'heap of change challenge' johnny come lately

There was one project at the top of my list when I decided to join the heap of change challenge last month.

The office.

Not long ago I shared my office makeover (part 1 and part 2) and the blind makeover. It looked great for about a week.

Then things started piling up. And up.

Soon the office looked like this:

And this:

And this:

Actually, to be honest those photos were taken when I put 'office cleanup' at the top of the challenge list. Then I went on to clean up the workshop, got tired, ran out of time, got abducted by aliens... I just stopped. Cleaning and organising that is. I didn't stop piling stuff in the office.

Every time I came across something I wanted out of the way , I'd put it in the office.

Side Note: Have you ever felt that cleaning is just another word for 'moving things'? Have you ever considered that you will never have the entire house tidy at the same time cause in order to clean one area, you mess up another with things that don't belong 'here' and there's no 'place' to put them... yet... till you create one for them when you clean the next room.

The mess was a whole lot worse than in the pics, but by not sharing those pics I can keep a little dignity... (ha)

Here it is now. After I put everything in the workshop to sort and find a place for later.

Next week I'll be cleaning the workshop again.

I even put initials on the filing cabinets. One for me and one for Wayne, in case Z and W wasn't obvious.

The new/old shop rack is now extra storage for bits and pieces.

There are still a few things to do, get rid of the old desktop computer for instance, but I love the new clean office. So much in fact that I don't think I'll ever use it again.

z

an unwanted shop rack

I'm sharing this quick project now, even though I finished it about 2 months ago... cause I wanted to share it when I had it in the office as I planned.

Of course, I had to clean and tidy the office first, and that was a job I put off and put off and put off and... you get the picture... But its finally done. Its clean and tidy (for about the next 2 days providing I stay out of it).

Who was it that said they get more cleaning done in the 30 minutes before visitors arrive than they get done in a week? That's me. Only this time I cleaned 24 hrs in advance.

So, back to the shop rack. I found this sorry little cutie at a garage sale and was quick to grab it. It had been painted silver at some stage, not well, and the base was really wonky, but it had wheels.

Note the wonky base. Held on with string and tape.

I cleaned it up, scraped the scunge off it, disinfected it, and replaced the tape and string with screws and nuts. I gave it a fresh spray of silver, leaving the occasional old paint showing through (for character, doncha know).

Then left it sitting in the workshop for weeks, gathering dust and horse hair.

But today its in the office. Its new home.

Now stay tuned. The office cleanup miracle is coming.

z

not too much of a good thing

There's one thing you can definitely say about my blog - I never flood you with posts!

I'm a considerate blogger. I don't bury my followers in post after post, making it hard for them to keep up with all the things happening in my life while they let things in their lives slide.

Yeah right.

More like I just don't always have interesting things to share. I mean, do you really care that I recently remembered that I know the words to La Marseillaise but didn't actually know what they meant till I googled it? (Pretty bloody actually.) That I can pledge allegiance to the American flag when I'm not American? That I can quote entire scenes from Monty Python movies?

My brain is full of trivia and stuff.

Not all of it useful.

One of my workmates said she'd really like to look inside my head sometimes, but I'm sure not everyone feels that way... according to Wayne its like an explosion in an op shop in there, and he should know. He has to live with me.

There's a million ideas and plans in there, all in a jumble. Kinda like a hard drive which saves bits of files here, there and everywhere. The main problem is finding and sorting the bits into some order, then putting realistic timeframes on them. It overwhelms me.

I'm not really good at that.

I'm great at collecting things (thank you Pinterest for giving me a backup for my brain), but not good at prioritizing.

I work in spits and spurts. I get an idea and do it. I get another idea and it remains locked in my head for years till I do something about it, if ever.

Eg: the chests of drawers I did recently which I lived with for years till I felt the need to work on them. The wardrobe (will share soon) is the same. The kitchen shelves... still in my head.

Yet sometimes I'll get a sudden rush of blood to the head and I'll hare off and start cutting wood and pounding nails.

And usually these spur of the moment jobs are ones that weren't even on the To Do list.

So, since I have nothing much to say of value right now, I thought I'd share some pretty photos of the garden before things hibernate for winter.

Succulents in a rusty galvanised bucket.

Armeria in a rusty ammo box with a metal poodle.

A rusty seat with some succulents I tossed a corner near the garage.

A rusty bin with succulents.

A steamer pot with an interesting succulent. 

Have you noticed I have a lot of succulents? They're the only things that survive the hot sun on the porch. One project on the muddled To Do list in the hard drive that is my brain is a shelf outside the kitchen window for my succulent collection...

Ok. That sentence actually made sense inside my head...

The cute timber shed garden patch is beginning to look like it was meant to be there.

I'm inordinately proud of my delphiniums. I got the seeds and when nothing happened I tossed the pot into the garden. A year later I got flowers!

Another surprise was the nigella which appeared near the garage this year though I never had it before.

The old wood heater from the shed is now a home for many succulents, on top and inside.

Our yard might not be the prettiest one around, with the weeds in the lawn and the bald spots where I poisoned them, but I love my flowers and the little pockets of rusty pieces I've created.

I enjoy my garden.

z

the last chest of drawers

 

Among all the ups and (mainly) downs in my life of late, I thought I'd share something creative and good.

You may remember that when I overhauled the ugly pine chest of drawers a few weeks ago I mentioned wanting to fix up the smaller one to match. Here is an old photo of the two chests side by side in the bedroom as they had been since we moved here.

That top doesn't actually belong there. I found it in an op shop a long time ago, unpainted and missing its 'bottom'. I thought I'd make a shelf out of it for the mud room, a spot to drop keys and stuff. I even made a shelf to go on top of it but I never got around to putting it up where I had planned.

Here it is when I first got it and after I'd put some paint on it.

My original idea was to somehow make it into a spot for my jewellery, which is why its on top of the smaller dresser. I even made this mock-up to see how it would look.

Luckily, I decided against that. I just wasn't sure its what I wanted to look at.

This is what it looks like now (its actually quite straight, the photo makes it look wonky... not that there's anything wrong with that...):



I obviously don't stage my photos. There's a cord between the dressers for the fan. It was hot...

So, what I ended up doing in the end was finding a frame that fit between the posts, or whatever you call them. The one I found was perfect as it was, I liked the white washed colour so I didn't paint it, just added birdwire.

I then used some small metal brackets to attach it to the posts.

Everything was painted the same shade of off white homemade chalk paint that I used on the other chests of drawers, was distressed a little bit then waxed with clear wax.

Till I started reading DIY blogs I'd never heard of using wax over paint. I thought that's what you did when you inherited granny's furniture. But, being the gullible follower adventurous type I am, I bought some to give it a try... and I can tell you I love the satiny feel it gives painted pieces!

Lastly I changed the tiny wooden knobs. I didn't try to match the black cup pulls on the drawers although I had black round knobs which would have done. I wanted something special... like these little crystal knobs.



Instead of displaying jewellery, I opted for photos. That way I can look at them as I lie in bed on lazy weekend mornings. (Ok, a couple of favourite necklaces have made it to the frame, but most other stuff is out of sight.



A leftover coat hanger wire heart I made a long time ago for some of my windchimes now frames photos of my mom and dad courting and on their wedding day. I love those photos.



Below that I have two old photos of my dad as a toddler with his mother and sister, and one of me as a 3 year old holding my brother while my favourite cousin PG sits beside me.

I have photos of mom as a child as well but want to frame them along with other old photos I brought home on my last trip to Greece.

I also added my favourite card, given to me by my dearest cousin Zefi (aka Little Zefi), her daughter Marouso, and my Aunt Marissa. The card says 'Having a place to go is home, having someone to love is family' and its not just that sentiment that means so much to me but the messages inside. Its the best card ever.

Anyway, I realised I've said nothing about the chest I finished. Not much to say really. I painted it with the same paint as the other, larger, one. I distressed it a bit, then put the same cup pulls on it to match. Looking back now I wonder whether I should have put handles on the small top drawers to match the top drawers on the large one... but eh, its done now.

There they sit, together, opposite my side of the bed. I like the way they look now. So much neater and calmer that what I had to look at before, the yellowey pine and too neat white mismatched look.

Just a reminder. This is how it looked before:

And this is how it looks now:

I can live with that!

z