Dregs and Painting

     Time marches inexorably on. 

     Over the last couple weeks, I’ve taken down all the shelving and cabinets.  Our walls are bleakly bare and full of holes.  All the imperfections of paint and dirt are plainly seen.

     As I cleared out the knick-knacky furniture, things like bookshelves and cute desks, I carted them over to Simpler Times.  It’s a little consignment store that my good friend, Tara Dreiling, owns in downtown Keenesburg.  A mutually beneficial agreement that helped me clear extra space!

     Our goal has been to get the house ready for the market by the end of April.  With one week left and my clock ticking down, I’m getting a little overwhelmed.  I’ve tried to take it slow and steady without getting stressed.  But with my DH working long hours and running errands in town, I’m alone most of the time in the work. 

     The majority of our belongings have been transferred over to the RV by now.  Except for what’s going in storage (now in the basement), it’s all been sold on Craigslist, given to friends, or donated to ARC.

      After the kids and I slept two nights in the RV, we moved back into the house for a night.  But we had such a good time that we decided to stay every night in the trailer.  This meant I needed to get organized for real…  I put all of our homeschooling supplies and books in the cupboards above the couch.  Fiction and non-fiction books are loaded in the small cupboard above the TV.  Below the TV, we have our XBOX 360.     
     A side note on the gaming system:  We purchased a Wii about five years ago.  Along with all the accoutrements, we had about eleven games we played regularly. 

     After much deliberation, we decided to trade the Wii in and keep the XBOX.  For our trailer, it fit better and made sense.  So I took a whole box of Wii stuff to Gamestop and they helped me get about $280 in store credit.  I picked up some kid friendly XBOX games and now we have a consolidated gaming system that the whole family enjoys…

     Below the XBOX are all our movies and games.  We still have some shelving open for Bill’s photography stuff.  We turned the cabinets above the dinette into our pantry.  It’s not pretty, but everything fits. 

I packaged up all our long-term food stuff, spices, extra cooking ware and things under the bed.  There is still lots of room for photography gear. 

     The kids and I turned the smaller bottom bunk into our dogs bed and space for their “dressers”.  I managed to create three separate plastic storage cabinets with several drawers for the kids’ clothes.  We are still working out some of the details. 

 I’m planning on putting the litter box and cat food under the other bottom bunk by cutting a hole into the storage under the trailer.  Keeps it safe from the dog, out of the shower and out of the way.      

While we move into the trailer, I’m fixing up the walls and prepping the downstairs for a solid day or two of painting this weekend.  Let’s see how far I get…