Emerging from Project land

[helen99]

Every so often I go into Project Land... That happens when I decide to embark on a Project. It could involve creating a new website or removing a carpet, or redoing a room ... something like that. Whenever this happens, I submerge for several weeks and emerge only when it's over. This time I decided that one of my rooms was too cluttered, too dirty, too choked with useless junk, too stifled and stagnant in its energies. Something had to change - so I decided to entirely empty it, wash it down, sand/spackle/paint it, and start over..

To start with, all the stuff that had been in that room had to be relocated to other places around the house. The funny thing is that even though there's now a lot of additional stuff in the rest of the house, it looks like there's more room. Not sure how that works... One of those space bending things, maybe.

Removing the stuff was weird.. Discovered some things nobody could identify, like a little mojo bag with a tiny skull-shaped bead in it... Neither I nor Rialian are that fond of skulls and would never use one in a mojo bag. Come to think of it, neither of us really makes mojo bags. Eh well. Also found a chain mail necklace. Attached to the necklace was a piece of metal with possibly a Tibetan chant inscribed on it (the inscription matched the Tibetan lettering for Om Mane Padme Om). Neither of us is particularly drawn to the Tibetan path, but it's a nice looking piece. Just wonder where it may have come from..

The weirdest part of removing stuff from the room was the aspect of dismantling the energies in there. They had stagnated, so they needed to be rearranged and changed and the room made blank. Other areas of the house had already undergone constant change, but that room had stayed untouched for years. So it was good, but still strange.

Once all the stuff was out, then came putting protective masking tape on all the windows, outlets, switches, closets, and floors, and putting dropcloths on the floor and closet doors. I painted the walls a very pale shade of violet - almost white, which contrasts well with the ceiling, which I painted ceiling white. The end result looks quite good - reminiscent of starlight. Painting took about 5 days - a day for each coat on the ceiling, walls and two closets..

Then came time to choose what to actually put into that room. I decided on a small, white, adjustable-height table that I used in the WtT hearth area. It seems to be ideal for a laptop table by the futon. I also assembled some do-it-yourself furniture which can be seen at http://www.rialian.com/furniture-doors-closed.jpg (pic included since it's too boring to really describe it, but I'm rather fond of it, since it's the first piece of furniture I ever put together.)..

Finally added finishing touches like curtains, a small rug, lamp, and bedclothes on the futon.. That was all I had planned to do with the room. Right now the room is a blank slate. There are no decorations on the walls, no statues on the surfaces, no animals of any kind in there. Just a fading smell of paint and a few sparse pieces of furniture. It's inviting a creative hand ...

And so now I'm coming back from Project Land. Er.... Hey, look, the world.. It's still there (maybe a couple of weeks older)...

Comments

[aekiy.livejournal.com]

Did you talk with arxacies about this? He did stay in that room.. and I think he mentioned that the chainmail thingy could be his. He's into the Buddhist stuff an' all.. ee

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I haven't talked with arxacies but rialian put it on his LJ about a week ago, and so far nobody has claimed it. I don't remember exactly where I found it. It could have been on the little table by the bed, in which case it probably is his. Maybe the mojo bag too. Anyway, maybe I can photograph it and email him the picture to see if it's his.

[aekiy.livejournal.com]

arxacies's comment about the pendant (http://www.livejournal.com/users/rialian/690944.html?thread=2284800#t2284800).

silverbromide's comment ().

[aekiy.livejournal.com]

erp. (fix silverbromide's comment (http://www.livejournal.com/users/rialian/690944.html?thread=2286592#t2286592))

[helen99.livejournal.com]

The description arxacies gave for the pendant matches it exactly. Now to think of how to get it to him.

[aekiy.livejournal.com]

We shall send spooks to kidnap him through his window!

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I can't think of a better plan, so I guess we'll have to use spooks. I hope they don't mind taking time out of their busy schedule.

[datacat.livejournal.com]

Hey did you know there's a whole channel devoted to this sort of thing? Home and Garden TV. My mom and I watch it all the time. There's even a show called Mission: Organization where they empty a room, fix it up, paint it and put only some of the stuff back in it. I don't know if you're a big TV watcher, some people aren't, but if you are and have HGTV it's a good watch. ^^

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good show to watch.. TV shows always make it look so easy though... They show the painters in impeccable painting outfits and cute little caps, working in rooms covered with lovely, dry dropcloths. After they roller a few strokes, then they show the room all done in its shiny new colors, ready to decorate. They never show the part where there's paint all over the dropcloth and paint all over your coveralls and the painter is scrunched inside a closet wearing a gas mask... And instead of a cute little cap I have to wear a plastic bag on my head and a pair of gogglesor I'll get paint in my hair and eyes... Paint deinitely has non-Newtonian properties that circumvent the laws of gravity...

But the end result is still good!

[aekiy.livejournal.com]

Gogglesor.. gogglexor.. gogglesaur? ee.. Gogglesaur. (^*^)

[helen99.livejournal.com]

In this case, definitely gogglex0r$...

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

Welcome back.:)

Sorry you weren't able to make it to Sin City last night. We missed you, but I can totally understand the need to go into Project Land. I really should be going there myself, soon, if I ever want this basement to feel like my personal space rather than a junk filled dungeon.:) Sometimes I think the storage areas of the house really look a whole lot worse than they actually are. When I stare out at the pile of things I haven't touched in 5 years over in the corner of the basement it really does look pretty overwhelming, but the fact of the matter is it's probably not as bad as it looks and I really should just get in there and be done with it once and for all. If you have any of that Project Land energy left over, feel free to pass a bit this way.:)

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I wanted to see Elijah Wood as a horrible little cannibal with trophy heads of women on his wall...But I did hear it was very good.. I'll maybe see it on video when it comes out. Sorry I missed seeing everyone though.

The way I approach a monumental pile of stuff is to first identify what I can toss out... That usually reduces the pile by about a quarter...

Then I think of what can be done with the largest pieces. I had to move all the bookcases out of that room and had no clue where to put them. After looking around I noticed there was plenty of space in the living room. True, the walls are now lined with books, but it doesn't look too crowded. That reduced it by over half, and all that remained was the little stuff.

For some stuff, maybe additional shelving would help. The do-it-yourself shelving units at Target are pretty cheap. Another thing they have are large plastic tubs, which are excellent for storing camping equipment and smaller useful items. They stack on top of one another so they don't have to take up a lot of horizontal space and you can label the front so you know what's in them later. I'll probably get a number of those and arrange the things that are currently in the attic a little better.

[gleef.livejournal.com]

Hey!

What's wrong with cannibals?!?

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Some of them might have a cold...

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

I'm actually half debating on just tossing everything in the basement. I figure that I haven't seen it in over 5 years so I must not really need it, per se. I'm probably not going to take that route, though, since at least some of it may prove useful to others.

I like your ideas for tackling it. Definitely quite useful. Actually I really don't think the pile is anywhere near as bad as it looks. It just looks absolutely horrid at the moment. I doubt there's really even that much stuff there, to be quite honest, and I fully expect to throw more than a quarter of it away.

I'll probably start working on it at some point in the next week or so. Thanks for the tips!