Our table is both functional and sentimental @Lamb Chopped. It has been made using the tabletop from Cheery husband's grandfather's dining table. It was our dining table too for many years, but we replaced it not long after moving to our current house.
The table was offered to other family members but no one was interested in it, so Cheery husband set about re-using it. We were able to score some drawer units from the Swedish shop's ex-display section, and the table top was added with timber sides constructed to hide the drawer units. It looked like an oversized coffee table. Now the top has been removed, a large tray added on top of the drawers and then the top re attached with (almost) standing desk hinges affixing the table top to the new tray. It can be moved out of the way to give access to the tray section and Cheery husband is re-attaching the original table skirt back on to the table top to disguise the walls of the new tray section.
It is nice to be re-using the table-top and putting it to good use to improve the look of what is essentially a large storage chest. Both boys in my house love their Lego and as Cheery husband's Grandfather was keen on hobbies himself, we hope he would approve.
Mrs RR has finished emptying, not the house, but our v.small greenhouse. Wow! Next, her studio .... this could take some time. I have to rationalise my model-making stuff. But who to give it to? I appears lots of us modelling oldies are 'decluttering' at the same time.
I’m clearing my small study ready for the decorator. It has just dawned on me that as well as removing everything I ought to actually sort the contents, not just put it all back unsorted.
We "inherited" a large coffee table, about six feet long and three wide, which my husband turned into a Lego table for our son. He went out and got wood boards to put around the edges of the table so the Lego wouldn't fall off (as you do), but the genius of it came when he got ornamental scrolly type wood pieces--the kind you see on old porches for architectural interest?--which he attached to the standing boards, perpendicular to the standing boards but parallel to the table top, so that in effect the table turned into a large swirly picture frame with a huge shallow rectangular pan behind (beneath) it, if that makes sense. And there's room on each swirly wood bit to park a small Lego creation to be admired.
We are going to have to clear out most of the house and move into temporary accommodation because the house needs underpinning. The saga began last July and they have just got to the stage of agreeing that yes, it might be a good idea if we moved out while major structural work on both the upstairs and downstairs of the house is taking place. And they'll ask the builders who are doing the actual work to talk to us about what needs to happen and exactly what we need to move where. Another month or so of uncertainty, then.
Meanwhile, my husband has grudgingly agreed that it might be a good idea to start packing up his beloved model railway.
I misplaced something small but vital to me - my pedometer. It doubles up as a watch as I hate wearing watches and hate even more getting my phone out to check the time. I know it was here yesterday, and I've looked in all the usual places.... nothing.
So, since moving furniture to see if it had gone underneath or behind anything had become inevitable I steeled myself to deal with the stored recycling and the cleaning/re-sorting/rearranging of the bags and boxes.
The pedometer is still AWOL, but numerous neglected places are a lot cleaner.
@Jane R we had to have the first place we bought together underpinned. I was pregnant at the time so all rather stressful but worth it in the end. The insurance paid for our rental place, which was actually somewhat nice than the flat we were living in.
That sounds disruptive @Jane R ; I hope it all goes smoothly.
Sorting and tidying here have stalled of late. Five months post-move I still have boxes on the floor of my study as I'm waiting for a new set of bookshelves to house my files (they lived in boxes under my desk in my previous, smaller, study and I vowed that wasn't to happen here). I spoke to Mr Nen about this and it's now on order from a large Swedish emporium. Also on order is another shoe rack (one came with the house) which hopefully will tidy up the seven pairs of Mr Nen's shoes currently kicking around the kitchen floor. Also on order, at my instigation, is a set of shelves for the spare bedroom (not to be confused with the guest room, which is in a reasonable state and "guest ready"). Mr Nen seemed happy to leave it looking like a storage unit for the foreseeable future but I said we need to get some of the stuff in the boxes out and onto shelves so that we can see what needs to be sorted - otherwise the stuff will remain in boxes and untouched for the next decade or so.
We have finally (after some delays with the supplier) taken delivery of some more cupboards for the utility room, where we are badly lacking storage space, and they are being fitted next week.
We are due to get our landing and stairway repainted on 4 Sept, and ahead of that we plan to clear out the two large cupboards on the landing. Cupboard 1 is scheduled for today.
The study is painted. The carpet comes tomorrow. Then I start to put things back on shelves. I may have to wait until my son comes on Friday to put the three heavy items in, unless I can push them. So two and a half days to sort the books and paperwork. Or one and a half, if I want to fill the recycling bin before collection day.
The carpet looks good, as does the laminate in the bathroom I had done at the same time, but I’m lacking in energy. It is surprisingly hot too. I have got all the electrical items plugged in but I can’t find the lead to the printer, which is the item I really wanted to use urgently.
Unfortunately I can’t manage to get my office chair through the doorways, so can’t sit at my desk yet. Sorting books and CDs can wait.
My son is coming on Friday so I hope he can help.
That makes a lot of sense @North East Quine . I keep my vases in the sideboard and fill them at the kitchen sink. I don't often cut my camellias which are in the back garden, mostly my roses which are only about 30 steps from the kitchen bench, but in the front garden.
I'm obviously a born sticky beak because I love to hear what people store in their cupboards. Our bathroom vanity cupboard is very narrow front to back and so we store a lot of overflow in our laundry cupboard which is quite large. Shampoos, body wash, toothpaste, loo rolls bottles of liquid hand soap and only keep the immediately in use things in the bathroom,
Laundry cupboard also has a section for gardening stuff and cat littler cleanup stuff. Otherwise it's shoe cleaning, cleaning liquids and furniture polishes of various kinds, insect sprays and cloths for cleaning, along with paintbrushes (for dusting) and toothbrushes (for cleaning the track of the shower door). I have a couple of jars of lavender which I sprinkle around occasionally and rubber gloves. We also have a spare light fitting on the very top shelf, it was one we took out of son's room when he requested something different. I figure it is always handy to have a spare.
We don't for some reason keep lightbulbs in the laundry, I think Cheery husband has kept those in the walk in wardrobe, where he has tidy boxes of cables at one end of the wardrobe. As it is his stuff I try not to get involved.
Almost forgot to mention there is also laundry liquid and powder soaker for stains kept there.
I’m just envious of anyone who has a utility room. My understairs cupboard is in the dining end of the kitchen, so has current + spares of cleaning and laundry stuff, bags, brushes, and the indoor bins. Everything else has to go in the garage.
Mr Puzzler bought in bulk, so I am still getting through some of his excesses. Just one more box of tissues left, but dozens of light bulbs.
Washing powder/pods
Colour catcher sheets
Fabric softener if you use it
Clothes pegs if you use them
Dryer sheets if you don't
Iron
Kitchen roll
Bog roll
Candles
Batteries
Light bulbs
If it's a really big room, Christmas decorations?
Yes, most of those things - we are blessed with much cupboard space in the new kitchen so spare kitchen roll and toilet rolls (and boxes of tissues) go in the large one we affectionately call "the pantry". Currently in the cupboards of the utility room are some cleaning products and sink plungers in the one under the sink and, in the one that was already on the wall when we came, I have flower vases and stock cupboard things like toothpastes, deodorants, shampoos, orchid feed liquid, washing machine cleaner. In the small one next to the washing machine I have things washing-related: my laundry liquids, limescale reducing tablets, scent booster pearls.
We have, however, lost both utility space and understairs cupboard space and are currently struggling for places to put things like mops and buckets, dustpans and brushes and the vacuum cleaner. Many shoes also lived in our previous utility room: hence the recent addition of a second shoe rack to our kitchen.
Mr Nen started negotiations this morning about the new cupboards in the utility room, into which he will be after putting things like heavy-duty hand cleaner, white spirit, paint brushes, many small containers of things like washers and screws and nails and other unidentifiable bits, pots of old toothbrushes and cleaning scrubs; if allowed a free rein, things like pots of paint and car cleaning equipment may be added.
I am currently unclear about the whereabouts of our Christmas decorations. They were previously housed in the loft but given our previous Loft Issues (which I may have mentioned once or twice ) they are either in the bedroom that looks like a storage unit or in the storage space above the garage.
Our utility 'room' is in the garage , which is off the kitchen.. As well as the washing machine and tumble drier, it houses vases, baking tins and extras of cleaning products. It also has my husband’s extensive range of implements to make coffee with plus cups jugs etc. We inherited a load of racking which the previous owner used for the cushions of his extensive range of outdoor furniture. We use it for suitcases, backpacks, and Christmas decorations among other things.
Oh for a utility room. Chez Sioni is an end of terrace with two bedrooms a living room and a conservatory. The nearest thing we have to a utility room is the garage, of which we can see about half of the walls and a quarter of the surface area.
I keep mops and buckets in the downstairs shower cubicle!
When we bought this house we thought that the downstairs extension, complete with loo and shower could become a bedroom if needed. Mr Puzzler refused to use it, preferring to make the effort to get up the stairs, and in any case, the shower cubicle is just too awkward to use. I might ask our plumber if it could be altered but I rather doubt it. So I have found another use for the space.
I'd love to have a utility room. We have visitors from Australia every second year and they still can't get over our washing machine being in our kitchen.
Originally posted by Cheery Gardener: I'm obviously a born sticky beak because I love to hear what people store in their cupboards.
We have a vanity unit over our bathroom sink, which is divided into three small cupboards. It was there when we moved in in 2003. One is mine, one is the NE Man's, and the third holds spare soap / toothpaste etc.
A couple of years ago, the NE Man said that we had run out of toothpaste. I was sure there were spare tubes. The NE Man could not find them. So I opened the cupboard and there they were. In the exact same place they had been for the previous twenty years.
It turned out that the NE Man had not opened that cupboard once in the twenty years we had lived there because he thought it was where I stored my "secret woman stuff." He had no idea what "secret woman stuff" was because, as he pointed out, it's a secret. I asked him what he thought I was keeping secret from the man who had seen me give birth three times, and he didn't know.
What astounded me is that he had left that wee cupboard door closed for TWENTY YEARS!!! If someone told me that a cupboard contained "secret man stuff" I would be straight in there the second he left the house. In fact, I wouldn't even wait for that - I'd invent a reason to get him out of the house ASAP. I'd pour all our milk down the sink or something, just so that he had to go to buy more, and I'd be investigating the "secret man stuff" cupboard faster than a cartoon coyote.
Ah, the terrible power of female secrets. My mother objected to my keeping sanitary towels in the hotpress conveniently next the loo in case my father or brothers might see them and - I don't know - be turned to stone?
Dang. Mr Lamb relies on me to buy all "secret man stuff," as well as "secret woman stuff," "secret kid stuff," and "secret pet stuff." My life has no mysteries. Woe is me.
I'm obviously a born sticky beak because I love to hear what people store in their cupboards.
The coat closet by the front door has become an overflow pantry for bulk items. You buy a month or two's supply of pasta sauce, breakfast cereal, pasta, snacks for school, cat food etc., and then the kids will go and find things when we run out. We used to stash things in the basement, but somehow walking down a flight of stairs was too much of an imposition on their delicate constitutions, so they would end up just choosing to not eat because "there wasn't any food".
It's got winter coats and snowboots in it too, but that's more normal.
Ah, the terrible power of female secrets. My mother objected to my keeping sanitary towels in the hotpress conveniently next the loo in case my father or brothers might see them and - I don't know - be turned to stone?
The NE Man didn't think that the "secret woman stuff" was sanitary protection - I was post menopausal and he was still honourably not opening that door - he thought it was secret woman stuff. Neither of us have the faintest idea of what this "secret woman stuff" might be. He doesn't know because it is, by definition, kept secret from men, and I don't know because if there is secret woman stuff, no-one has let me in on the secret.
Of course it also meant that for 20 years, replacing toothpaste, soap etc had been my sole responsibility as he didn't know where the spares were kept. (Spare toilet rolls are in the hall cupboard, so he did know where those were.)
Originally posted by Piglet: Your intermittent insights into the foibles of the North East marriage always give me a chuckle!
Young women! Are you contemplating marriage to a genius? Read the cautionary tales of North East Quine first, before you find yourself in an alternative universe of magic jumpers, perpetually unopened bathroom cupboards and the mysteries of dust replacement.
(FWIW, there is a highly regarded Professor who moved house. For several weeks after the move his teenage children had a rota of waiting outside the old house so that when he came home they could explain to him that he no longer lived there, and show him to the place he lived now. I've been in groups of wives accompanying their husbands to conferences, and any exchange of husband stories usually ends with "well, at least my husband knows where he lives!")
My study now has curtains and all its furniture. I just need to decide how to accommodate all the “ stuff”. Now the filing cabinet is back in place I need to do a purge on its contents.
It turned out that the NE Man had not opened that cupboard once in the twenty years we had lived there because he thought it was where I stored my "secret woman stuff." He had no idea what "secret woman stuff" was because, as he pointed out, it's a secret. I asked him what he thought I was keeping secret from the man who had seen me give birth three times, and he didn't know.
Enquiring minds are now wondering if the NE Man also thought you had a place for storing "secret woman stuff" in your previous house...
I'm obviously a born sticky beak because I love to hear what people store in their cupboards.
NEVER ASK THAT QUESTION! 😅
The whole point of cupboards is that noone can see what's in them, which is why I refused to have glass-fronted ones in the kitchen when it was redone (many years ago now).
We don't have a utility room either. The soap nuts (which we use instead of laundry liquid) are piled rather untidily on top of the microwave, and the rest of the things you have all been listing are either in the under-sink cupboard or somewhere in the understairs cupboard, where things we don't use very often go to die.
And we are going to have to empty them all. Aargh!
If I did know what 'secret woman stuff' was, I certainly wouldn't post it on the Internet. It wouldn't be secret anymore!
@North East Quine just as well you're not married to Bluebeard, you wouldn't last five minutes 😅
I take the view that life is too short to dig through all of Mr R's 'secret man stuff'. There are whole rooms of it because he never throws anything away. I'm just glad that most of it is confined to two rooms that I don't have to go into.
(FWIW, there is a highly regarded Professor who moved house. For several weeks after the move his teenage children had a rota of waiting outside the old house so that when he came home they could explain to him that he no longer lived there, and show him to the place he lived now. I've been in groups of wives accompanying their husbands to conferences, and any exchange of husband stories usually ends with "well, at least my husband knows where he lives!")
I find this completely understandable. I have done this. When we moved to the US, we lived in an apartment for a year, and then moved to a rented house. My drive home from work went past the apartment complex. On several occasions, I automatically parked in the apartment complex before I remembered that we didn't live there any more.
I also routinely get distracted by a passing thought at a critical moment, and end up driving to work on autopilot with a child sitting next to me wondering why we aren't heading towards school, or the ballet studio, or wherever I'm supposed to be taking them.
I have a lovely ornate Asian piece in my living room. People often say, "Oh what a lovely piece of furniture." Inside I have my stack of plastic containers and tops, my blender, spare dog dishes, a couple of pitchers, and my air fryer.
Your intermittent insights into the foibles of the North East marriage always give me a chuckle!
Me too.
I grew up in a house where women's sanitary stuff wasn't mentioned - my mum and I were the only females and I guess we just kept the conversations between ourselves and the stuff was never kept in the only bathroom (shared also by my father and my two older brothers). I guess subconsciously I thought men never really noticed these things, until one day the subject of Those Times In The Month came up with our two teenagers and our son commented, "Yeah... when the bin in the bathroom fills up really quickly."
Comments
The table was offered to other family members but no one was interested in it, so Cheery husband set about re-using it. We were able to score some drawer units from the Swedish shop's ex-display section, and the table top was added with timber sides constructed to hide the drawer units. It looked like an oversized coffee table. Now the top has been removed, a large tray added on top of the drawers and then the top re attached with (almost) standing desk hinges affixing the table top to the new tray. It can be moved out of the way to give access to the tray section and Cheery husband is re-attaching the original table skirt back on to the table top to disguise the walls of the new tray section.
It is nice to be re-using the table-top and putting it to good use to improve the look of what is essentially a large storage chest. Both boys in my house love their Lego and as Cheery husband's Grandfather was keen on hobbies himself, we hope he would approve.
Meanwhile, my husband has grudgingly agreed that it might be a good idea to start packing up his beloved model railway.
So, since moving furniture to see if it had gone underneath or behind anything had become inevitable I steeled myself to deal with the stored recycling and the cleaning/re-sorting/rearranging of the bags and boxes.
The pedometer is still AWOL, but numerous neglected places are a lot cleaner.
Thank you. I've now ordered a new one... I'll report back if the old one turns up!
Sorting and tidying here have stalled of late. Five months post-move I still have boxes on the floor of my study as I'm waiting for a new set of bookshelves to house my files (they lived in boxes under my desk in my previous, smaller, study and I vowed that wasn't to happen here). I spoke to Mr Nen about this
We have finally (after some delays with the supplier) taken delivery of some more cupboards for the utility room, where we are badly lacking storage space, and they are being fitted next week.
Unfortunately I can’t manage to get my office chair through the doorways, so can’t sit at my desk yet. Sorting books and CDs can wait.
My son is coming on Friday so I hope he can help.
More cupboards in the utility room are installed - very pleased with them. I can see there will be Negotiations about who keeps what in them...
Washing powder/pods
Colour catcher sheets
Fabric softener if you use it
Clothes pegs if you use them
Dryer sheets if you don't
Iron
Kitchen roll
Bog roll
Candles
Batteries
Light bulbs
If it's a really big room, Christmas decorations?
I'm obviously a born sticky beak because I love to hear what people store in their cupboards. Our bathroom vanity cupboard is very narrow front to back and so we store a lot of overflow in our laundry cupboard which is quite large. Shampoos, body wash, toothpaste, loo rolls bottles of liquid hand soap and only keep the immediately in use things in the bathroom,
Laundry cupboard also has a section for gardening stuff and cat littler cleanup stuff. Otherwise it's shoe cleaning, cleaning liquids and furniture polishes of various kinds, insect sprays and cloths for cleaning, along with paintbrushes (for dusting) and toothbrushes (for cleaning the track of the shower door). I have a couple of jars of lavender which I sprinkle around occasionally and rubber gloves. We also have a spare light fitting on the very top shelf, it was one we took out of son's room when he requested something different. I figure it is always handy to have a spare.
We don't for some reason keep lightbulbs in the laundry, I think Cheery husband has kept those in the walk in wardrobe, where he has tidy boxes of cables at one end of the wardrobe. As it is his stuff I try not to get involved.
Almost forgot to mention there is also laundry liquid and powder soaker for stains kept there.
Mr Puzzler bought in bulk, so I am still getting through some of his excesses. Just one more box of tissues left, but dozens of light bulbs.
Of this list:
Yes, most of those things - we are blessed with much cupboard space in the new kitchen so spare kitchen roll and toilet rolls (and boxes of tissues) go in the large one we affectionately call "the pantry". Currently in the cupboards of the utility room are some cleaning products and sink plungers in the one under the sink and, in the one that was already on the wall when we came, I have flower vases and stock cupboard things like toothpastes, deodorants, shampoos, orchid feed liquid, washing machine cleaner. In the small one next to the washing machine I have things washing-related: my laundry liquids, limescale reducing tablets, scent booster pearls.
We have, however, lost both utility space and understairs cupboard space and are currently struggling for places to put things like mops and buckets, dustpans and brushes and the vacuum cleaner. Many shoes also lived in our previous utility room: hence the recent addition of a second shoe rack to our kitchen.
Mr Nen started negotiations this morning about the new cupboards in the utility room, into which he will be after putting things like heavy-duty hand cleaner, white spirit, paint brushes, many small containers of things like washers and screws and nails and other unidentifiable bits, pots of old toothbrushes and cleaning scrubs; if allowed a free rein, things like pots of paint and car cleaning equipment may be added.
I am currently unclear about the whereabouts of our Christmas decorations. They were previously housed in the loft but given our previous Loft Issues (which I may have mentioned once or twice
When we bought this house we thought that the downstairs extension, complete with loo and shower could become a bedroom if needed. Mr Puzzler refused to use it, preferring to make the effort to get up the stairs, and in any case, the shower cubicle is just too awkward to use. I might ask our plumber if it could be altered but I rather doubt it. So I have found another use for the space.
Originally posted by Cheery Gardener:
I'm obviously a born sticky beak because I love to hear what people store in their cupboards.
We have a vanity unit over our bathroom sink, which is divided into three small cupboards. It was there when we moved in in 2003. One is mine, one is the NE Man's, and the third holds spare soap / toothpaste etc.
A couple of years ago, the NE Man said that we had run out of toothpaste. I was sure there were spare tubes. The NE Man could not find them. So I opened the cupboard and there they were. In the exact same place they had been for the previous twenty years.
It turned out that the NE Man had not opened that cupboard once in the twenty years we had lived there because he thought it was where I stored my "secret woman stuff." He had no idea what "secret woman stuff" was because, as he pointed out, it's a secret. I asked him what he thought I was keeping secret from the man who had seen me give birth three times, and he didn't know.
What astounded me is that he had left that wee cupboard door closed for TWENTY YEARS!!! If someone told me that a cupboard contained "secret man stuff" I would be straight in there the second he left the house. In fact, I wouldn't even wait for that - I'd invent a reason to get him out of the house ASAP. I'd pour all our milk down the sink or something, just so that he had to go to buy more, and I'd be investigating the "secret man stuff" cupboard faster than a cartoon coyote.
The coat closet by the front door has become an overflow pantry for bulk items. You buy a month or two's supply of pasta sauce, breakfast cereal, pasta, snacks for school, cat food etc., and then the kids will go and find things when we run out. We used to stash things in the basement, but somehow walking down a flight of stairs was too much of an imposition on their delicate constitutions, so they would end up just choosing to not eat because "there wasn't any food".
It's got winter coats and snowboots in it too, but that's more normal.
The NE Man didn't think that the "secret woman stuff" was sanitary protection - I was post menopausal and he was still honourably not opening that door - he thought it was secret woman stuff. Neither of us have the faintest idea of what this "secret woman stuff" might be. He doesn't know because it is, by definition, kept secret from men, and I don't know because if there is secret woman stuff, no-one has let me in on the secret.
Of course it also meant that for 20 years, replacing toothpaste, soap etc had been my sole responsibility as he didn't know where the spares were kept. (Spare toilet rolls are in the hall cupboard, so he did know where those were.)
Originally posted by Piglet:
Your intermittent insights into the foibles of the North East marriage always give me a chuckle!
Young women! Are you contemplating marriage to a genius? Read the cautionary tales of North East Quine first, before you find yourself in an alternative universe of magic jumpers, perpetually unopened bathroom cupboards and the mysteries of dust replacement.
Enquiring minds are now wondering if the NE Man also thought you had a place for storing "secret woman stuff" in your previous house...
NEVER ASK THAT QUESTION! 😅
The whole point of cupboards is that noone can see what's in them, which is why I refused to have glass-fronted ones in the kitchen when it was redone (many years ago now).
We don't have a utility room either. The soap nuts (which we use instead of laundry liquid) are piled rather untidily on top of the microwave, and the rest of the things you have all been listing are either in the under-sink cupboard or somewhere in the understairs cupboard, where things we don't use very often go to die.
And we are going to have to empty them all. Aargh!
I expect it's the sealskin which, if discovered, will cause you to resume your selkie form and return to the sea.
@North East Quine just as well you're not married to Bluebeard, you wouldn't last five minutes 😅
I take the view that life is too short to dig through all of Mr R's 'secret man stuff'. There are whole rooms of it because he never throws anything away. I'm just glad that most of it is confined to two rooms that I don't have to go into.
I find this completely understandable. I have done this. When we moved to the US, we lived in an apartment for a year, and then moved to a rented house. My drive home from work went past the apartment complex. On several occasions, I automatically parked in the apartment complex before I remembered that we didn't live there any more.
I also routinely get distracted by a passing thought at a critical moment, and end up driving to work on autopilot with a child sitting next to me wondering why we aren't heading towards school, or the ballet studio, or wherever I'm supposed to be taking them.
Habit is a powerful thing.
Habit is your best friend or your worst enemy.
Me too.
I grew up in a house where women's sanitary stuff wasn't mentioned - my mum and I were the only females and I guess we just kept the conversations between ourselves and the stuff was never kept in the only bathroom (shared also by my father and my two older brothers). I guess subconsciously I thought men never really noticed these things, until one day the subject of Those Times In The Month came up with our two teenagers and our son commented, "Yeah... when the bin in the bathroom fills up really quickly."