Moving is hard.
No seriously, it's not the physical movement of stuff. (Though that is also hilariously difficult when your oven has mysteriously gained some weight and won't fit out the door although it clearly got in at some point.) No, the difficultly with moving, for me, is the creation of new routines and habits.
It all starts off well enough because you have a literal mountain of stuff you need to figure out. And tasks that must be completed like painting or cleaning or cleaning your oven vent. (Just me on that last one, I suspect.)
But after that, after the most pressing of house tasks are tackled, you decide you're going to start crafting a routine. You have grand expectations that you're going to wash the baseboards every second Sunday and you'll make enough food to freeze and launder the drapes. You'll blog once a week and practice guitar every Tuesday!
Know what I've done? Watched all of Sense8 and half of Unreal. (OMG SO GOOD)
Which is not entirely true. I tackle the basics of cleaning the house and laundry every week. I've managed to cement my 3 times a week workout plan into a habit. I've made a couple of outfits, and I've sewn a few throw pillows. I've cooked weirdly elaborate things like a 4 layer strawberry buttercream cake and made springrolls from scratch. (Yeah. I made the wrappers). And I cleaned out the basement of doom!
Most importantly, and that which I'm actually the most proud of – the transformation of the living room.
I am actually now incredibly fond of our living room. It's become a very chill and breezy place to hang out.
Here is what it looked like before:
No seriously, it's not the physical movement of stuff. (Though that is also hilariously difficult when your oven has mysteriously gained some weight and won't fit out the door although it clearly got in at some point.) No, the difficultly with moving, for me, is the creation of new routines and habits.
It all starts off well enough because you have a literal mountain of stuff you need to figure out. And tasks that must be completed like painting or cleaning or cleaning your oven vent. (Just me on that last one, I suspect.)
But after that, after the most pressing of house tasks are tackled, you decide you're going to start crafting a routine. You have grand expectations that you're going to wash the baseboards every second Sunday and you'll make enough food to freeze and launder the drapes. You'll blog once a week and practice guitar every Tuesday!
Know what I've done? Watched all of Sense8 and half of Unreal. (OMG SO GOOD)
Which is not entirely true. I tackle the basics of cleaning the house and laundry every week. I've managed to cement my 3 times a week workout plan into a habit. I've made a couple of outfits, and I've sewn a few throw pillows. I've cooked weirdly elaborate things like a 4 layer strawberry buttercream cake and made springrolls from scratch. (Yeah. I made the wrappers). And I cleaned out the basement of doom!
Most importantly, and that which I'm actually the most proud of – the transformation of the living room.
I am actually now incredibly fond of our living room. It's become a very chill and breezy place to hang out.
Here is what it looked like before:
Things that needed fixing:
1. The paint.
I don't actually know how to describe this paint color. It was... baby poo green. It just.. always looked like a weird smelly cave. We (mostly me. I tried to get his involvement but apparently the 20 odd shades I showed him all looked the same. Which explains how we ended up with baby poo green in the first place)
2. The trim
My boyfriend, before he met me, decided all the trim in the house should be sprayed with texture blue fake stone. Note: this stuff is the devil and should be banned from stores. Plus side: it's water soluble! Downside: It requires an incredible amount of elbow grease and approximately 1millionkazillion scouring pads. Once off I repainted all the trim white.
3.Everything on the bookshelf
Everybody has a space into which you drop undealt with clutter. It cannot be in direct sight in the living room. What?
4. VERTICAL BLINDS. WHY
In addition to the vertical blinds (IN A HOUSE? WHY), I really really wanted to get rid of the weird... ledge... that was over the blinds. Bf was tasked with the job of ripping it off the wall one way or another. He was successful after many curses.
Fun fact: BEHIND the horrible thing on the wall were three other curtain rod railings and a layer of grime so thick I sacrificed 6 magic erasers to it. The only thing I can surmise is that whomever had lived here had, instead of taking down previous curtain rods, just added a new one. And then, once there were three, decided to cover the railings with a gigantic piece of wood that they cemented to the wall. This is only one of the many, many strange things about this house.
HERE ARE SOME AFTER PHOTOS!
1. The paint.
I don't actually know how to describe this paint color. It was... baby poo green. It just.. always looked like a weird smelly cave. We (mostly me. I tried to get his involvement but apparently the 20 odd shades I showed him all looked the same. Which explains how we ended up with baby poo green in the first place)
2. The trim
My boyfriend, before he met me, decided all the trim in the house should be sprayed with texture blue fake stone. Note: this stuff is the devil and should be banned from stores. Plus side: it's water soluble! Downside: It requires an incredible amount of elbow grease and approximately 1millionkazillion scouring pads. Once off I repainted all the trim white.
3.Everything on the bookshelf
Everybody has a space into which you drop undealt with clutter. It cannot be in direct sight in the living room. What?
4. VERTICAL BLINDS. WHY
In addition to the vertical blinds (IN A HOUSE? WHY), I really really wanted to get rid of the weird... ledge... that was over the blinds. Bf was tasked with the job of ripping it off the wall one way or another. He was successful after many curses.
Fun fact: BEHIND the horrible thing on the wall were three other curtain rod railings and a layer of grime so thick I sacrificed 6 magic erasers to it. The only thing I can surmise is that whomever had lived here had, instead of taking down previous curtain rods, just added a new one. And then, once there were three, decided to cover the railings with a gigantic piece of wood that they cemented to the wall. This is only one of the many, many strange things about this house.
HERE ARE SOME AFTER PHOTOS!