Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Getting there...

Hey, how's it going...?

There has been not a lot of action happening here, but SO much talking and planning. As of right now, our dumpster should arrive tomorrow or Friday. Along with it will come our contractor and his helpers. Friday our windows and siding are supposed to be delivered and we've been ordered to have window dressings down and furniture moved by Saturday morning. I have a lot going on in the next few days, so I'm about to go start stripping windows as soon as I'm done talking to myself here. ;)

Along with working on the exterior, we are also having the basement finished. We will be adding a big family room, a bedroom, a finished laundry room, and then there will be an unfinished storage/utility room left. Hopefully that unfinished space will allow for the possibility of a second bathroom in the future. Because there will be so much work happening in the basement, we need to clear it out.

We have been looking into local storage places, as well as those storage boxes that just sit in your driveway or wherever. Storage units are fairly cheap and most have a special for the first month or two, but those boxes, which would be so much more convenient are so dang expensive. Like triple the price of a storage unit. Plus big fees for delivery and pick up. Yuck.

At this point, our plan is to work with what we have... That means, as soon as the upstairs windows are taken care of, everything down is coming up. Yikes. My office, aka the second bedroom, will be getting most of it. I have a feeling there will be containers of stuff everywhere, as well as a second couch in the living room. We figured it was better to save the money and we don't have any plans for parties or gatherings at our home for awhile.

I have been working really hard at clearing things out. I've made trips to local stores that buy things from you and resell them. I brought a few things to the home goods store of this variety and got rid of a couple decent sized things and some other things I thought they would reject. Then I brought a TON of clothes over to the clothes variety of this type of store. They took maybe 5% of what I brought in saying that it was out of date/style. Funny thing was, they took a hooded sweatshirt and sweater that are from college (aka at least 6 years old). They also took a couple scarves and a pea coat. I think I might have one more trip of stuff to bring over there of stuff I missed the first time. Anyways, I'm preparing a huge  load of stuff to donate.

On top of that, I've also been able to sell some stuff to/through Amazon, which is nice. I have one box that needs to go out the door for sure and maybe even one more after that. I also might have to make a trip to the store that buys and resells book for the stuff I can't get rid of through Amazon. The bonus part of this is, I think I might be able to buy a really awesome gift for Bill for Christmas without spending any money! I figured it was best to at least try to make a little money before I just gave it all away.

I have also been recycling and throwing things out like crazy. It's nice to get this kick of motivation, but it also sucks that it took all of this to get me going. Hopefully I can keep it going after this so we don't accidentally accumulate a bunch of stuff again.

Due to the tear off of the old siding, we will also be graced with the presence of a giant dumpster. We already got the go ahead to throw out anything we needed to while it was here, as long as there were no tires or TVs (I'm going to assume that should include all electronics). That was exactly what I wanted to hear. When we moved in there was a large, strange, make-shift cabinet in the basement. We have been using it, just because its there. And in all honesty, too large to really move. That is one thing we don't want anymore in the new basement and it will be getting the sledge hammer treatment and thrown in.

We also have this crazy thing we threw together with random items we had and a counter top in the laundry room to have some storage and a place for me to put folded laundry. The bottom is actually some really cheap shelves I bought while I was in high school that are glued and screwed to our old bathroom cabinet. I'm worried about getting it out of the basement, but I really want to actually get some cabinets in there for a better storage solution.

I'm sure we'll find some other stuff down there that needs to go while we're bringing everything up. Bill's parents definitely brought over tons of things after we moved in and we pretty much just threw them in the basement and never really looked in them. I'm actually afraid of what could be in there. And then we have all of our "art" stuff from college... We both have Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, so we have a plethora of things we can probably finally get rid of.

Anyways, I apologize if things are a little dull and slow around here for awhile. There will be lots to share soon, we just have to get past the yuck first.

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