Three Kings... and a clean fridge

Once again I can't quite believe I'm doing this. Once again I'm going to share with you my shame. I'm going to show you my fridge, the hasn't-been-cleaned-in-11-years fridge.

And you need to see the fridge to truly appreciate what an accomplishment it is, why it is such a huge deal, when I say, "We had adults in our house last weekend!"

And these were not "safe" adults, the few I can trust not to judge me, or judge the state of our home, but Adults-with-a-capital-A that I... had... never... met!

When we moved into our current home, we had an open house party on "The Twelfth Day of Christmas" January 6. We had painted our dining room, living room and hallways, as well as the bedrooms. The kids now had separate rooms, pink for Taylor, blue for Mitchell, as you can see in the photo below.
 

[In Jan 2007 a woman in Vancouver delivered sextuplets. Since the local paper couldn't get pictures from the family (who wanted to remain anonymous), a photographer from the Ottawa Sun came and took some photos of our "multiples", Mitchell and Taylor. This close-up photo is the one that ran in the paper.]

 
After our successful Twelfth Night party, the kids asked if we could have a party again the next year. But I couldn't manage it. That year had been just a little stressful. We discovered that our daughter Taylor was struggling in school and we needed to have a psycho-educational assessment done. Because she was only in grade one, she was too young to be diagnosed with a learning disability, but she had some processing issues, and was at risk for literacy problems, so we were advised to remove her from the French Immersion program. Three years later it was confirmed that she had dyslexia, so it was a good move.

But we were also struggling with Mitchell's behaviour at home. A psycho-educational assessment for Mitchell said that he would be fine to stay in French Immersion, while Taylor started grade two in her new English-only school. But Mitchell was struggling at school too. We discovered that he was having problems with his teacher, and the way the school handled active little boys in the French Immersion program. His anger and anxiety was spilling over at home. By March Break we knew we needed to move him as well - and get him some help. (You can read more about how we tried to help Mitchell in this post inspired by Nemo's dad Marlin) Unfortunately leaving the French Immersion school also meant the kids losing all their friends, and me losing the community that I had worked so hard to create, a community of moms, friends and families. So, as I said, just a "little" stressful that year.



Our last Christmas with my mom, 2007

A few years earlier my mother had moved from Halifax (my hometown) to Ottawa where we live now. She was living in a retirement home not far from our house. It was a lot of work for me, not just because she was blind and had some hearing impairment, but because she had osteoporotic fractures in her spine, her collar bone, and then her hip. And because she had Alzheimer's. By the Fall of 2007 her health had declined significantly and she needed to be moved to a long-term care facility, essentially a "nursing home." Christmas 2007 was our last Christmas with my mom, who passed away at the beginning of February 2008. So, as I said, just a "little" stressful that year.

And then my depression came roaring back. In part, because of my health. I had uterine hemorrhaging and was practically bed-ridden for two years. This is an excerpt from a previous post (you can read the gory details - that women just don't talk about - here)

My iron got lower and lower. I got weaker and weaker. I was more and more tired. I could barely walk up even the most gentle of slopes. I was unable to do anything around the house. My poor husband had to take over laundry and meals, leaving me feeling pretty incapable, adding to my depression. And it also left our home to get more and more cluttered, while my fitness level and mood kept falling.

Mitchell and his bedroom when we first moved in
and "After" a few years

And then my depression worsened. And then my father died. And then I started having panic attacks.

I thought I had Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) because the winters were so hard. I saw a specialist and he put me on some meds. When I went back to see him he said, "You feel better in the Spring right?" My response was, "Um. Not so much. In fact we didn't take down our Christmas tree." He said, "Ah. This is not S.A.D., this is a major depressive episode." He referred me to a CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) group where I learned about riding the wave of emotions. It was also where I first realized the shame I had about our house, and learned the strategy of just doing ten minutes, to clean up with tea cup. And then, at the end of that group therapy session, I decided I needed to tackle my eating disorder. I joined a therapy group at the Hopewell Eating Disorder Support Centre. The therapist (who inspired the turtle charm) and the women that I met in that group made so much difference in my life. I called them my "Flower Power."

And then, in December of 2011, I started to overcome my eating disorder, using Pandora charms as my reward. And then after two-and-a-half years of recovery, I asked for help with my depression and panic attacks. And then I attended the "Day Hospital" program in the fall of 2014. And then I did six months of schema-focused therapy in the winter and spring of 2015. And then I participated in a program called "Working with Emotions" doing a program based on DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) in the fall of 2015. And then I was enrolled in a mindfulness meditation series in the winter of 2016. And since then, I have continued working on all of the skills I acquired, with support from my family doctor and a social worker.

And now here we are, in January 2018, in a house that had not been thoroughly cleaned in a looooong time. And now I realize that with all the work I've been doing I have not been writing very many blog posts.

I'm not sure when the kids stopped asking if we were going to have another Christmas party, but they did stop. We didn't invite adults to our home for many years. I was just too ashamed of how bad it got. But we've been working on our Clean Sweep for some time now, using the Hopi charm as inspiration, so this year I suggested we invite parents to our Saturday Games Night, which just happened to fall on Twelfth Night, January 6. My only stipulation was that the kids had to promise to do some major cleaning jobs on their Christmas vacation.

"Before" and "After"

One of Taylor's chores was to tidy the basement. We have done a major Clean Sweep in the basement, as you can see from the "Before" photo. (That is a story for another day.) Those plastic bins were ready for the start of our Clean Sweep. In the top photo on the far right you can just see where the futon was open after someone was here for a visit. We have painted the basement, and when Taylor tidied up, she covered the old stained futon with this bear paw quilt that my (blind!) mother made for our wedding. I thought it was quite a brilliant move on Taylor's part, so I took a picture.

When we started Games Night it was my intention to invite families, not just kids. But it never happened. We've been holding Games Night since the kids were in grade 7 and they are now in grade 11. And all those years, I was too ashamed to have adults come to our home. Shame can be very isolating.

Although it feels like we've been working on our Clean Sweep for a looooong time, the house was still VERY dirty. And I could not bear the thought of people seeing it so dirty. The kids were whining and questioning why we need to clean. Mike assigned Taylor the job of cleaning the fridge and of course she complained, and said, "Why do we need to clean the fridge?" So when she got to the part where she took out the fruit and vegetable bins, I said "THAT is why we need to clean the fridge!" and so I took a picture.



The "Before" and "After" of the fridge

Mike washed the kitchen cupboards, the range hood, and the spice rack over the stove that had a quarter-inch layer of kitchen grease and dust. I was in charge of kitchen sink, countertops and backsplashes, windows, all appliances from microwave to clothes dryer, as well as bathroom toilets, shower and bathtub. Mitchell was in charge of vacuuming everywhere as well as washing all the walls and woodwork - doors, window frames, etc. He was so surprised to see what a difference it was making, particularly the stairwell. And I said, "THAT is why we need to clean the house!" But I forgot to take a picture. Taylor had the jobs of dusting everything, including all bookshelves, cleaning the basement bathroom and scrubbing the shower floor, tidying the basement, organizing the games... and cleaning the fridge.

What did you do on your Christmas vacation? We cleaned our house and had a PARTY! And this massive accomplishment will be marked by Pandora's "Three Wise Men" charm on my "Victorian Christmas" bracelet.

 "On the Twelfth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me....

a clean house and Christmas par-TEE."

(and the three kings charm)

  

And how WAS the party you ask? Well, we had so much fun I forgot to take photos! There were 15 of us in total, including three other parents - moms. Upon arriving, the first mom said, "I wish I was one of those parents that has people over. I'm glad you are." If only she knew! I just smiled and told her, "If the kids are going to hang out with friends, we'd rather have them do it here." She was so pleased to come, and participate, because her daughter, she says, "is always so excited to come."

 

Taylor's best friend (and a friend of Mitchell's too) said, "My other friends want me to go out with them and are surprised that I'd rather come to Games Night. But it's easy here." So easy in fact that she fell asleep on the couch in the midst of the game. Her mom said, "She thinks she's part of your family." We're happy to have her.

 

As everyone was leaving, the third mom said, "I've offered to have everyone come to our house." But her daughter just waved her off and said, "It wouldn't be the same Mom." My only complaint was I would have enjoyed visiting with the other moms rather than just playing games - and maybe made a new friend - or three.

 

I've made many friends from around the world through Pandora. And I was curious when I saw people from Spain share photos about "Three Kings Day." And Puerto Rican friends said their kids would leave hay for the camels of the three kings and the magi would leave gifts for the children. Los Reyes Magos, celebrates the arrival of the three wise men in Bethlehem. In French countries - and French Canadian cities - the tradition has been to celebrate with a cake, Galette des Rois, in which a small toy was hidden, sometimes a baby to represent the three kings searching for Baby Jesus. The person who found the toy would be king and wore the crown, which luckily comes with the cake when you buy it. We gave it a try a few years ago but nobody was particularly fond of the cake, and the kids were really too old by that time to care much for wearing a paper crown, even if it was gold. But now we have a new tradition on January 6 - A Three Kings Party.

I have to say, it is getting easier to share my shame. Because I know that there are others struggling with the same things. And I know this because many of you have been in contact with me. To let other readers know that they are not alone, please comment (anonymously if you prefer) to say you can relate.

I think the other reason that I have less anxiety when I "share the shame" (that should be a hashtag) is that I am more accepting of myself and my situation, and recognizing how I got here. Accept where you are and start where you're at



Pandora stock photos

My thoughts on the charm itself: This is a nice solid two-tone charm. The details of the kings' crowns, garments and offerings are fabulous, especially the gold cross on the back. Although I have to say, up close, the hollow eye sockets are kind of freaky. Pandora always does good details like tails, backsides and butts, and in this case the feet of the three kings.


Photo from the blog Charms Addict

Maybe this year I'll work on earning the Twelve Days of Christmas charms by redbalifrog.

Photo by Paula Jackson of the blog beadsaholic
Find the link in my Blogroll

How the Hopi helps with housework

You know your bathroom is disgusting when your neighbour's daughter, who has autism, will not pee in your toilet. But I have discovered a strategy that helps me overcome the shame, and let's me tackle the housework without resentment.

 

By the way, to figure out how to get this toilet bowl clean I had to watch alot of Kim and Aggie of the British show "How Clean is Your House?" The secret was a pumice stone that could scrub the stains off the porcelain without scratching it - who knew?!!


The "Before"

I hope that I have previously established that I am not a hoarder. And I'm not a hoarder in denial - really! But I do have a problem with STUFF! Sorting stuff, putting away stuff, and cleaning stuff. And, with five years of poor health, things had really piled up, literally and figuratively. When you deal with depression, tasks that are routine for most people can feel overwhelming – washing the dishes, doing the laundry, opening the mail, filing papers, or... cleaning the bathroom.

When I would look around me and see all the stuff that I had failed to do, I would beat myself up for letting this happen, worry that I would never get it all done, feel guilty and overwhelmed, and stick my head back in that hole in the ground. I believe it's called denial. (Remember, one of the ways to get your head out of the ground is to dig your way out like the dung beetle or scarab.) When I recognized how difficult it was to get on top of the housework, I used one of my first knock-off beads to remind me of the importance of creating a home that is comfortable, safe, and peaceful. I later replaced this with the Pandora Hopi charm on my "Lucerne Recovery" bracelet.

 

The Hopi charm, to the right of the tulip with the dangle

When I first started this journey of recovery with Pandora, I wanted this Hopi charm because it reminded me of my grandmother Holmes, or "Granny" as we called her. She spent her winters in Arizona and had a string of silver beads that I loved, made by the expert silversmiths of the Native-American Hopi. As I shared in a previous post about her, she always liked to show me her jewellery and tell me stories of the places she'd visited in the world, where the jewellery was from.

Oh, I just realized something! She started me on this journey of having jewellery for "unforgettable moments," as Pandora calls them. I don't know who inherited those beads, so for now, in addition to the Hopi bead, I have some earrings in that style and a turquoise Mii bracelet.

But I digress. When I looked into "Hopi," I discovered that there was another reason for me to have this charm.

The word "Hopi" means "behaving one," one who is mannered, civilized, peaceable, polite, who adheres to the "Hopi Way." Wikipedia describes the Hopi Way as "a concept deeply rooted in the culture's religion, spirituality, and its view of morality and ethics. To 'be Hopi' is to strive toward this concept, a state of reverence and respect for all things, to be at peace with these things, and to live in accordance with the instructions of the Creator or Caretaker of the Earth." For the Hopi, all of daily life is part of their religion, and their belief is to help others improve their lives.

When I started to dig out of this disorganized and dirty mess a few years ago, I tried making schedules for myself. In my agenda I would put "Paid" and "Unpaid" work, which of course I then resented. Then I scheduled time for "chores," which of course made them feel like... well... a chore. So now I schedule time to do things that are "Done with Love." It's similar to when someone really bothers you, and instead of cursing them, you bless them. So I started with a daily "Bless This Kitchen" and then moved on to a weekly "Bless This Bathroom." It really does change your outlook and attitude.

My typical morning, the blue representing self-care

Rather than beat myself up, and get anxious or overwhelmed, the Hopi charm reminds me to "practice the religion of daily life and be at peace with things." Or, to keep the affirmation shorter, I say "Don't Worry, be Hopi." (You have to watch the video so you can use the correct accent when you say it.)

YouTube video of Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy"

Seems appropriate that the late Robin Williams is in this video

 

I have spent so long worrying about the mess of our home, and feeling ashamed of it, that I didn't even realize how much it has improved. When my daughter and her friends wanted to start a cat account on Instagram (@cats_of_the_truenorth i.e. Canada), I said my only stipulation was that pictures of our cats could not show how dirty our house is. When she started posting photos I was pleasantly surprised to see that our bathroom was clean - not perfect, but clean!

photo credit Taylor Hayden

In her book "Simple Abundance: a daybook of comfort and joy," (which I mentioned in a previous post about gratitude) author Sara Ban Breathnach says, "The Quakers, or members of the Religious Society of Friends... refuse to segment their lives into the Sacred and the secular. Quakers believe that all of life's daily experiences are spiritual in nature, from preparing a family meal to protesting political policy." She quotes the British writer George Gorman who observed that "the essence of Quaker spirituality is the certainty that everything we do has religious significance. It is not cutting ourselves off from life but entering deeply and fully into it."

This is similar to the practice of Mindfulness, which can be described as "paying attention on purpose." Practicing mindfulness of daily living is to do each thing with all of your attention, intentionally bringing your mind to the present, even if that "present" is the enviable job of cleaning the toilet.

I have the "Bless This House" charm sitting in my jewellery box, waiting until we complete the Clean Sweep of the whole house. The charm will require, quite fittingly, a lick and a polish before I can add it to my all-silver timebead bracelet.

I am pleased to say that we now "Bless This Bathroom" every week, each of the four of us with a different task (as well as other non-bathroom jobs) as part of our "Saturday chores." We are now in the maintenance phase! And Yes, it's me that does the toilet - and nobody is afraid to pee in it!

What I wear with my Lucerne Recovery bracelet

Related Posts:

Clean up with the tea cup - a story about the start of the Clean Sweep, with "Before" and "After" photos of our sunporch, and my most important affirmation in dealing with negative self-talk about the state of our home - and the charm to represent it.

Bellies and babies and "girlie parts" - a story about one of the reasons our house got so messy, the health problems I battled, including those things that women just don't talk about - and the charm to represent it.

My Pandora journey of recovery - how it all began - a story about my first knock-off charms, how I use charms as rewards, and how charms help me in my recovery.

You can search the blog, at the bottom of the website version, using key words. You can also see all of the stories about the charms from my first bracelet by clicking on the label for "Lucerne Recovery bracelet."

Photo Gallery

 

The "Before"



The "After"



The "After"



shower curtain rings to match the handles on the sink faucets

a clean bathroom with a drawer unit under the sink for supplies and toiletries
a garbage AND recycling bin to keep the toilet paper rolls off the floor



this angel ornaments was the inspiration for the bathroom colours



Martha Stewart curtains in the colour scheme of sage green and lilac



an antique plate of my mom's with purple violets



A Wedgwood sage green "Jasperware" plate from my in-laws



original hexagonal bathroom tiles



a new white shower curtain as a reward for cleaning the bathroom

IKEA's brilliant solution to the tub mat
that would always fall off the edge of the tub,
drip onto the floor, or stay down in the tub and get mouldy



a tray for the back of the toilet for candle holders and Kleenex



a few purple accents on shelves above the toilet



The "After"



Clean up with the tea cup

I can’t quite believe I’m doing this. This has been one of my hardest blog posts to write because I’m sharing with you my shame. I’m not a hoarder. Really, I’m not! But you might not believe me when you see the “Before” photos from our home. With the help of the little tea cup charm I can now share with you some “After” photos and tell you how I got there.

 

The tea cup and other novelty/animal charms on my all-silver bracelet with my Pandora timebead

 

I recently completed a makeover of our Sunporch, and I’ve been sharing some photos on Facebook. But you can’t truly appreciate my accomplishment unless you know where I started from, and how far I’ve come.

A number of years ago I participated in a group therapy workshop for people with anxiety and depression. It was based mainly on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (aka CBT). I was severely depressed after my mother’s death. I couldn’t function. I didn’t get anything done. And our house was a disaster! 

Our basement TV room

In the group therapy, the psychologist asked me what ONE thing I could do to make things more manageable. I said, “Do the dishes.” So that was my goal for that week. There was one stipulation. The dishes were the ONLY thing I could do. And a very interesting thing happened.

 

Our kitchen "Before"

Over the next week, doing my homework, I noticed that every time I entered a room in my home, two things would happen. First, I would notice all the things that needed to get done, and get very overwhelmed. And the second thing? I would start beating myself up because our house was a disaster. You may be familiar with this concept of beating yourself up; we sometimes call it “naming, blaming and shaming.” It goes something like this, “OMG, I am so… (insert label of your choice).” For me it was usually criticism of myself, “I am so disorganized,” or “I am so lazy.” But it could also be criticism of our home, or the situation, “Our house is so messy!” “This is disgusting.” “How embarrassing!” Well, you get the idea. In fact, I was so ashamed of living like this – so ashamed of myself – that no adults came into our house for years. Yes, you read that correctly: YEARS!

Mitchell's bedroom

Over the next week, every time I entered a room in my home, and those negative thoughts came up – as they inevitably would – I would say, “The only thing I need to do is wash the dishes.” I could give myself a break; I didn’t need to deal with ALL the things that needed to get done, right this moment – or even this week. I would remind myself, “I’m not ALLOWED to do anything except the dishes.” So my go-to phrase was simply, “Just do… the dishes.” Not quite the Nike ad, but it worked for me.

A clean stove-top

I washed the dishes. It took quite a while. And the mess came back, repeatedly. But what I realized with this exercise was that just focusing on one accomplishment at a time allowed me to turn off – or at least ignore – all the other critical chatter in my brain. A number of years later, when I was really ready to tackle my depression and eating disorder, I used this same approach. I would use a Pandora charm to focus on the one thing I need to do this week, to earn that charm. The goal could be to plan and prepare myself a lunch, to earn the picnic basket charm. When I would enter a messy room, I could say to myself, “Nope, we are just focusing on making lunches this week.” You can go here to read more about the beginning of this journey with Pandora and my earliest charms. I have discovered that Pandora charms are VERY motivating to me.

The master bedroom before the Clean Sweep

 

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy focuses on changing your thoughts as well as your behaviours. If you haven’t read my post about the problem with “should” statements, i.e. “shoulding all over yourself,” please go take a look here. In examining your thoughts, you can start to see what they call cognitive distortions or cognitive errors – errors in your thinking. You may have already noticed some of these in the previous paragraphs. People with depression and/or anxiety often overestimate how long something will take and how difficult it will be. In CBT this is called “maximizing.” If you hear yourself using words like terrible, awful, disgusting, scary, horrendous or sickening, then you are falling into this trap. Our grandmothers may have said it was, “making a mountain out of a molehill.” I was expending a lot of energy anticipating how hard it would be or how long it would take. When we are caught up in this kind of thinking, we also underestimate our ability to handle something, and the energy we have to do the required task. This is called “minimizing.” Sometimes these tendencies are referred to as using a "negative filter."

 

I have a friend, who also battles depression, and she sent me an email last year that illustrates this point. “These last few years,” she wrote, “it feels like life is so fast I can hardly catch my breath, let alone do the basic stuff of life to keep the family going. Not sure how to get off this treadmill into something more closely resembling my idea of how to live. What kind of crazy life is it that it is too busy to even go out for a short cup of tea?” Sound like maximizing to you? It’s now one year later and we have yet to go out for a short cup of tea. That’s why I use the tea cup charm to represent this battle.

 

 

This problem of feeling “overwhelmed” is a common theme in a lot of the things I’m working on. The thoughts would be, “There’s too much to do. I’ll never get this finished.” According to my notes from that CBT program, challenging these cognitive distortions is a powerful way to counter perfectionism, curb procrastination and relieve depression and anxiety. The prescription for this tendency to maximize and minimize, or use a negative filter, is to describe people or events with more accurate language. This is sometimes called a “balancing statement,” with alternative not-so-negative thoughts. Instead of saying our house is a disaster or disgusting, I can say, “Our house is messy. We are working on getting it cleaned up.” This is describing something without judgement or emotion. It’s just a fact and less harmful.

"We are working on it"
A photo celebrating the Clean Sweep of our bedroom;
turns out the afternoon sun is beautiful on the hardwood floors

I also challenged the thought that it would take "forever." I timed myself. In my work as a personal trainer, people often ask if they should exercise if they are sick or they just don’t feel like exercising. I tell them to give themselves permission to just do 10 minutes. If, after 10 minutes, you feel worse with your cold, or you still don’t feel like exercising, you can stop. Of course once someone has started a workout, either strength-training or walking/running, they usually don’t want to stop after 10 minutes. But they CAN; they give themselves permission. Doing 10 minutes of exercise three times a day is just as helpful, with respect to improving your health or managing your weight, as doing 30 minutes of continuous exercise. Ten minutes can make a big difference. So now I apply this to the kitchen. It doesn’t seem to matter how messy the kitchen gets, it usually only takes me 10 minutes to dig through the mess and find the kitchen counter.

Challenging the negative thoughts about myself is another solution. A very wise friend of mine, who I worked with a long time ago, heard me say, “I am so disorganized!” She challenged me on that and said, “You’re actually good at organizing, you just don’t enjoy maintenance.” That statement is more accurate and not as judgemental or shaming.

At the beginning of the school year, in September, I said I was going to stay on top of the dishes – despite the fact that maintenance is boring. It’s now July. The kids just finished their school year. And I can say, “I did it.” I stayed on top of the dishes for a whole school year.

A recent photo of the kitchen counter

If I come in the kitchen and see this (above), I remind myself, “Just do the dishes. Just do 10 minutes.” That’s what the little tea cup charm reminds me. And that’s how I tackled our Sunporch fix-up last month: just 10 minutes at a time. The whole makeover cost me just $100



The Seven Steps to a New Sunporch:

In our ongoing Clean Sweep it was time to freshen up our Sunporch. This is a small glassed-in porch on the back of our home and a thoroughfare to our back door that enters onto our kitchen. We never use the front door, and anyone who's been to visit once, knows to come to the back door the next time. This room stores everything from sports equipment to rain boots, recycling bins to sun hats, and everything needed for outdoor dining. But it's also a nice place to sit outside. Mike will sit in the wicker chair while he's got something on the stove or in the evening reading. I sit out there when I take a break during the day, and I love to sit here and listen to the sound of rain coming down.

So here’s the “Before” photo of our Sunporch: with outgrown sandals and boots, leftover birthday cake from November, lots and lots of cobwebs, blankets and towels for fort building. There was a homemade bow and plastic straw arrows (from Taylor's Hunger Games phase), wooden guns and homemade swords and whacking tools (from Mitchell's Live Action Roll Playing i.e. LARPing phase) and a bat and lacrosse sticks (from Mike's must-have-every-variety-of-sports-equipment phase). FYI one of these people will likely never outgrow this phase.

NOTE: If you've seen these photos already you can scroll to the bottom to see the most dramatic "Before" and "After" pics.

 

I started with planning the theme and shopping. For the wicker chair I wanted a new seat cushion with a pillow for a backrest. An area rug to make it feel like a room and to cover the stained cement floor. And the blue IKEA doormat to replace the coir mat that's been there since we moved in 8 years ago, and was here for God-knows how long before that. And finally, a shower curtain to cover the shelves.

 

Unfortunately, when we got to Pier 1, we discovered that I'd done my research with US prices. The seat cushion I thought was on sale for $20 was no longer on sale and cost $48 dollars! And the shower curtain from Canadian Tire was the icky plastic kind. So back to the drawing board.

Take 2: Inspired by the photo with the wicker furniture (below), I found a reversible seat cushion at Pier 1 (on sale) with an IKEA cushion and cushion cover (for a great low price) for the back rest. And I found a different shower curtain at Canadian Tire that matches the new navy 3' x 4' area rug from Home Depot, and the cobalt door mat from IKEA.

 

Stock photos

The material for the seat cushion is much nicer in real life.

Step 1 removal of cobwebs and dirt: Windows were cleaned and everything washed. This ceramic sun was "Made by The Blind Lady" as her labels said (i.e. my mom). She did this in a pottery class for blind people in Halifax.

Step 2 sorting sports equipment (and power-washing the milk crates): Rarely used skateboards and lacrosse sticks were relocated to the garage, wooden guns were put away, swords and other weapons were discarded (except for T's bow). The containers are now filled with the frequently used basketball, football, tennis balls, road hockey and ice hockey pucks, skipping ropes, Frisbees, etc. The coolers were washed. Knee and elbow pads and wrist guards were organized and stored with rollerblades and then moved to the garage. The rugby ball, that won't fit anywhere else, has gone to the top of the shelves. 

 

Step 3 the screen door: It was cleaned (it could probably do with a quick slap of paint - maybe next year) and I replaced the screen myself. #girlswithtools

 

Step 3 the screen door, part 2: Discover that the screen meant to keep flying creatures out and cats in, does not keep cats DOWN! This is Estavon, the older of our two cats, and by far the more curious, fearless and adventuresome.

 

She literally looks like a monkey - and she's waving!

A rare occurrence - for two reasons! 1. Someone is using the new and improved Sunporch before it's even finished and 2. Mitchell is reading a book!

 

Step 4 flooring: The cement floor of the Sunporch was pretty nasty and I couldn't get it clean. I'm sure there is some chemical that would work but I didn't want to take that route. I’ve since been told I could paint the cement floor. But for now it is covered by a 3' x 4' indoor-outdoor area rug in a dark navy for $15, plus a small dark blue mat from IKEA for only $1.50

 

Step 4 flooring cont'd... I saw this IKEA cobalt blue door mat online and loved it. Then I decided I would drive myself crazy if it got dirty, so I gave up on the idea. Once we actually went to IKEA I discovered it isn't a pile carpet but made like a plastic scouring pad. Every time I open our kitchen door to leave the house there is this blue bolt of happiness. It has been bare-foot-tested – and Taylor's nail polish matches.

 

 

Step 4 flooring cont'd... since we don't have a cottage or a boat, I thought I'd make our Sunporch feel like it looks out on a beach in Nova Scotia, even though it just looks out on our backyard. I've added some rocks from the beaches of the South Shore of NS, and to welcome people to our little oasis in the city, a door mat that reminds me of weathered homes and fishing shacks.

 

 

 

 

Step 5 finding a place for everything, and everything in its place: basket for clothes pins with a collection of enamelware; rain boots/shoes, biking boots and Crocs, with a new bucket for umbrellas; stuff for outdoor entertaining; gardening tools, watering can, and a basket for gardening gloves; a shelf for beach towels, swimsuits and paraphernalia; and a rack for BBQ tools, bike locks and a bow.

 

 

  

 

  

 

 

Step 6 disguising the shelves: Although the shelves look better now that they are organized (above), I liked the idea of eliminating the clutter and making the space more visually appealing by hiding all the stuff. It’s too bad I didn’t cover the recycling bins, but that wouldn’t really be convenient. And if the helmet hooks aren't visible they won't be used! I took this shower curtain (the fabric kind) and attached it to the shelves with screws. Each screw held two holes normally meant for the shower curtain hooks. And I sewed the pleated edges along the top seam to make sure the holes were hidden. I’m so pleased with how it turned out.

 

"Moroccan tile" shower curtain material

 

 

The little green table is a plastic folding table;
it goes well with the new seat cushions.

 

 

 

Step 7 spray paint the white wicker chair: Mitchell wanted to try spray-painting; these are pics of his Ninja spray-painting posture. When I sprayed, he kept telling me I was "too close." When he was spraying, I would say, "remember, broad sweeping strokes." We were like an old married couple bickering. We first tried it on an inconspicuous spot, on the bottom, but by the time we finished the underside, back, and outside of the chair we ran out of paint. The next day I finished it and couldn’t believe what a difference it made!

 

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for more make-overs of our bedroom, basement and kids' rooms, and my Pandora rewards.