Apartment Therapy 8 Step Home Cure!-Roster added 7/16 - Page 3

[kellid]

i got the bbook! i,m ready.

nak

[cece]

Originally Posted by es1967

I'm going to try to wash my floors today if DS allows me to. He's 21 months and has more energy than you can imagine. He's napping now but I have to vaccuum first so I'll wait til he wakes up. When I bought this place I made sure to put in tile everywhere which I love love love! I've had carpet and it drives me mad having a dog and now a baby. Its was hard when DS was just learning to walk. Anyways, I'm in and am trying to work on getting the little things I need repaired. My bathroom sink has been clogged for weeks and would drain so slowly. I finally got under the sink and unplugged it . DS stuck his hand in the toilet just as I was doing this -then I tried to wash his hands in the sink. I forgot I had opened up the pipe under the sink. Well, we had water everyhere! I'm not really plumber material. I know I'm kinda jumping around but will get back to reading the book and do things in the order it says.

Sounds like an I love Lucy moment! Sorry, that was probably a big fiasco- but good for you for fixing your sink!

[racheloperasinger]

Sounds exciting everyone! I can't wait to get my book from whatever library it's coming from! Keep posting these tidbits -- I'm so curious! :

[miss_sonja]

I've got two "shabby chic" style chairs that I want to put in my laundry room--well, they're there now, but there's really no room. I need to move a table, which means clearing it off first.

I'll take care of that task this week!

[CrunchyDoula]

Sounds wonderful!! I just put the book on hold at the library! Is it okay if I start in two weeks? That is when we move and I want to implement this all in our new place since this one is filled with boxes

[VeganCupcake]

I just got the book at the library, and I am really excited, but I don't know how much I'll be able to do, what with all the other pre-baby projects we have underway right now. But definitely subbing to watch everyone else!

[cece]

Originally Posted by Crunchy Doula

Sounds wonderful!! I just put the book on hold at the library! Is it okay if I start in two weeks? That is when we move and I want to implement this all in our new place since this one is filled with boxes

Of course! Just let me know what week you're on and we'll be here for support.

[artemis33]

Just wanted to say that I have been completely lost on the AT website for like three days! I've been looking at all of the 'small is cool' entry photos until by eyes are bugging out LOL Very inspiring though - so many beautiful places!

I put the book on hold at the library so I hope to have it soon. Not sure if I'll be ready for the 8 week thing or not because I still have a LOT of decluttering to do

I'll be here lurking at least

[LionTigerBear]

Yay!!! We got the carpet steam cleaned today! It was so bad, we just got so fed up with it and rearranged our schedules somewhat, rented the steam cleaner/shampooer thingie, and GOT IT DONE! It feels GREAT!

Then we also rearranged the furniture in the living room, which feels better, too. So much for before pictures, though. I didn't even know I was starting yet.

[cece]

Originally Posted by LionTigerBear

Yay!!! We got the carpet steam cleaned today! It was so bad, we just got so fed up with it and rearranged our schedules somewhat, rented the steam cleaner/shampooer thingie, and GOT IT DONE! It feels GREAT!

Then we also rearranged the furniture in the living room, which feels better, too. So much for before pictures, though. I didn't even know I was starting yet.

Great! I bet that feels wonderful. i recently shampooed my carpets, so a good cleaning right now is just vacuuming the carpets and sweeping/mopping the kitchen and bathroom. I am doing to work on this more today, and also my repair list. I bought fresh flowers at the farmer's market on Thursaday (a bouquet of roses for $2!) and I have to say they really make me smile.

I also got rid of two board games we weren't playing. Scene it and Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture went to a friend at work who works in the film industry. A collection of Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines were donated to a few chefs in the restaurant I work at who were delighted to receive them and will put them to good use. Yay!

[Kavita]

This sounds neat! We moved in a year ago to our house. My house is pretty good overall but we have sort of backslid recently, and some clutter has built up. We also have a number of things that were started but not finished, so we have things sort of almost done--like we took down some weird and elaborate draperies in our room but didn't get around to taking down the double drapery rods. The finished area of our basement is a disaster--and I want to sort of clear that up and revamp that.

I put the book on reserve at the library and my DH just walked in the door from picking it up--so I'm in!!! (Even though I'm not exactly sure what I'm getting into, lol!)

[thewaggonerfamily]

Our InterLibraryLoan is horribly slow. (Like weeks...we are rural.) Can you post a week 1 list for those of us that don't have the book yet but want to start? I'm guessing steam cleaning carpets is on the list based on the others comments. Is there anything else I should be doing? I have a huge old house (sorry, not an apartment, but I hope I can play...)that was a rental for about 30 years, so we are in perpetual construction (Can only do it as we have time and money and last year was lost as DH almost died) and I have a ton of clutter (we are the picture in the dictionary next clutter expands to fill its space) that I am really working on clearing out, but with 6 kids and a nursling, as you can imagine its slow going. But I'd love to have a tidy nice looking home like the ones on AT. I work well with external tasks so please, get me started! We have hardwood floors on most of the 1st floor that were installed in the 60s and the finish is mostly gone. Should I clean all those, too? Hmmm. clearing all the carp from the floors in order to steam clean and mop is a project in itself! Please let me know what I should be doing for week 1! Thanks!

[cece]

So, how's everyone doing? Does anyone else want to give a run down of week one?

I spent the weekend re-arranging and decluttering the living room. Not necessarily week one, but I was really inspired regarding the flow of my place. It feels amazing, I can't even describe what a difference fixing the flow has made. I was at work last night and I just couldn't wait to walk through the door to feel the energy here.

I cleaned my floors, but didn't get them all clean on the same day, I don't know if that will ever happen lol. I have not finished my repair list, but I will work on that tomorrow.

DH and I took a bag of clothes to try to sell at a consignment shop, but they only bought one tank top and DH bought a pair of jeans so that was not so productive . I was hoping they would take it all . Oh well. Tomorrow I plan to make a listing for my AP playgroup for a few giveaways and things to sell, because we meet on Wednesdays and I can always find new homes for things then.

Hope you are all enjoying your journey- and your fresh flowers too!

[Kavita]

Well, I started this weekend (Saturday). I read the book and read parts aloud to DH. I also keep referring back to parts of it. I am sort of doing the Deep Treatment, but part of our issue is that there are things that we just never got finished when moving in (like certain upgrades/repairs/furninshing certain rooms/painting/window treatments.) So there are some areas that we meant to do some revamping with in the beginning but never got around to because we moved in and life started happening! Our house is pretty nice by most standards overall but daily life with a toddler sort of takes its toll. And the past few months we were focusing on going to India for a month, so house matters really got neglected then. Both DH and I are kind of clean freaks, but we're also procrastinators and have a difficult time making decisions and we feel guilty about spending money on things sometimes, so those things affect the house. We end up kind of stopped.

So, we are definitely warm people. Although we do tend to like things quite clutter free, at least where we can see it.

We both did the quiz, separately, and we were sort of suprised and happy that we both came up with very similar answers. (Like we both picked Maggie Gyllenhal for favorite actress, even though we hadn't ever discussed that together.) And we realized that we are both really on the same page about what problems we feel there are with our house (and our life in general) and what we want the house (and life) to be like. So that was a lot of fun. And it's good that he's on board and on the same page.

We did a house tour, and listed things that need to be repaired or fixed. Some of them are small things and have already been taken care of (like replacing a light bulb for example.) Some of them are bigger projects (like painting all the shoe moldings along the floor, which we never got around to when we first moved in and got the floors refinished and those moldings installed.) DH agreed that as much as we might like to think that we can do everything ourselves, with a kid that's as active and into everything as ours is, and him having his plate pretty full at work these days, we may have to just hire a handyman or someone to do part of the work, as our list of things stretched out into about four pages! I mean, there is a big difference between a 1 bedroom NYC apartment with one young urban professional person living in it (which is what he is basing the cure on, at least the 1 bedroom apartment thing is stated and none of the examples of the people in the book had kids) and a suburban house with a front porch, side porch, basement, garage, and lawns.

The whole house has been quick-vacuumed, and the kitchen and bathroom have been thoroughly mopped. I'll have to get around to the rest of the floors gradually one at a time. Although this isn't this week's thing, I got some softscrub with bleach and a grout brush, because I realized that he is right that even though it's preferable to use nontoxic earthfriendly cleaners, which I already mostly do, my tub has gotten beyond the point where baking soda is going to do the job, and it was grungy to the point that I was actually thinking about either getting a new tub or doing that rebath thing because it wasn't coming clean. But I scoured the tub out and cleaned the grout, and now it looks very good! I even took a bubble bath last night, which I haven't been doing lately because of the yukky tub situation! But back to the floors, as I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the tub out, out of curiosity I took the grout brush with a little softscrub on it and scrubbed the grout lines in the tile floor of the bathroom, and OMG! I could not believe how much dirt was there and what a difference there was between that area and the rest of the floor! So I think some detail cleaning is in order there, too, if the floor is really going to get clean. Sigh.

I also have been shopping and looking online at furniture and stuff, since we have long planned to buy a few more pieces of furniture and we haven't really done so. I'm not talking about stuffing your house with furniture--we have a sunroom that is unusable except as a dog containment zone because we have no furniture and nowhere to sit in there! We also decided which wedding pics we want printed and in what sizes and where to hang them and bought frames and I got the negatives out and in one place and I'm taking them to the photo place for printing today. Again, not a week 1 task but something that has been lingering for, oh, five years since we've gotten married, waiting for decisions and decisive action.

And we started cleaning up and decluttering the basement. No, not part of the week 1 tasks either, but the neatly boxed baby clothes from when we moved suddenly started exploding all over the basement as I looked through them to find one thing or another, and it's been driving me crazy.

I have a bit (well, a lot!) of extra motivation right now to get some of these things in order because my sister and her family are coming to visit next week. It's the first time they've come to visit us in our new city, and they will be staying with us from Wed-Mon. It's not like I'm freaked out about it, it's not like she'd be judgemental or anything, my sister and I are really close and so it's not like I need to do anything to impress her or anything, it's just that sort of that slightly nervous happy excitement and anticipation and wanting to go ahead and make things nice so that it will be a nice vacation for them and the house will be a nice sanctuary for us the rest of the time too!

:::

[MyLittleWarrior]

I just grabbed this off the shelf at my library. Can't wait to dive into it!

[es1967]

I finally got to vacuum and steam mop my tile today. I keep it up and usually vacuum atleast once a week. The washing of the floor I do atleast once every two weeks and it was due to be done. I went and purchased an orchid the other day and some yellow roses this morning. I'm pretty much decluttered because I am continually working on this since we live in a small condo. I've gotten behind on putting the repair list together which I really want to do because these little things really bother me. I didn't realize that was part of my problem with this place.

With regards to the flow- my place is pretty good with one exception. We live on the water and I have my sliding glass door partially blocked by the TV armoire. Its just a small amount but the flow would be better if we got rid of it. DH and I have been looking at purchasing new low cabinets from ikea that would be under the TV on a different wall. Were purchasing a flat screen but DH wants a 46 inch and I want a 40 inch! So we are at a standing point now re this. I just don't want a huge TV taking over the entire room. In my opinion our place is too small. Wonder if the guy from apartment therapy would come over and help us?? Haha. We need a mediator.

Also, I would love to modernize this place a little. I'm tired of the beachy look we have now. Forgot to mention my Ds's room which is our office/playroom. DS cosleeps with us now but we want to totally makeover that room for him.

Our biggest problem is deciding on what to purchase and always put it off thinking we will be moving to a larger place soon. Were building so this could take years because we havn't even found a lot yet.

Well thats where I am right now. Indecision land. I'm going to continue with the repair list and still need to get rid of some older things.

[es1967]

Forget to mention that I've also been looking online for new furniture and artwork. It gets me crazy looking at all the sites.

[cece]

Kavita, it sounds like you're on a roll! Yay :. I love Maggie Gyllenhal (sp?) too .

I got started on my kitchen yesterday, one of my cabinets is looking really good. It's coming together!

[kellid]

Are you all just digging in......or are you following the order? I guess I didn't see anything this in depth yet, besides floors and lists? lol

[cece]

Originally Posted by kellid

Are you all just digging in......or are you following the order? I guess I didn't see anything this in depth yet, besides floors and lists? lol

I'm loosely following the plan. I intend to do it all, but some will be done earlier than the list. Other things are not necessary (like cook one meal at home each week- ROTFLMAO) Maybe my goal should be to eat out once a week if I can get my list done...mmmm sushi.

That being said, I live in a two bedroom, one bath apartment with no outdoor space (no patio, etc). I also have one pretty chill 2.5 year old who naps almost every day and my best friend lives in the apartment next door with her 3 year old. I do realize that I have much more time on my hands than most of the other mamas, so remember to be REALISTIC, I think that's important.

Mostly, I think that I have found this book to be very motivating. It's a great plan. I am scheduling my open house, that is extremely motivating to me because I always want to entertain but I never do because the place is never perfect and there's so much that I want to do! Well, now it's getting done : I also plan to post my pics online for everyone. If I have time today, I will post pics of my flow in my living room. I got too excited and forgot to take any before pics, but I might have something that shows some incarnation of my that room in my albums somewhere.

My worst room (by far) is my bedroom. I dump everything in there. I also lost my wedding ring almost a month ago, and I *think* the last place I had it was in my bedroom. I am going to do another search in there for it today. I am trying to be positive about it, but I'm ready to have it back now

Coming home to my apartment now has been very relaxing and I look forward to it every day!

I'm off to work on the kitchen! Wish me luck.



This week is week 2 for me which involves cleaning the kitchen top to bottom. I hope to make it through this before the end of the week.