Update. Positive, even. Mostly "house" stuff.
So, things are starting to gain momentum at the house, just in the past few days.
Back-story: As I've mentioned before, Breve moved out in mid-August. Ash and Matt started preparing his old room (the master bedroom) for them to move into it, since (as a couple) they wanted more space, and that makes sense. Khaki was originally going to move into their room in October, so they figured they'd have a whole month to paint and move.
"Moving" (just to a new room): However, Khaki decided he wanted to move in last weekend instead, nearly a month early, and of course it's hard to say no to an additional month of someone sharing the rent. So that put a rush on Ash and Matt's painting plans, and they were barely ready to move out of their old room on the same day that Khaki was moving in. Then after looking at the layout of their old room vs. mine, I sorta decided that I'd like to move into their room. It's the same square footage as mine, but mine is longer and narrower, and Ash's old room is more square. Khaki was sorta planning for their old room though, their furniture is similar so he was sure it would fit well in their room - but I convinced him to let me measure his stuff and draw up a floor plan to see if I could make my old room work for him.
I made a scale floor plan of the two rooms, and on the day of the move I measured Khaki's stuff and built little scale templates of it, and arranged it in the two rooms - and in the end he decided to move into my room, which was cool. However, that gave me not even a whole day to clean up everything in my room, disassemble half of it (because it's too big to fit through the door) and move into Ash and Matt's old room, BEFORE Khaki could move into my room! Fortunately, Alex was around to help. (Thank-you, thank-you!)
Boy, that was a long day. I washed down the walls in my new room, washed the windows too, swept and swiffered, and moved everything in. And - it's fantastic! It FEELS so much more open than my old room, because all of the big stuff is on one wall, instead of looming in from both sides of a narrower room - my old room felt very "pinched", like it was a hallway with a bed at the end of it. Because Khaki's stuff is less "imposing" than my furniture, my old room feel much more spacious with his stuff in it. I think it worked out for everyone, which is really nice.
Getting organized: Anyways, I've still got some of the old clutter from my room in boxes, but it's slowly getting sorted out - in fact, that can be said in general for the whole house. Wednesday night we talked about setting up a schedule of "chores" - something we never had. I hope it'll really help keep the place in better shape, more of the time. I hope it will also lift some weight off of my shoulders, allow me to stop worrying about cleaning - it really is something that weighs on me, even if I don't do anything about it. The kitchen has looked great for the last two days and it feels pretty damn good!
We're also going to be working on sifting through all of the various closets and shelves and storage areas, which are filled with "stuff", and figuring out what is ours, and what is "leftovers" from various ex-roommates who, through the years, have accidentally left stuff there. For example, we went through the shoes in the closet by the front door, and LITERALLY HALF did not belong to any of the current house residents! If we have the same kind of success with the bathroom shelves, hall closet, and basement, this place is gonna look great in no time!
Re-decorating: Last night I re-commissioned an old dresser / shelving combination that Ash & Matt decided they didn't want any more, and which was kinda falling apart anyways. It had belonged to Berner, who left it with me, then Joey used it, then Lion-Roux, and then it went to Ash. It's got some of those weird, non-standard Ikea fasteners holding it together, but some are missing, so it really was "falling apart". I stole some fasteners from the top part of the unit to re-assemble the rest of it properly, then nailed the top part together, and moved it into the dining room to be used as a china cabinet (after a good dusting and wipe-down). One of the dresser drawers is broken, but otherwise it makes a very accepable china cabinet hutch / mini-buffet! I moved all of my good china and glassware into it - it looks great AND freed up some room in the kitchen. I was able to move stuff from the top of the fridge and from on top of the cupboards (both places that collect crap - both "miscellaneous items" and dirt - rather quickly) and put them into cupboards.
I also moved the dining room table to sort of centre it in between the two columns in the living room, and it looks great there - just gotta move the swag lamp over so that it's centred above the table now. That's easy, probably do that tonight. I also sorted through all the Ikea storage I bought (used "Sten" and "Gorm", found on Kijiji). Tonight I will look at a floor plan of the basement, sort out where I need storage, assemble it, and put stuff on it. That will be a HUGE step towards making the basement functional, because right now the laundry room is barely useful (though a little better after last night's efforts), and the main downstairs room is so jammed with crap that it's actually completely useless.
ANYWAYS, blah blah blah - stuff's happening, stuff's getting cleaned and organized and sorted out - it's starting to look pretty good, and I feel GREAT about that. Soon I will be ready to start on some of the house improvement projects I've been preparing for - first one is gonna be curtains for the main floor! It's gonna be a huge expanse of orange fabric (one whole wall!), and I think it's really gonna change to "look" of the main floor - I expect it'll feel much more comfortable and warm! Plus I won't be sad to take down those damn vertical blinds, which are falling apart anyways.
So, anyways, that's enough about that. On other fronts, went to a pretty great little party at Breve's new place, kind of a house-warming - tried out the hot-tub, sat on the back deck, hung out and watched movies and chatted and laughed our asses off - it was awesome. That was the Friday before last weekend, so Khaki's move also did have a bit of hang-over pain added to it, but nothing too bad. :) Saturday was almost all moving stuff, Sunday I took Alex back home, we spent some time at his parents' (who fed me what I think, in retrospect, was the best salmon I have ever had - a nice thick salmon steak, which his dad cooked perfectly on a cedar plank on their BBQ) and some at Alex's new apartment near school.
Todd's coming over tonight; Alex is coming into town tomorrow for the weekend, we're supposed to be cooking something together, possibly using his Mom's fresh, home-grown tomatoes; and there's possibly a few other interesting things going on that I think might be fun. Work has been a little annoying still, but it hasn't been driving me crazy like it was for a while - I'm sure at least part of the difference is my mood. I actually made chicken curry earlier in the week, and last night I made another batch of the delicious Shrimp and Tofu Stir-Fry I randomly slapped together a while back, so I'm feeling pretty good about that, too.
So, besides getting back to the gym (that's coming - maybe after this weekend) and doing T-shirt commissions, I've been making at least some progress on everything I listed in my last post of the sort. Learning "Ask" by The Smiths has sparked interested in doing music stuff again, and has me playing guitar at least a few minutes, almost daily. I have re-negotiated rent so that it's divided a little more fairly, which is a slight reduction for me. And whenever I get angry and start swearing and yelling, I have started automatically, consciously noting to myself that it's stupid and childish and unattractive and not acceptable behaviour, which I know from past experience is the first step in actually getting myself to stop. So... life is pretty good, things are on an upswing.
Oh, I also cut my hair! I really wanted to do the "lion's mane" thing - long, curly, floppy, messy - but it was just pissing me off and looking like shit. So, I cut it. Longest haircut I've ever had, but possibly one of the best. Really short on the side, long-ish but REALLY thinned out on top and in back, so it's designed to do the sorta mohawk/faux-hawk thing that's been sorta popular recently. The cut got rid of a lot of previous dye-jobs and exposed my ever-increasing amount of grey, so I dyed it a couple nights ago, too. Was supposed to be a chocolate brown with gold highlights, but it's definitely more of a reddish-brown, like mahogany - my hair picks up read highlights really easily. I think it looks good in any case, I have had a lot of positive feedback on it, particularly the excellent cut; and it's certainly helped my mood to like my haircut again. If only this persistent acne would fuck off, and please let me stay free from cold-sores for a while, KTHXBYE.
B.
Back-story: As I've mentioned before, Breve moved out in mid-August. Ash and Matt started preparing his old room (the master bedroom) for them to move into it, since (as a couple) they wanted more space, and that makes sense. Khaki was originally going to move into their room in October, so they figured they'd have a whole month to paint and move.
"Moving" (just to a new room): However, Khaki decided he wanted to move in last weekend instead, nearly a month early, and of course it's hard to say no to an additional month of someone sharing the rent. So that put a rush on Ash and Matt's painting plans, and they were barely ready to move out of their old room on the same day that Khaki was moving in. Then after looking at the layout of their old room vs. mine, I sorta decided that I'd like to move into their room. It's the same square footage as mine, but mine is longer and narrower, and Ash's old room is more square. Khaki was sorta planning for their old room though, their furniture is similar so he was sure it would fit well in their room - but I convinced him to let me measure his stuff and draw up a floor plan to see if I could make my old room work for him.
I made a scale floor plan of the two rooms, and on the day of the move I measured Khaki's stuff and built little scale templates of it, and arranged it in the two rooms - and in the end he decided to move into my room, which was cool. However, that gave me not even a whole day to clean up everything in my room, disassemble half of it (because it's too big to fit through the door) and move into Ash and Matt's old room, BEFORE Khaki could move into my room! Fortunately, Alex was around to help. (Thank-you, thank-you!)
Boy, that was a long day. I washed down the walls in my new room, washed the windows too, swept and swiffered, and moved everything in. And - it's fantastic! It FEELS so much more open than my old room, because all of the big stuff is on one wall, instead of looming in from both sides of a narrower room - my old room felt very "pinched", like it was a hallway with a bed at the end of it. Because Khaki's stuff is less "imposing" than my furniture, my old room feel much more spacious with his stuff in it. I think it worked out for everyone, which is really nice.
Getting organized: Anyways, I've still got some of the old clutter from my room in boxes, but it's slowly getting sorted out - in fact, that can be said in general for the whole house. Wednesday night we talked about setting up a schedule of "chores" - something we never had. I hope it'll really help keep the place in better shape, more of the time. I hope it will also lift some weight off of my shoulders, allow me to stop worrying about cleaning - it really is something that weighs on me, even if I don't do anything about it. The kitchen has looked great for the last two days and it feels pretty damn good!
We're also going to be working on sifting through all of the various closets and shelves and storage areas, which are filled with "stuff", and figuring out what is ours, and what is "leftovers" from various ex-roommates who, through the years, have accidentally left stuff there. For example, we went through the shoes in the closet by the front door, and LITERALLY HALF did not belong to any of the current house residents! If we have the same kind of success with the bathroom shelves, hall closet, and basement, this place is gonna look great in no time!
Re-decorating: Last night I re-commissioned an old dresser / shelving combination that Ash & Matt decided they didn't want any more, and which was kinda falling apart anyways. It had belonged to Berner, who left it with me, then Joey used it, then Lion-Roux, and then it went to Ash. It's got some of those weird, non-standard Ikea fasteners holding it together, but some are missing, so it really was "falling apart". I stole some fasteners from the top part of the unit to re-assemble the rest of it properly, then nailed the top part together, and moved it into the dining room to be used as a china cabinet (after a good dusting and wipe-down). One of the dresser drawers is broken, but otherwise it makes a very accepable china cabinet hutch / mini-buffet! I moved all of my good china and glassware into it - it looks great AND freed up some room in the kitchen. I was able to move stuff from the top of the fridge and from on top of the cupboards (both places that collect crap - both "miscellaneous items" and dirt - rather quickly) and put them into cupboards.
I also moved the dining room table to sort of centre it in between the two columns in the living room, and it looks great there - just gotta move the swag lamp over so that it's centred above the table now. That's easy, probably do that tonight. I also sorted through all the Ikea storage I bought (used "Sten" and "Gorm", found on Kijiji). Tonight I will look at a floor plan of the basement, sort out where I need storage, assemble it, and put stuff on it. That will be a HUGE step towards making the basement functional, because right now the laundry room is barely useful (though a little better after last night's efforts), and the main downstairs room is so jammed with crap that it's actually completely useless.
ANYWAYS, blah blah blah - stuff's happening, stuff's getting cleaned and organized and sorted out - it's starting to look pretty good, and I feel GREAT about that. Soon I will be ready to start on some of the house improvement projects I've been preparing for - first one is gonna be curtains for the main floor! It's gonna be a huge expanse of orange fabric (one whole wall!), and I think it's really gonna change to "look" of the main floor - I expect it'll feel much more comfortable and warm! Plus I won't be sad to take down those damn vertical blinds, which are falling apart anyways.
So, anyways, that's enough about that. On other fronts, went to a pretty great little party at Breve's new place, kind of a house-warming - tried out the hot-tub, sat on the back deck, hung out and watched movies and chatted and laughed our asses off - it was awesome. That was the Friday before last weekend, so Khaki's move also did have a bit of hang-over pain added to it, but nothing too bad. :) Saturday was almost all moving stuff, Sunday I took Alex back home, we spent some time at his parents' (who fed me what I think, in retrospect, was the best salmon I have ever had - a nice thick salmon steak, which his dad cooked perfectly on a cedar plank on their BBQ) and some at Alex's new apartment near school.
Todd's coming over tonight; Alex is coming into town tomorrow for the weekend, we're supposed to be cooking something together, possibly using his Mom's fresh, home-grown tomatoes; and there's possibly a few other interesting things going on that I think might be fun. Work has been a little annoying still, but it hasn't been driving me crazy like it was for a while - I'm sure at least part of the difference is my mood. I actually made chicken curry earlier in the week, and last night I made another batch of the delicious Shrimp and Tofu Stir-Fry I randomly slapped together a while back, so I'm feeling pretty good about that, too.
So, besides getting back to the gym (that's coming - maybe after this weekend) and doing T-shirt commissions, I've been making at least some progress on everything I listed in my last post of the sort. Learning "Ask" by The Smiths has sparked interested in doing music stuff again, and has me playing guitar at least a few minutes, almost daily. I have re-negotiated rent so that it's divided a little more fairly, which is a slight reduction for me. And whenever I get angry and start swearing and yelling, I have started automatically, consciously noting to myself that it's stupid and childish and unattractive and not acceptable behaviour, which I know from past experience is the first step in actually getting myself to stop. So... life is pretty good, things are on an upswing.
Oh, I also cut my hair! I really wanted to do the "lion's mane" thing - long, curly, floppy, messy - but it was just pissing me off and looking like shit. So, I cut it. Longest haircut I've ever had, but possibly one of the best. Really short on the side, long-ish but REALLY thinned out on top and in back, so it's designed to do the sorta mohawk/faux-hawk thing that's been sorta popular recently. The cut got rid of a lot of previous dye-jobs and exposed my ever-increasing amount of grey, so I dyed it a couple nights ago, too. Was supposed to be a chocolate brown with gold highlights, but it's definitely more of a reddish-brown, like mahogany - my hair picks up read highlights really easily. I think it looks good in any case, I have had a lot of positive feedback on it, particularly the excellent cut; and it's certainly helped my mood to like my haircut again. If only this persistent acne would fuck off, and please let me stay free from cold-sores for a while, KTHXBYE.
B.