanted to bring them straight over for me. They are lovely mind.
Took the opportunity to tell stepdad that the light wasn't working in the outhouse but it wasn't important - but he obviously went straight into there to have a look and found a snapped wire behind the light switch he had replaced, and fixed it straight away. DD finally showed her face about 5 minutes after we should have left for the tip but we made it within our allotted time slot. Haven't booked a new slot just yet but there's rubbish waiting in the garden already, but still 2 shelves within cupboards in our rooms needing to be sorted through so I'd like to try and do that if possible before we go again. There are same day and next day slots now though, so no stress as long as it's done before school starts again.
Got home, did a bit of crochet, had some lunch and finished watching The Fall and now am feeling like I might start for the day again. I have a bit of a list of things I want to do today...
Finish the wardrobes
Change my bed
Hoover through upstairs 
Find a new box set to watch (any suggestions?)
One load of washing
Maybe start masking tape on the staircase (maybe)
More crochet (I'm testing a pattern for a friend and falling behind)
Less important but still to do:
Primer on downstairs doors
Sand and paint the concrete door steps under the external doors
Gloss in the outhouse
Gloss on the stairs
Emulsion staircase
Hang new curtains
Clear shelf in my room
Clear shelf in dd's room
Finish sorting the 'basket of random stuff' in my room and finally get it done, clean and tidy
Let's see how productive I can be now I've put it in writing...

Jellytotts

Your house must be breathing a sigh of relief as all this stuff leaves it.  I'm a big believer in organised house = organised mind.  All these jobs you've been putting off for years shows how much your mind was blocked, getting it clear now means there's room for lots of good things 😀

Baileys_Babe

Well done on clearing dd cupboard, what plans does she have for it?

Would it be worth you and dd "booking" a slot for the tip with each other and deciding where needs sorting before then?

I hope you have had the opportunity to finish your wardrobes today. It will turn in to a great big frog if you are not careful 🐸

beanielou

You are amazing. 

Tescodealqueen

Well done on all that sorting. Is The Fall good? We are looking for something new. Just watched Jack Taylor on Netflix, hadn't heard of it and some of the accents sound odd to me but not great on Irish accents but we enjoyed it and it wasn't very challenging. If you haven't seen it on the other hand Chenobyl was excellent but not a lot of laughs

foxgloves

Wow, CCL, your efforts are inspiring. Yes, it's tiring, of course it is, but I am of a similar school of thought as Jellytotts. All that stuff you are chucking out is blocked energy. It is left over from a time when you were unhappy & unsupported. Every single 'Klunk' of something landing in a skip at the tip is symbolic of you saying 'goodbye old life, hello new'. You have heaps to do because it was allowed to build up. That happens for many reasons & eventually has to be tackled, by which time it has turned into a giant woolly mammoth of a task. I doubt you will let it build up again as despite you feeling tired, I can really sense from your posts a great deal of satisfaction in putting a fantastic clear-out & room makeovers at centre stage in your new life, rather than sharing a house with a load of clutter.
Re gloss painting.I hate it too! In fact, we use eggshell paint now instead of gloss as we both think it goes on more easily without all the stickiness. But you know it needs doing. No little painting goblins are going to pop in overnight & do it for you. This job has become a frog 🐸. Just plod through it & enjoy the knowledge it won't need doing for a loooonnnngggg time.
F x

trix-a-belle

wow I bet you felt satisfied to get that done! it really is going to be a new house after all this
if you are doing the gloss work before emulsion in the hall you don't need to worry about masking it off as you can then cut in over it with the emulsion.

PurpleFairy26

Amazing work ccl all that stuff out has got to be good for the soul. We use satin rather than gloss as we find it easier to go on, much less sticky and doesn’t show imperfections 🙃 

In previous holidays you would never have done all this stuff, you should be so proud of yourself.