A place for everything, and everything in its place

One thing about living in a small house (under 1000 square feet) means that you really have to be organized with your stuff and have a place for everything, or risk having an always-messy house. Since we moved in we've picked the "messy house" option but it's been really bothering me lately.

Our basement, for more than a year now (but who's keeping track) has been the junk room. We each had easily enough furniture and stuff to furnish this house on our own, without the other person when we moved in together, and neither of us had a chance to de-junkify our belongings and get rid of duplicates before we moved in.

It truly was the perfect storm for a messy house. I started my job at the 7th circle of hell, leaving a furnished apartment in Ottawa, and my parents kind enough to load up a uhaul of my stuff and drive it here. Dave had all of his things from when he lived in Toronto in boxes at his mom's house and just loaded up the truck. When he and the crew arrived in the 'shwa it was pouring rain, so everything went in the closest entrance to the basement "to be sorted out later".

Later has never really come.

We're full of excuses as to why:

• Last fall and winter we set what I think was some kind of record- every weekend we were either visiting friends or had people over. I can't recall one weekend where we had time just to unpack and relax. When we did get a chance, it was far from our list of fun things to do.
• We've had eight weddings this year, including our own. In the three months after our own wedding we've been to four weddings and a funeral.
  
• We spend so much freaking time cleaning up the masses of dog hair (and cat hair, but to a lesser extent) on the main floor and upstairs that cleaning the basement just wasn't a priority.

So, the basement quickly became the repository of crap. Don't know where to put it? Throw it in the basement! People are coming over and there's a heat gun and drop cloths everywhere? Basement! Important paperwork that should be neatly filed? Pile it in the basement! Box of who-knows what that isn't labeled? Basement, basement, basement!

Thus today became the "long overdue make basement somewhat decent" day. Despite the chaos upstairs (we're having the living/dining room and front and upstairs hallways and ceilings repaired, primed and painted, will show pics later) we made a significant dent in the work that needed to be done. We now have garbage bags for "donate" stuff, plain old garbage, and recycling boxes overflowing, but the improvement is noticeable. A few more hours down there and it may even be a place we can take people on "the tour" when they come to visit. (we've lived here for a year and almost 4 months and I think my sister has yet to see the basement)

It's starting to look like we may eventually have a place for everything and everything (well, almost everything) in its place.

Now if only I had started my Christmas shopping.

I'm a lucky chick

This week Dave's off work for the March break. Since I've just started a new job I really couldn't get time off and vacations aren't an option on account of our "not exactly rolling in the dough" status.

I really thought he should spend this week relaxing and recharging. He's a teacher and his class is, to be generous, a challenging group. You know it's a bad sign when countless teachers came up to me at the staff Christmas doing impressions of students in his class. He totally deserved a break to relax. I joked that I was going to make him a honey-do list for his week off, but I know after quitting a job I hated and the week I had off before starting my cool new job that he probably needed a chance to recharge more than anything just as I did.

Instead of just bumming around and relaxing this week, he's taken the disaster area that was our basement and cleaned it up so that it's an organized and tidy place.

The day we shacked up I moved my things in with the help of my family, and then Dave arrived with his crew (for those up on their geography I lived in Ottawa and he lived in Windsor, about 500 miles apart). It had POURED rain when Dave and crew were loading up the truck, and shortly after they got here it began to pour rain again. In an effort to just get everything in the house most of it just got piled into the basement.

We both had entire households of stuff before we shacked up, but Dave's had been largely boxed up for a few years so we didn't know what was in some of the boxes. From the weekend we moved in (we got here Saturday and both of us were at work Monday) until after Christmas I think we had 2 weekends where we weren't out of town, off visiting friends or having people over, so needless to say lots of the stuff just sat there in boxes in the basement.

It was complete chaos down there. Dave knew it was driving me nuts to have such a crazy cluttered basement (it might have been me saying "we have GOT to tackle the basement this weekend" every 5 minutes that gave it away). Instead of relaxing this week he's worked for hours to clean up the basement. He did a ton of laundry. He even assembled shelves to put things on. He cleared boxes off the floor. While it's not totally done it looks a thousand times better than it did.

I'm a lucky chick I tellya.

We had a wet (basement) Christmas

I was thinking Christmas this year would be fairly quiet without too many stories to share. Pretty naive of me, eh?

We had planned for a quiet morning at our house, the rest of the day at my parents' place with the family all coming over for Christmas dinner. Finally, we would come home and pass out from all the delicious food mum and everyone prepared and tired after a full day.

Unfortunately the homeownership gods decided to play pranks on us. We got home, stuffed and tired, and very much looking forward to bed. Knowing we were heading out tomorrow morning to see Dave's family we started to clean up the house and I was cleaning the litterbox upstairs, but it needed more litter so I went down to the basement to get some.

Our basement is unfinished, and full of boxes so I couldn't see that well and went to turn on another light when I noticed a distinct squishing sound under my foot. The squishing sound was complemented by a cold, wet feeling on that foot. I foolishly took another step, and lo and behold my other foot was wet now too.

At this point I didn't know what it was. I kinda swore and thought "not pee again!" but then realized that the area that was wet was bigger than all our animals' bladders combined. The water was up and over top of my toes.

After some humming, hawing, and swearing we decided the carpet and underpad (you know, the one I spent $30 cleaning not a few weeks ago) wasn't salvageable so we started tearing it up with an exacto knife and putting it in big garbage bags. In the process we uncovered the source of the leak; a crude patch applied by a previous owner. When you stepped on this patch it squeezed up a bit of water. I feel like calling up the guy and thanking him for the Christmas present but Dave said I'm not allowed.

Dave sopped up water with the mop while I ran around to the neighbours hoping one of them would have a ShopVac we could borrow. Sadly no one was home save the creepy drunk weirdos 2 doors down. (the good news is that their place looked empty so maybe we're getting a new year's present- new tenants there)

We continued with the mopping and cutting of carpet and underpad. We've left the patch on for now but will take it off when we get back from visiting Dave's family on the 28th. I'm just glad to have had the chance to scrub my feet clean of the basement water cocktail.

Hopefully the fans we have going and dehumidifier down there will get it drier. Ah the joys of homeownership. We're really lucky to have a house of our own, I just wish it didn't come with a leaky basement. On the plus side Dave says "Yay we have our own swimming pool!" Just not the one we had in mind.