Tag: Almost done

House Next Door: The Dreaded Downstairs Kitchen

My younger kids are back in school today. My teaching won’t take off till next week, so today I dropped the kids off at school, came home and headed next door.

We really just have two rooms left, but they are a bit tricky. I didn’t have the trailer today and most of the stuff in the back bedroom is bulky enough that just needs to be thrown straight into the trailer. I bagged up as much loose stuff as I could.

We still have a closet of clothes that haven’t been gone through. But, I’m going to let my daughter go through them first and then just toss them straight into the trailer.

After that, I headed into the kitchen. Andy has already done a lot of work in here. There is a lot of glassware that is keepable, but we need to pack it into boxes so it won’t all break. Haven’t done that yet.

I threw away everything that was plastic and aluminum. There was an extensive amount of original Tupperware in the house. Nothing that I would want to store food in any more.

Unfortunately, there were still some cupboards with food stuff in them. I tried to look for dates and there werent any. So, old enough that they hadn’t put expiration dates yet.

That cupboard was not too bad. Mostly all glass jars and rusted out cans. I was standing up, lots of space around me, squeamish but doable.

Then I got to this cupboard..

It is in the island and I had to sit down on a stool with my back up against a cart and the bag right next to my legs and the cupboard was really deep so I had to reach way back to get stuff. I found myself whimpering and by the time I was done, I was shaking. I left one line of cans in the very back of the bottom shelf because in order to reach it I would have had to kneel down on the floor and stick my head in. Couldn’t do it. There is still one more food cupboard on the other end of the island, but I didn’t have it in me to do it today. Also, still have two fridges that need emptying.

I need an empty trailer and probably my husband there for moral support to finish off this kitchen and back bedroom. Getting so close to being done with the clean out!

House Next Door: I can do Hard Things

Today I went next door with my husband and two youngest sons, ie, “the little boys”. The little boys acted as runners for me since I was working upstairs. They carried all the keepable stuff down the stairs to the bedroom we’ve set aside for that purpose. Andy tackled the bathroom upstairs and I tackled the kitchen and pantry closet in the kitchen and the boys helped with the upstairs hallway.

Here’s the upstairs hallway:

And then after.

Here’s the kitchen:

In this pic Andy is the bathroom doorway. This is of course the upstairs kitchen that hasn’t been used in I don’t know how long. The fridge still has food in it though, but its been so long that there is no longer a smell. If that makes any sense. I did not clean out the fridge.

There’s also a pantry closet.

The kitchen wasn’t too bad, but the pantry closet still had old food in it, or rather, old rusted out cans and boxes that had been demolished by time and rodents. Speaking of. I had Andy move the dresser out the pantry and I opened the drawers. Noticed a mouse nest, threw it away, and then shortly after saw a big fat mouse go running across the kitchen floor. Which made me scream and the little boys came running and then they said they hoped another mouse would run out so they could see it. The mouse made the rest of the cleaning more stressful as I did not want any creature to jump out of something I was moving and perhaps run up my arm or over my foot or really just get anywhere close to me. Fortunately no more mice were spotted.

And then the kitchen mostly done.

Andy did the bathroom.

While cleaning the bathroom he found these.

And here its done.

We didn’t have our trailer today so we piled up things by the upstairs window to be thrown down later and then had our garbage bag pile. Definitely a full trailer load.

We wrapped all that up and then I came back home to jump in the shower. Only to discover that the little boys had just started their showers so I had to wait. So I sat on my back deck and pondered how much we have completed in one year. Just working at random times when we have had a free day. That upstairs kitchen and bathroom were rooms I had been gladly avoiding as they just seemed so gross and overwhelming. And now they are done. I have decided this house project is going to be my easy reminder that I can do hard things.