The Great Clean and Purge Project – Week Two Recap

This last week turned out to be quite an adventure.

We took our good old time working on our packing and purging during Week One of our Great Clean and Purge Project. When I posted last week we had just been thrown the curveball of the floor crew wanting to come a day early because somebody had their dates confused. And we were all “oh, hey, it’s a day early but we still have three whole days until the floor dudes come. Not a huge big deal.

But then it turned into a thing and suddenly it was not a two-day job but three and there was the potential for the job not to be done by the time the floor guy was leaving town and if he didn’t finish he’d come back the following week to finish…leaving us where? With partially-finished floors? Oh no, I don’t think so. Not happening.

So I had another stress-induced tantrum about the whole thing we agreed that it was better to just let him come the two flipping days early and get it over with. I mean, it’s not like we had planned our entire month around these two days that were on the contract. So the Hub and Zilla and I kicked it into high gear and pretty much just threw our house into boxes without doing the purging part along the way as we had planned. This made me completely and unreasonably irritable more than a little frustrated, but the Hub assured me that we would do the purging on the back end – just don’t re-set the things we want to get rid of. As it turns out, that worked out really well.

So here’s what we’ve accomplished during week two of The Great Clean and Purge Project:

• Packed up our bedroom, Zilla’s bedroom, Zilla’s playroom, our living room, our dining room, and our office/library into boxes (many many boxes…) and stacked it all in rooms that were not having the hardwood installed (so this means two bathrooms, the kitchen, and the downstairs family room which was re-floored back in September).
• Rounded up the three Rotten Cats (two days in a row) and housed them in the downstairs family room so they wouldn’t get be in the way, get nailed to the new floorboards, or dash out the front door which was opened 900 times in a 48-hour period. They were not pleased.
• Dealt with two days of BANG BANG BANGING. Do you know how awful that was for the two out of three of us whose ADHD includes a tendency to hit sensory overload pretty quickly? It was not pretty.
• Unpacked and re-set our bedroom. This included a heavy cleaning and polishing of furniture and washing of all bed linens and curtains (well, those are still in process, but we’re nearly finished). We also made adjustments to the artwork on the walls, a project that’s been on the “to do” list for about six months.
• Unpacked and re-set Zilla’s playroom and bedroom. More furniture cleaning and polishing here, more washing of linens, and hanging all of the artwork that we never hung after the Hub painted Zilla’s room a few months ago. As of Saturday, we proclaimed the upstairs floor completely cleaned and purged. HOORAY!
• Unpacked, purged, and re-shelved the family game cupboard. Anything we don’t actively enjoy playing or don’t see ourselves playing with Zilla now that she’s old enough, we put on the sell/donate pile. What we have now is a well-organized collection of card and board games that we can all enjoy.
• Unpacked, purged, and re-shelved all of our books and CDs. This was a monster task that took the better part of two days to accomplish. The Hub is a musician who also loves books. I am a lit major who also loves music. Zilla loves it all. Even after purging several boxes of these things that we had decided we were ready to let go of, it was still a huge job. But now we are satisfied with the knowledge that what we kept has purpose for our lives at this point and we know precisely what is on each shelf and why. In the process, Zilla earned her own personal space on the CD rack for her kid CDs as well as her own dedicated shelf in the library for her downstairs books (the rest live in her bedroom). Some of the purged books and CDs have already found good homes and the rest will be sold or donated. (Bonus: Super Sister came to pick up some items that were moving to her house and we got to spend some fun time laughing at old photographs.)
• Unpacked and re-shelved Zilla’s downstairs books and activities. We keep Zilla’s arts and crafts type materials on the main living floor, not up in her rooms. This allows for better management of materials and supervision of the process. Again, we know exactly what we have and why and it is all in a sensible arrangement.
• The Hub and I unpacked, purged, and re-set our personal desks in the office/library. We still have to purge and re-do the filing drawers, so that’s on this week’s agenda.
• I am still in the process of purging my cookbook collection. I have some I haven’t touched in years. We eat and cook much differently than we did when I purchased those, so it’s time to let them go. I’m leafing through them for the recipes I know we want to keep and will save those on my computer. That job should be finished tomorrow.
• Unpacked, purged, and re-set our breakables/collectibles/framed photographs. Amazing how many knick-knacks we had that we really were able to designate for sale or donation.
• And in all of the above processes, I used my new favorite homemade cleaning solution (water, baking soda, white vinegar) to wipe down and clean everything that was cleanable. Every. Single. Thing.

It feels really good to have cleaned out and simplified so much. So right now we have a lot of this going on…

Now I’m exhausted again just re-visiting all of this! It’s been a very busy and stressful week. We have all been off our normal eating and sleeping schedules, so we’re trying to get that back in place.

My family deserves particular praise here.

The Hub has been amazing in all of this, most notably because the vast majority of the running and climbing and hauling of boxes up and down the stairs has fallen on him. There was no way I was doing steps with the residual sprained ankle nonsense – I’m just now starting to walk down the stairs normally after two weeks, never mind carrying boxes of stuff.

Zilla handled the temporary disappearance of all of her stuff very well and dealt with the disruption to her routine (a huge thing for her) with more patience and grace than her Mother did. She helped pack and unpack and clean and could not have been more well-behaved and cooperative if she were a Stepford child.

They both tolerated my crankiness, my lack of mobility thanks to the stupid ankle, and the presence of takeout food rather than home-cooked meals.

Even the Rotten Cats get a nod for their cooperation in the process. Granted, they were upset at being confined to quarters in the family room and they most certainly did not like the BANG BANG BANGING that went on for two days. But they have not behaved any more poorly or been any more obnoxious than usual. Well, perhaps with one exception: Cat One promptly christened the new floors with cat yerf about an hour after the floor guys left, but that’s pretty standard behavior for him. It’s one of the reasons I can’t stand him love him so.

And all three Rotten Cats are trying their best to adapt to the lack of available traction when playing games like Running Cats (read about Running Cats game here). Let’s just say that they struggle with both stopping and starting on the hard surfaces. Frustrating for them; funny for us.

OK, that’s it for me. Time to relax and get some rest because Monday morning we dig in to week three!

What are your experiences with cleaning up and cleaning out your home? Do you have any favorite methods? Share in the comments!