We did it! We bought the piano. The most beautiful thing we have ever jointly purchased outside of our home. The thought process involved in deciding where the beautiful piano would live, while here, has led us to contemplate some serious home re-doing. We were already heading down that road but this gave us the impetus needed to push through the final hard jobs.

   It seems like after living in a house a while we can see where things could be set up more efficiently. Previously however, we would get to that point and think well, we are going to pack it all up next year anyway so just deal with it for now. Annual overhauling is just overwhelming. We are at that point here and still dealing with a few spaces that never really got handled when we moved in. We had two rooms to completely finish off when we arrived (ie they were subfloor and drywall) which took a good deal of time. Then there were some major repairs to be done.  The barn and outbuildings were full to the rafters with junk and construction salvage. It took 3 pickups of the commercial roll-of dumpster just to get it out. Add in a deployment, a baby, a new career, another pregnancy, and a couple boys moving out and you start to see how we get three years into the project in need of some catching up and overhaulin.

   Some things we realized in assessing our current set up:  We never ‘do school’ in the school room. Mud needs to stay in the sunroom and never get as far as the entry hall (gotta move the outerwear storage), The tv is a pain in the living room due to a wall of windows. Also – food and drink gravitates to the tv like flies on….. sorry I got carried away <g>…. it gravitates there let’s just say. Hence – the piano and the tv should not live in the same room. Books COULD live with a piano. Books should NOT live on the ten year old Walmart particle bd shelves anymore.

   So with all that in mind we began today. The entry is now cleared of shoes. When the books come off the WM shelves in the schoolroom the shelves will move to the sunroom and house the miscellany that ends up there – outerwear, toys and shoes. The schoolroom bks will get boxed til we can install wall to wall to wall shelving in the living room, where the piano will live…..after the floor is replaced. There are French doors leading to this room so it can be safely closed off when there is a babysitter or visiting children here and hopefully the piano will be safe. The tv and a couch will live in the old schoolroom. the everyday schoolbooks and manip’s will be in the empty kitchen cabinets – yes we have empy kitchen cabinets here!  I still can’t believe that! We do school in the kitchen anyway.

   There is a hall closet nearby full of games and puzzles about to be purged as well. They never truly should have moved here.  They had missing pieces and had been poorly maintained but I felt such a sense of guilt over that lapse. I couldn’t bring myself to watch so many dollars worth of materials go in the trash.  So they came along only to be stored in their incomplete, hence useless, state instead. Stupid! Pride will need to step aside and we will have to face the music and toss them.  Clean sweep right?

  Asher has already started disassembling the school room. I am nearly done clearing the clutter from the kitchen cabinets so the school supplies can move in.  Tonight the carpet cleaner comes. While we intend to replace the living room carpet these other jobs must happen first and we can breathe easier with it cleaner. Whoever thought of white carpeting anyway???

  That explains in advance where we will be for the next few days.  If you are so inspired, the links from the previous entry on organization are a great start. In particular I LOVE Mrs Catherine’s Xanga site. (ck her left sidebar for room by room plans) I stopped there this morning to psych myself up. I don’t think she intended her whole house cleaning plan to be implemented in a matter of days but hey, I am having this baby in a matter of weeks and small people can wreck havoc in piles and stacks. So this will be a sprint vs a marathon. Wish us luck!