Purging, Cleaning, Organizing

It seems I have gotten rid of my sinus issue - I actually think I may have developed some minor allergies at this point in life as now am taking allergy meds every day and most issues have sorted themselves, I feel much better.  It is beautiful when every tree/bush is in full bloom or growing new leaves but it sure does affect those with allergies.

Phase 1 of our home projects is almost complete - that was the organizing phase which involved buying a new shed, deck box and storage solutions for house and garage.  We have moved some items to the crawl, purged the garage, moved some items we hardly everuse to the storage shed (like winter tires), sold some items, donated some items and made a dump run.  I was having the hardest time finding anything for slightly larger storage at the top of our closet.  We have 9 foot ceilings in the whole house with 10 foot in our living room.  Because this house lacks storage we decided one of the ways we were going to gain more room was by going up.  The other day while grocery shopping I spotted a canvas/fabric/wire laundry hamper (from Superstore/Loblaws in case anyone else in Canada is looking for something similar).  It was large enough and pretty enough.  Bought all 4 in stock and they fit perfectly.  I thought I was going to have to drive to a nearby town to get more but our own store restocked and yesterday I bought 3 more.  They were $20 each so for $140 half of our bedroom closet storage issues have been addressed.  They don't have lids but don't need them.  At 2 feet long and 1.5 feet wide they are perfect for larger items.  The problem with most organizing baskets is that they aren't big enough.   Our walk in closet is big enough but due to the wire shelving we needed containment.  I still need to find the right basket for the smaller shelves for our books/clothes but have something in mind, just need to order one to see if it will work.

I also crawled under the house and rearranged things so that we know exactly where everything is.  I realized that we are box hoarders - there are so many boxes under the house it is ridiculous.  We have this tendency of every time we buy something we save the box in case it needs to be returned under warranty.  Things are no longer under warranty and now we have all of these freaking boxes down there taking up space.  Because we work from home there are even more items like that - printer boxes, computer boxes etc.  That is one of my rainy day projects - pull them up, break them down and take them to the recycle centre.  We have curb side recycling but this is way more than I want to put to the curb.

I am still working on getting our company stuff under control, that is a pretty large project as currently things are stored in 2 closets and a few boxes in the laundry room. The pretty Ikea storage file boxes have come in so now I need to put those together and start purging/organizing there.  

The next phase is new carpet for our three bedrooms.  We went and looked yesterday and one of the above high traffic carpets is the one. They are grey tones, we just don't know how dark we want to go.  I have to wait for the sun to come out today to see what it will look like and then we will get the store in to make their measurements and order.  This is one of the only Canadian carpet manufacturers left right now and we are happy to support them.  

Other than that work/life continues on.  Work is a little slower right now but we have long term contracts carrying us through so things are fine.  The Canadian economy seems a little sketchy right now, people seem to be hesitant to make decisions to sign contracts.  Some say that Canada has a housing bubble that is going to pop in Vancouver and Toronto, less so in other markets.  They also say there might be a recession.  No matter what we will be fine and we are taking this time to do all these improvements to the house.  Hubby is already much happier with the garage and I am much happier with the closet so we are making progress.

I booked our flights to Mexico in January on points.  It is nice to get that tied up - back to Zihuatanejo at the end of January for 8 nights.  We loved our last hotel and Zihuatanejo so much that now we get to look forward to going back, even if it is 8.5 months away.  When I book things on points I always price out what it would be if we had to pay in full.  We paid $459 in taxes and medical insurance but saved $1126 in airfare by using the points.  

Due to deciding to do a bunch of home improvements this year I have to readjust our annual budgets - $10,000 is set aside for household improvements.  Part of what was slashed is the travel budget for this year and we are ok with that as we still get our much needed winter getaway.  We've already used a third of the home improvement budget.  Most of the rest will be the carpet.  We are also going to be saving for the next year phase which is to extend our patio either in concrete or decking (concrete is so expensive it might be decking), remove our back yard hydrangeas, add a palm tree (or two, I've always wanted one), buy new outdoor patio furniture which includes a couch set to replace the one we have, a table and chair set for eating outside, and two lounge chairs with umbrellas.  We are trying to make our back yard into a resort like feel since we live outside so much five months of the year.  

Further renovations down the road may include cabinets over the washer/dryer (I really want this) and possibly a sunroom.  That may or may not be possible based on lot size/structural issues but we shall see.  

Yes, this costs money but based on us almost buying a different home then staying - even with all these changes we are still saving money on realtor fees, carrying costs, transfer tax and moving costs. All we wanted was one more room in the house but with our changes we have freed up so much storage space it is almost like having the extra square footage.  Plus - we get to stay in a great quiet neighborhood with nice neighbors and a great back yard.  Some times you have to look elsewhere to see that the grass is greener in your own back yard.