The last couple of days, I neglected to meet my “one box a day” unpacking goal. Saturday, other things happened and Sunday, I tried to make it a day of rest (but we still did baking).
Today more than made up for it.
I had a couple of things I needed to get done.
One was to clear the area in front of a small cube shelf under the dining room side of the kitchen counter/divider. I’ve got a 9 cube shelf already filled with dishes, etc. The 6 cube shelf, which is closer to the entry to the porch/laundry room, was to hold our winter gear. I had unpacked 6 collapsible cubes that fit in them, but the shelf itself was blocked with boxes packed for storage. Meanwhile, boxes of our winter gear were lined up against the wall, along with a small shelf I planned to use in my crochet corner, and various other items jumbled together.
The other thing I needed to get done was empty the shelf against the wall, which had become a catchall for all sorts of things, clean it and move it into my crochet corner.
In order to accomplish those goals, we first had to get a bunch of stuff moved out of the living and dining rooms, into the porch, so that my darling daughters could take them into the basement for me.
Since I was doing that, I included a couple of small folding tables that I used to use for crafting/photography purposes, but we just don’t have the room for anymore. A bunch of cut down boxes got included. Among the jumble in front of the shelf I wanted to use was three wire racks holding recycling bags; one for glass, one for aluminum cans and one for general recycling. Rather than have them take up space in the dining room, we’re going to use a small recycling bin upstairs and, when it’s full, it will be taken downstairs for sorting.
That, alone, opened up a whole bunch of space.
Once that was cleared, I could access the little shelf, empty it, clean it, then move it into the living room. Which, in turn, has been substantially rearranged, to accommodate my husband’s needs.
Okay. Shelf is gone from the dining room. I can now clear the space in front of the cube shelf and start filling that. This meant I could finally clear the top of the dryer, since that was the only place we could put the hats, scarves and gloves we were already using.
Unpacking the boxes also meant finally unpacking various coats and jackets for different weather conditions and seasons.
We don’t pack any of those away for the season. We just shift where in the closet they are in. Because you never know when you’re going to need a parka in May, or a light jacket in December.
One box, I couldn’t completely unpack, because the bottom was filled with boots, shoes and sandals. The closet in our porch doesn’t have the space for them.
It’s filled with paint cans.
So that box stayed, but the cube shelf is now being used as it was intended for, and while we still have a bunch of boxes lining the wall, most of them are just waiting to go to the shed.
I could then move on to the shelf now in my crochet corner. I had a box labelled “living room yarn” in my office (while digging that out, I found another first floor bathroom box…) and was able to unpack that into the shelf. The yarn was sorted and put into large slide-lock freezer bags, which will make it much easier to keep organized and clean, so I left them in the bags. Using bags that were Christmas green, however, makes figuring out what colour of yarn is inside them an amusing thing.
