Home Improvement

I've been a homeowner for a couple years now, and I'm definitely getting good at drawing the distinction between the things that I'd like to do and the things that need to be done.  When I bought the house, I had thoughts of updating the kitchen--cabinets, countertop, and lighting.  Then the water softener died.  And I needed to replace the furnace, air conditioner, and a couple windows.  Which means that the kitchen revamp becomes a pipe dream and the washer and dryer (probably from the early 90s) will run until they die or I come into some money suddenly.  It's sad, but it's comforting to come face to face with priorities.

Until that sudden influx of money (a guy can hope, at least), I took on the little projects.  The basement got a fresh coat of paint, new furniture for the patio, and framing and hanging art around the house.  Next up: organizing those dark corners of the house where I tend to not dare to tread.  My kitchen, mud room and office need some serious rearranging in order to make things easier for myself, and I'm very aware of that fact.  Unfortunately, I've tended to let things just kind of stack up in those areas, and I need to attack them soon. 

Or more likely procrastinate them for other projects.  Any other projects.  Organization is something I dread, partially because I know how long I've gone without it and I know how much it'll take to get where I want it to be.  So I've moved to projects that flex a little bit more of my creative muscle.  Like knitting.  I just finished my first mitten.  Well--almost.  It doesn't have a thumb.  But I figure I can wait until I have the second mitten knitted before I have to figure out how to knit thumbs.  And the project that I most recently finished, my key rack.

I'm proud of this project because it's simple, it's creative, and it solves an organizational problem (that fact kind of snuck up on me--organization can be creative?  Who knew?).  My junk drawer now has about a dozen fewer keys floating around in there.  My extra garage door opener will wind up on there as might a few other odds and ends (the nice thing about Legos is that it's easy to re-arrange and add more hooks!).  The remaining junk in the drawer in the kitchen will need to be dealt with at some point, but that's for later.  Perhaps after a few other projects.  I have an idea for a shelf next to the doorway that I want to work on.  All I need is a game board, some game pieces, some brackets, and a whole lot of glue....  Then maybe I can work on making a scarf.  And in the spring I may need to do more painting.  And then.....

I'll get to the big organizational stuff eventually.  Really.