Preparing for the holidays - challenge

Have you noticed that on Simplify 101 blog is a 28 day challenge to get your home ready for the Holidays. The point of the challenge is to get some organizing and cleaning issues done before the Thanksgiving. I thought of participating even though Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Finland (yet another holiday not celebrated here). Last year I also did some of the points from the challenge. It was better than doing nothing.

I know I'm bit late on the start of the challenge, but that's fine, I can catch up and even if I don't it's ok. So I started from the day three. Decluttering surfaces. In our home all surfaces are clutter magnets, but the entry table and drawer are the super magnets. So I put the timer on for 15 minutes and we got to work. I told A that all surfaces are the places to concentrate. After the speed decluttering the surfaces were already looking so much better. It's so easy that I'm always amazed how come we spend so much time avoiding the decluttering.

 

Small decluttering and organizing

I was quite busy on the weekend and also still a bit tired from beeing sick earlier. On friday we had a friend's wedding and saturday was then a bit tired day and I took a long long nap. On sunday it was fathers' day here in Finland and we visited my grandpa and my parents and also A's parents.

But I did manage to declutter and organize a few places. Inspired by the 28 days challenge to get home holiday ready by Simplify 101 I decluttered the food containers in the kitchen. We store the lids and the containers separately in two boxes in a kitchen cupboard.

For some reason we had way more lids than containers and I was able to throw most of the lids to the trash. Also I threw out some containers that were not as sturdy as I hoped they were.

So that was the decluttering, then on saturday I did some organizing too. In the office A has a chest of drawers where he stores all types of junk. I have no clue what he has on three of the drawers, but on the fourth, on the top one, he has office supplies. I had organized the top drawer once before, but I now wanted to organize it again because I had bought from a drift store earlier two cutlery holders and wanted to use one of them in this place.

I was hoping I could have decluttered some of the stuff inside the drawer while I organized it, but according to A all the things in there are usefull and needed regularly. For example he'll most likely need six pencil sharpeners simultaniously...

Tearing up magazines - day five

For years I ordered a magazine called 'Image', its articles varied from popular culture to politics. I loved that magazine until suddenly after many years I didn't even feel the need to open it. I did order it for about 6 months, before I realized it was no longer the magazine for me and then I stopped it. After that I did not order any magazines for some time. I was fed up with them, I still had all the issues of the Image-magazine I had ordered and they took up so much space. After holding on to them for years and even moving them to another home I realized I won't ever feel like reading those old articles again and I threw them all away.

Only lately I've started to order some magazines again. Now I order 'Tee Itse' a DIY magazine and 'Ihana' crafting magazine. Also I order a varying interior design magazine, now it's been 'Avotakka'. I haven't found any real good interior design magazines, so far I've been disappointed with them all. I think they mostly sell stuff and show pictures of homes styled so over the top that it's clear no one would live like that. What I especially hate is that sometimes you see the same object on two different areas on the home. I know they are just trying to get the right feel for the pictures but I hate catching them on staging.

Anyway, now that I've squalled enough, I admit that I do like some of the images in the design magazines. And inspired by the Get your home ready for the holidays, day five I started going through the magazines. I have a system that is a total rip off from Chez Larsson and I love it. It's worked so great in last few years and I often flip through the images in the folder and rip out things I no longer like.

I'm still unable to tear out pages from the Tee Itse (DIY) magazine, I think all of their hints and instructions might be usefull one day so I don't know what to keep and what not to keep. You wouldn't have any hints on this, would you? How could I determine which articles are important? Also I haven't torn out pages from the Ihana (crafting) magazine. But that is because it comes only four times a year and I have ordered it about one year so I've still had plenty of room to keep them. I am thinking of doing the same process for those as for the interior design magazines, but just to a different folder offcourse.

Ready for Holidays - 28 day challenge

Aby at the Simplify 101 has started a 28 days challenge to get homes Holiday ready. It is about a month before it's Thanksgiving, which is not celebrated in Finland, but I thought I could still participate. Decluttering has never done harm for any home.

It's allready the fifth day of the challenge on monday. I jumped on board a bit late, but the tasks are not overwhelming at all so I was able to complete them all in one go.

The day three on the challenge is consentrating on surface cleaning. I did some decluttering on two of the trouble spots, as Aby calls them. The trouble spots in our home are the dining table, top of the entry drawer and the surfaces in the office / guest room.

Decluttered the top of the entry drawer, most things were wainting to be taken to the storage room outdoors.

Then decluttered also the dining table. I left there on the table the materials and tools I need for the I'm a giant challenge, I will be needing those later.

On the fourth day of the challenge Aby says to focus on the ceiling. I could not found any cobwebs, but check this out.

 

Beautifull, isn't it? That was the air outvent on the kitchen ceiling. I had noticed it beeing that dirty, but hadn't done anything to it. Now I opened it and vacuumed it thoroughly.

 

Then I wiped it clean with dishwashing liquid. I couldn't get it completely clean, but clean enough, would have needed to srcub it with something, but no one will notice it from the floor level.

We have four of these vents around the house and I did clean them all, but the kitchen vent was the dirtyest.