Emerging from Project land
Apr. 2nd, 2005 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helen99Every 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)...
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)...
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-03 07:29 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 08:01 pm (UTC)What's wrong with cannibals?!?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 11:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-04 08:25 pm (UTC)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!