Yesterday my neighbour came and helped me scan and pack two boxes of books to sell via an online company, so that will be about 50 more books gone. Just having that extra pair of hands was a great help, but even more, being pinned down to get that job done has increased my motivation to deal with other things in the room.
That's fantastic @Puzzler. Some jobs are definitely made easier with assistance and I'm glad that has given impetus to continue with the rest of the room.
I gave some assistance to Cheery daughter yesterday as she felt her bedroom was getting her down. I made a list of things to do to get started including wearing a mask and putting on a HEPA filter to help cope with the dust. She did most of the work, I just assisted her to move stuff off the high shelves and used my favourite sticky roller to get dust off the many items in collections she has in her room.
Eventually I'll suggest she get some display cases with glass doors to try to keep the dust at bay. At present she's emotionally connected to a bookcase her grandfather built, so I know I have no chance of parting her from it at this point, even though it isn't really practical for her needs. I'll have to tread carefully around that.
Yes I found it difficult to get rid of bookcases which Mr Puzzler had made. But three were gladly bought by a local lady. Delighted that a younger person has books to fill them. The hi-fi unit he made is now in someone’s garage being used as storage.
I think we could @Piglet, however the bookshelf part is the OK bit. It's all the collectibles on top, the dust gatherers. I was thinking we might need an extension on top that forms a box with a glass/perspex front. I might discuss with the cheery husband on the qt as his suggestions are more readily acceptable than mine!!
So we finally got the kind of rain we have desperately needed for almost a decade - the reservoir that serves the Costa right up to Malaga went from 7% capacity in October to 42% this week and continues to climb.
Thanks be to God.
Downside is the local resistance to using any kind of masonry insulation during construction, and so the creeping damp of the past 2 weeks of constant precipitation has caused a bloom of black mold on the painted masonry ceiling of two of the upstairs bedrooms.
And mildew in the clothes closets.
As soon as the weather promises sunny and dry for a week I'm hauling everything out, dousing it in hydrogen peroxide and letting it dry in the sun.
And then paint rolling the ceilings with same H2O2 and airing out the rooms before repainting with specialized paint.
Hopefully the warm dry sunny weather is coming shortly. In the meantime, doors remain closed and windows open. When it isn't raining.
I have one very deep kitchen drawer that holds all my odds and ends kitchen gadgets that I do not use daily, such as the blades for my mixer and cookie cutters. It is a piled-up mess, and I have no idea how to sort it out. I am open to any suggestions from the ship's wisdom.
It sounds like it's the depth that's the problem. I went out and got a bunch of those flat silverware sorters--the kind that go in silverware drawers? but bigger than usual, and just put my random stuff into the sections they fit best in. Because you have a deep drawer, AND you aren't using this stuff daily (which would be a pain in the neck), you can stack the filled silverware sorters on top of each other. Then, when you're looking for something in particular, all you need to do is lift out the top sorters, layer by layer, until you see the thing you're looking for. You don't have to dive into a mess of sharp objects anymore, with your fingers at risk.
Of course, you may have some objects that are just too tall to fit in one of the sorters. You might have a deeper box on the side for those.
I believe it's possible to get sorters that are adjustable--where you can slot the dividers in to make the spaces as wide or narrow as you please. If you google for silverware sorters, check desk organizers too--it's the same basic problem, and you might well find something that works better under that name.
The painting is - not done, exactly: we need a rest before we tackle the bedrooms. But the downstairs, hall, landing and bathroom are all finished and it looks marvellous.
That sounds wonderful @Jane R . @Puzzler, packing the books sounds like real progress and I hope you are happy with the achievement. Sometimes it's easier to look at what's still to be done and beat ourselves up, rather than look at the achievements and pat oneself on the back.
@Graven Image I hope that stacking the cutlery storage works out for you. I ended up with a drawer solution that came via the Cheery husband not being able to use the hardware trugs that he had purchased for the garage. They fitted perfectly side by side in my kitchen drawer of general rubbish that belonged nowhere else. So I have rulers and some spare pens, scissors and sticky tape, other bits of small stationery that people come to the kitchen to look for and not the drawers in the desk in the rumpus. These have saved the day for me.
I'm contemplating whether to do some house painting over the easter break. The bits of wall to be painted are not large, and it does need doing, but I think I need to check in with Cheery husband before committing. If I decide against that, I think going through my sideboard might be a good job that I've been putting off!
I found some clear plastic stackable drawer dividers. All is well in the Image kitchen. I like that I can see what is below through the plastic, and there is now less in the drawer to take up space. If I had not used it in a year, I do not think I will need it. How many sets of measuring cups are required in life, after all? I had mine and my late mother-in-law.
I took a huge step yesterday by delving into the box of stuff relating to preparations for Mr Puzzler’s funeral and service of thanksgiving from 2023, which included a small display of memorabilia. Not finished it yet, but it is a start. Not much I can throw out, but I’m going to store it properly.
I could fill a filing cabinet with memorabilia of one sort or another. Much of it will be meaningless to others but it will make it easier for my family to deal with when that time comes.
We are having a new kitchen installed next month and have been putting off going through stuff to see what we can recycle and what we can take to the dump. We've only been in this place four years and we got rid of a lot of stuff when we downsized to our previous place, so it shouldn't take too long. We've agreed that we'll make a start tonight.
We have been living in clutter for several weeks - we emptied my husband's bedroom, got the floor repaired, the room painted and re-carpeted and were them forced to a grinding halt when we were told the new fitted wardrobes we had ordered would be delivered 6 weeks later than we'd anticipated. So since then the contents of the room have been strewn around the house.
The unassembled wardrobes are due to be delivered this morning, and then the joiners come to assemble and fit them on Saturday! Then the new bed arrives on Wednesday and they will take the old bed away.
The room still won't be usable, as the blinds are not due to be fitted until later in the month and we haven't even chosen new curtains. Plus the bedroom door was removed and we are in the process of getting a new door. So my husband will be sleeping in our spare bedroom for a while yet.
But an end is in sight! Once the new wardrobes are in we can start putting the stuff away. In particular, our dining room has been a giant cupboard for weeks and hopefully we'll get it cleared this week.
I hope the wardrobes fit and you can start filling them, NEQ.
I have managed to sell three tricky items this week, but I’d really rather give them away than faff around with F—b—k, Messenger, packaging etc. One buyer was pretty local, a delight to meet, and has suggested a possible outlet for further items which he will facilitate if they are interested. 😀
Good to hear of tricky items moving on @Puzzler, that's great news.
Discovered a minor disaster in the sideboard yesterday and have debated whether to share it, so warning for grossness.. The sideboard is pretty standard two doors and three drawers in the middle all being the same size. So I took everything out of the two bottom drawers leaving the messiest drawer for last.
I sorted out the tablecloths and placemats. All the red ones or Christmas ones moved to the bottom drawer, no problems. Tablecloths and placemats of other colours moved to the middle drawer, everything went smoothly and looks tidy with like sets all together, placemats and napkins.
Onto the messy top drawer which has a mixture of things that don't belong anywhere else. Some paperwork from auction purchases thrown away, tags from various items put into an empty biscuit tin and tidied away for future reference. Various cards from medical appointments torn up and binned, plastic ones cut up and also into the rubbish. Then the horrible discovery. I think I know what the item used to be as I'm sure it's not anywhere else.
It did used to be a nice thick felt trivet in the shape of a chicken, mustard yellow and red and green with a blanket stitched edge of heavy thread. What I found was a pile of black (I assume droppings) left behind by moths and a lot of dead moths in the drawer. So everything removed from drawer, black sticky stuff vacuumed up, thread binned. Disposable sticky roller all over everything else that had been in the drawer and then all items placed into self seal bags. Lovely lining paper binned and drawer vacuumed. Lining replaced and then all the items returned to the drawer in their self seal bags. I suspect there is no active moth activity, but I thought if it is still going on, it will be isolated to the individual bags. Funnily enough absolutely no sign of moth activity in any of the other drawers.
I hope the problem is now resolved as anything that looked as though it was badly impacted went straight to the bin, I thought that was the easiest for stuff that the sticky roller could not be used on, or where I thought the success was likely to be inadequate. Good grief, I am so glad I found the disaster and dealt with it. I just hope I've done enough and if I can get some freezer room while Cheery daughter is away, I'll put some things into the freezer, just to be sure, but I don't have space at present.
Perhaps during the week I'll get onto the two sections which have doors, I anticipate they won't be too mothy as they are mostly china trios and vases of various types. Might be a day for running things through the dishwasher with the delicates done by hand.
I hope others are making progress with their tidy houses as I've not started any new projects after my sideboard experience.
However, I had to rise early this morning for Cheery son to go to a medical appointment and took advantage of Cheery husband offering to take him to get onto the washing early, I also vacuumed the large tiled areas and the front sitting room. I even gave the bathroom vanity a good wipe down, which was overdue.
Off now to hang up another load of washing and to start another one. It's lovely and sunny today, so I'm hoping to power through at least another two loads.
Thanks for the encouragement @Huia, early in the week I try to catch up from weekend mess and by Friday I try to have all the washing done, so that I can just enjoy the garden, or go for an outing with Cheery husband, without having to focus on housework too much.
Sounds like you have some of the wind we were supposed to get yesterday. I don't know why, but we seem to have missed it at my place and I'm glad of that. Definitely NOT a day for you to be hanging washing on the line, if you wanted to have some to bring in at the end of the day!
... early in the week I try to catch up from weekend mess and by Friday I try to have all the washing done ...
Crikey - how many people's laundry are you doing??? I've never had to do laundry for more than two, and apart from bed linen that was only a once-a-week task!
Not too many people fortunately, @Piglet. 4 of us in the house and I only wash for Mr Cheery and myself, though if the kids need a hand to fold their sheets, I'll assist and if I only have a small load of lighter things, I'll ask the kid for a couple of tee shirts to make a load worthwhile.
After working and caring for sick kid and leaving most of the housework until the weekend, I decided I'd rather do it more frequently and be on top of things even if it means smaller loads of washing. We did buy a new laundry hamper that makes it easier to sort the washing as you go, but it isn't as large as our old hamper, which means it fills up more rapidly and I'm keen to get onto the job to free up the space.
When I spoke of mess I also meant general household mess and not just the washing. There might be plates hanging around, or cups in bedrooms that I'm rounding up too and cat stuff as well.
I'm happy to let things slide a tiny amount, but find that often it isn't worth it, for my mental health. I'd rather look at an empty basket than an overflowing one.
My friend has started collecting stuff for a car boot sale for charity. Hurrah! Cue shed clear out.
It's not an easy fix as it means having a place for everything. I'm there now, but it took years plus a coach to get there. My ADD works against it all the time but my determination wins! 🙂
We packed up our utility area yesterday ahead of having it and our kitchen replaced in a couple of weeks. That didn't take too long, the kitchen is going to be harder.
Our mobile home park owners have arranged for a dumpster to be placed here for one week to assist with spring clean-up. This was just in time for me, as I had replaced a rug and wondered what I was going to do with the old one. Thankfully, the dumpster is just across the street from where I live, so I do not have far to drag the rug.
That was perfect timing @Graven Image , I hope it's worked out well for everyone in your park.
I've not made any progress with decluttering this week, but I do have some ideas for next week. We had a few appointments organised and I like to do stuff when I have a totally free week, so I can keep ploughing through. I don't like getting stuff out to go through, and then have it hanging around half done because of interruptions.
Cheery husband has holidays next week and I think I'd like to take down the roller blinds and give them a clean, I can anticipate him not being keen, but we'll see!
Originally posted by me on 26 March: But an end is in sight! Once the new wardrobes are in we can start putting the stuff away. In particular, our dining room has been a giant cupboard for weeks and hopefully we'll get it cleared this week.
Reader, we did not get it cleared that week. But I reached the end of my tether, cleared out the living room on Saturday, the hallway on Sunday and the kitchen on Tuesday. I have divided the dining room into quarters and did the first quarter on Wednesday and the top of the table yesterday . I'm going to do another quarter today.
Not so much persistence as utter pissed-off-ness. I have Things to Do, and living in a house full of clutter was dragging me down. There is no immediate end in sight re my husband's bedroom; the black-out blinds are due to be fitted within the next fortnight, but there will be a centimeter or so of light coming in at either side, so I suspect he won't want to move back into his bedroom until we have curtains up too, but he doesn't want to choose curtains until the blinds are fitted and he can visualise them when choosing curtains. Which is fair enough, but this has been ongoing for weeks now.
He currently has the three biggest bedrooms, his pristine, but as yet unoccupiable bedroom, with its freshly painted walls, new carpet, new fitted wardrobes (the wardrobes are shared with me) and new super-king-sized bed; our guest bedroom (daughter's old room) where he's currently sleeping; and his study (son's old room). With boxes in the living room, and the hall, the dining room being used as a giant cupboard, and stuff which should have been in the dining room dresser piling up in the kitchen because we couldn't access the dresser, I was starting to feel claustrophobic in my own home!
I was feeling cornered into my bedroom/study, which is actually the smallest of our four bedrooms. Hence reaching the end of my tether!
He will be vacating our guest bedroom (daughter's old room) once his own bedroom is habitable. And it makes no odds to me, provided the living room etc are usable. It's not as though we were using our son's bedroom (now my husband's study / bedroom for son when he's home) much before this.
But I do want to have a functioning guest bedroom, so that we can have visitors.
He's lovely, really, but a lot of the time he's thinking Big Thoughts and not really paying attention to everyday life. Two days ago I went into our shower room and there was Santa toilet paper on the roll. The old roll had run out and somehow he had tracked down the Santa stuff, rather than the plain white multipack which is in the hall cupboard where it always is and always has been for the last twenty years.
I woke at 5 am from a nightmare. Mt Puzzler was very much alive but had brought a load of junk into the house to fill up all the spaces I have spent the last two years clearing.
He's lovely, really, but a lot of the time he's thinking Big Thoughts and not really paying attention to everyday life.
There are similarities betweenMr RoS and the North East Man, as I think we have noticed before, with the exception of Big Thoughts. Unfortunately I do not have your forbearance, so am permanently stressed by something he has done, or not, that seems to require my intervention. I should be used to it by now.
We have made a lot of progress in the last two days, the NE Man having finally noticed that I was Not Happy. It has concentrated his mind wonderfully and he's really stepped up.
Good for you, NEQ! It's tedious and exhausting, with so much "mental load" capacity devoted to sorting and assessing items... let alone associated relationship challenges. Good for NE Man too for stepping up. I'm sure you'll both be pleased with the results.
I know a little of how you feel @North East Quine. In our previous (very small house) my husband took over the second bedroom for his hobbies and during lockdown his work. He then moaned that I was taking over the living room. I felt trapped on one bit of the sofa with my laptop and had to keep on putting my knitting etc away whereas he spread everything out in the spare room. I ended up really hating the house, which was a shame as it was a nice one, just not quite big enough. We now live in a four bedroom house and both have our own study/hobby rooms and our own bedrooms. Everything is much nicer for both of us.
I am looking forward to having a guest bedroom when eventually I get Mr P’s study cleared and redecorated., though there is a single bed in my little study.
Glad to hear of progress made over the last few days. I've not succeeded with much, Cheery husband is now on holidays for a few days, so we are out of our normal routine.
The comments about family members using a lot of space really resonated with me. Our previous home had only one living space which had to serve all four of us. It was always untidy, the furniture not suitable for our needs and very, very disorganised mainly due to lack of storage. We were able to move house and that has improved our headspace a great deal. We have the option of being together and the option of retreating to personal spaces. Husband has a garage now that is not full of hoarded stuff. We ditched a lot before we moved and that has made a huge difference.
Cheery husband likes to work on projects in the garage and he can actually do that now!! I's a big relief all round! For me the biggest thing has been not panicking if anyone called-in to visit unexpectedly. Just having a tidy place to sit and drinka cup of tea with a friend is a real luxury.
I can’t claim any personal effort, but I am really pleased with my new bit of garden, a small, newly-planted rockery just outside the patio doors of the extension room I eventually cleared and refurbished last year. So now it is a pleasant, sunny place to sit and look out on to a pretty garden instead of onto a pile of bricks surrounded by weeds. I must use it more. Only two chairs in it, so ok if I have one visitor.
That sounds just lovely @Puzzler. I find looking out at the garden very therapeutic. Not enough tidying done this week. Cheery husband has been home so we've had some midweek trips out and about just for fun, which has meant that normal jobs have been put on the backburner. I'll try to get onto some over the Easter break.
@Puzzler So nice to look at something pretty instead of a job that needs doing!
I have almost finished scraping weeds out of our brick patio in the back garden. It looks so nice. Unfortunately the front driveway is also brick, and even bigger....
Also booked a man to clean the solar panels, fascias, gutters, windows etc. He did a great job - it was well overdue so made a big difference.
Comments
I gave some assistance to Cheery daughter yesterday as she felt her bedroom was getting her down. I made a list of things to do to get started including wearing a mask and putting on a HEPA filter to help cope with the dust. She did most of the work, I just assisted her to move stuff off the high shelves and used my favourite sticky roller to get dust off the many items in collections she has in her room.
Eventually I'll suggest she get some display cases with glass doors to try to keep the dust at bay. At present she's emotionally connected to a bookcase her grandfather built, so I know I have no chance of parting her from it at this point, even though it isn't really practical for her needs. I'll have to tread carefully around that.
Thanks be to God.
Downside is the local resistance to using any kind of masonry insulation during construction, and so the creeping damp of the past 2 weeks of constant precipitation has caused a bloom of black mold on the painted masonry ceiling of two of the upstairs bedrooms.
And mildew in the clothes closets.
As soon as the weather promises sunny and dry for a week I'm hauling everything out, dousing it in hydrogen peroxide and letting it dry in the sun.
And then paint rolling the ceilings with same H2O2 and airing out the rooms before repainting with specialized paint.
Hopefully the warm dry sunny weather is coming shortly. In the meantime, doors remain closed and windows open. When it isn't raining.
AFF
Of course, you may have some objects that are just too tall to fit in one of the sorters. You might have a deeper box on the side for those.
I believe it's possible to get sorters that are adjustable--where you can slot the dividers in to make the spaces as wide or narrow as you please. If you google for silverware sorters, check desk organizers too--it's the same basic problem, and you might well find something that works better under that name.
I must continue the decluttering.
@Graven Image I hope that stacking the cutlery storage works out for you. I ended up with a drawer solution that came via the Cheery husband not being able to use the hardware trugs that he had purchased for the garage. They fitted perfectly side by side in my kitchen drawer of general rubbish that belonged nowhere else. So I have rulers and some spare pens, scissors and sticky tape, other bits of small stationery that people come to the kitchen to look for and not the drawers in the desk in the rumpus. These have saved the day for me.
I'm contemplating whether to do some house painting over the easter break. The bits of wall to be painted are not large, and it does need doing, but I think I need to check in with Cheery husband before committing. If I decide against that, I think going through my sideboard might be a good job that I've been putting off!
I could fill a filing cabinet with memorabilia of one sort or another. Much of it will be meaningless to others but it will make it easier for my family to deal with when that time comes.
We have been living in clutter for several weeks - we emptied my husband's bedroom, got the floor repaired, the room painted and re-carpeted and were them forced to a grinding halt when we were told the new fitted wardrobes we had ordered would be delivered 6 weeks later than we'd anticipated. So since then the contents of the room have been strewn around the house.
The unassembled wardrobes are due to be delivered this morning, and then the joiners come to assemble and fit them on Saturday! Then the new bed arrives on Wednesday and they will take the old bed away.
The room still won't be usable, as the blinds are not due to be fitted until later in the month and we haven't even chosen new curtains. Plus the bedroom door was removed and we are in the process of getting a new door. So my husband will be sleeping in our spare bedroom for a while yet.
But an end is in sight! Once the new wardrobes are in we can start putting the stuff away. In particular, our dining room has been a giant cupboard for weeks and hopefully we'll get it cleared this week.
I have managed to sell three tricky items this week, but I’d really rather give them away than faff around with F—b—k, Messenger, packaging etc. One buyer was pretty local, a delight to meet, and has suggested a possible outlet for further items which he will facilitate if they are interested. 😀
Discovered a minor disaster in the sideboard yesterday and have debated whether to share it, so warning for grossness.. The sideboard is pretty standard two doors and three drawers in the middle all being the same size. So I took everything out of the two bottom drawers leaving the messiest drawer for last.
I sorted out the tablecloths and placemats. All the red ones or Christmas ones moved to the bottom drawer, no problems. Tablecloths and placemats of other colours moved to the middle drawer, everything went smoothly and looks tidy with like sets all together, placemats and napkins.
Onto the messy top drawer which has a mixture of things that don't belong anywhere else. Some paperwork from auction purchases thrown away, tags from various items put into an empty biscuit tin and tidied away for future reference. Various cards from medical appointments torn up and binned, plastic ones cut up and also into the rubbish. Then the horrible discovery. I think I know what the item used to be as I'm sure it's not anywhere else.
It did used to be a nice thick felt trivet in the shape of a chicken, mustard yellow and red and green with a blanket stitched edge of heavy thread. What I found was a pile of black (I assume droppings) left behind by moths and a lot of dead moths in the drawer. So everything removed from drawer, black sticky stuff vacuumed up, thread binned. Disposable sticky roller all over everything else that had been in the drawer and then all items placed into self seal bags. Lovely lining paper binned and drawer vacuumed. Lining replaced and then all the items returned to the drawer in their self seal bags. I suspect there is no active moth activity, but I thought if it is still going on, it will be isolated to the individual bags. Funnily enough absolutely no sign of moth activity in any of the other drawers.
I hope the problem is now resolved as anything that looked as though it was badly impacted went straight to the bin, I thought that was the easiest for stuff that the sticky roller could not be used on, or where I thought the success was likely to be inadequate. Good grief, I am so glad I found the disaster and dealt with it. I just hope I've done enough and if I can get some freezer room while Cheery daughter is away, I'll put some things into the freezer, just to be sure, but I don't have space at present.
Perhaps during the week I'll get onto the two sections which have doors, I anticipate they won't be too mothy as they are mostly china trios and vases of various types. Might be a day for running things through the dishwasher with the delicates done by hand.
However, I had to rise early this morning for Cheery son to go to a medical appointment and took advantage of Cheery husband offering to take him to get onto the washing early, I also vacuumed the large tiled areas and the front sitting room. I even gave the bathroom vanity a good wipe down, which was overdue.
Off now to hang up another load of washing and to start another one. It's lovely and sunny today, so I'm hoping to power through at least another two loads.
I'm comforting myself with the realisation that there's a gale blowing here so pegging clothes on the line would be counterproductive.
Sounds like you have some of the wind we were supposed to get yesterday. I don't know why, but we seem to have missed it at my place and I'm glad of that. Definitely NOT a day for you to be hanging washing on the line, if you wanted to have some to bring in at the end of the day!
After working and caring for sick kid and leaving most of the housework until the weekend, I decided I'd rather do it more frequently and be on top of things even if it means smaller loads of washing. We did buy a new laundry hamper that makes it easier to sort the washing as you go, but it isn't as large as our old hamper, which means it fills up more rapidly and I'm keen to get onto the job to free up the space.
When I spoke of mess I also meant general household mess and not just the washing. There might be plates hanging around, or cups in bedrooms that I'm rounding up too and cat stuff as well.
I'm happy to let things slide a tiny amount, but find that often it isn't worth it, for my mental health. I'd rather look at an empty basket than an overflowing one.
It's not an easy fix as it means having a place for everything. I'm there now, but it took years plus a coach to get there. My ADD works against it all the time but my determination wins! 🙂
I've tidied the craft room, but the room across the hall is filling up with discards.
My laundry bin is no longer empty as I managed to drop one item on the stairs.
I've not made any progress with decluttering this week, but I do have some ideas for next week. We had a few appointments organised and I like to do stuff when I have a totally free week, so I can keep ploughing through. I don't like getting stuff out to go through, and then have it hanging around half done because of interruptions.
Cheery husband has holidays next week and I think I'd like to take down the roller blinds and give them a clean, I can anticipate him not being keen, but we'll see!
But an end is in sight! Once the new wardrobes are in we can start putting the stuff away. In particular, our dining room has been a giant cupboard for weeks and hopefully we'll get it cleared this week.
Reader, we did not get it cleared that week. But I reached the end of my tether, cleared out the living room on Saturday, the hallway on Sunday and the kitchen on Tuesday. I have divided the dining room into quarters and did the first quarter on Wednesday and the top of the table yesterday . I'm going to do another quarter today.
He currently has the three biggest bedrooms, his pristine, but as yet unoccupiable bedroom, with its freshly painted walls, new carpet, new fitted wardrobes (the wardrobes are shared with me) and new super-king-sized bed; our guest bedroom (daughter's old room) where he's currently sleeping; and his study (son's old room). With boxes in the living room, and the hall, the dining room being used as a giant cupboard, and stuff which should have been in the dining room dresser piling up in the kitchen because we couldn't access the dresser, I was starting to feel claustrophobic in my own home!
I was feeling cornered into my bedroom/study, which is actually the smallest of our four bedrooms. Hence reaching the end of my tether!
That situation is unlikely to change, even when "his" bedroom is completed. I don't know how you put up with him.
But I do want to have a functioning guest bedroom, so that we can have visitors.
He's lovely, really, but a lot of the time he's thinking Big Thoughts and not really paying attention to everyday life. Two days ago I went into our shower room and there was Santa toilet paper on the roll. The old roll had run out and somehow he had tracked down the Santa stuff, rather than the plain white multipack which is in the hall cupboard where it always is and always has been for the last twenty years.
I'm feeling quite wrung out.
The comments about family members using a lot of space really resonated with me. Our previous home had only one living space which had to serve all four of us. It was always untidy, the furniture not suitable for our needs and very, very disorganised mainly due to lack of storage. We were able to move house and that has improved our headspace a great deal. We have the option of being together and the option of retreating to personal spaces. Husband has a garage now that is not full of hoarded stuff. We ditched a lot before we moved and that has made a huge difference.
Cheery husband likes to work on projects in the garage and he can actually do that now!! I's a big relief all round! For me the biggest thing has been not panicking if anyone called-in to visit unexpectedly. Just having a tidy place to sit and drinka cup of tea with a friend is a real luxury.
I have almost finished scraping weeds out of our brick patio in the back garden. It looks so nice. Unfortunately the front driveway is also brick, and even bigger....
Also booked a man to clean the solar panels, fascias, gutters, windows etc. He did a great job - it was well overdue so made a big difference.