Winter cleaning...

Yesterday I had a day off.... a whole day, with no work, Boofy at work and Alex in child care...  Ordinarily on these days, I schedule myself to within an inch of my life!  There is always something to be done, and I fill my whole day with tasks.  This time, I was determined not to do that, but just have a day to myself at home.  Don't get me wrong, I still had things to do, I just decided that I wasn't leaving the house!!

My main concern yesterday was getting our linen cupboard cleared out.  You see, for some time, I have been looking at this...

And a close up of just how crammed in things were...

We've recently had a cold snap here (as with just about everywhere on the east coast I think) so I decided it was time to break out the flannelette sheets - it is not really cold enough here for electric blankets (and I hate the way they make you feel in the morning anyway - all lethargic and blah!) but flannelette sheets are nice and cosy - just right for this climate in winter!


So anyways, I went looking for said flannelette sheets... I have special boxes for them in the garage, because our linen cupboard is not that big, and cannot hold summer and winter sheets all at once (along with all my other crap!)... but I could only find one set per bed (we have a king, queen and single bed in this house).  I figured I need at least 2 per bed, 3 for Alex's, and I was pretty sure I had that many, but could not find them for love nor money!  I had asked Boofy to bring me all the boxes I'd carefully labelled at the end of last winter, and they just weren't there!  Only one set per bed.  So I figured they must be in my linen cupboard.  Time to tackle it!

I made the decision that if I was really going to do this, I needed to take the doors off so it would be access all areas and I could really see what was going on in there.  So this is what I was faced with after removing the doors...

I started to pull it all out and stack it on the dining room table, and that's when it became apparent just how much stuff I had crammed into this cupboard!!!  I wish I'd taken a photo of absolutely everything out in the dining room, but I forgot!  Ooops!  (I wouldn't have been able to fit it all in one photo anyway!)

I was at about this stage when a friend dropped around for a cup of tea, so I stopped for about an hour so we could catch up and sit down for a bit.  When we moved onto the second cuppa, I decided to chat while I worked (or I knew I would lose all motivation!)  So she handed me the things to put away and I got started putting it all back.

After a while my friend left, and I was left to my own devices again.  I continued putting things away, and there were lots of things that I decided didn't really need to live there after all - such as the chair pads that were down the bottom (in the first photo).  They are for the outdoor setting and as I said, its getting cool, so I decided to pack those away into plastic tubs in the garage with some fragrant sachets, ready for next spring.  I also changed over the sheets in the cupboard, putting my summer cotton ones into plastic tubs as well.  This gave me quite a bit more room.  There was lots of stuff I decided I could live without as well, so that all went in the donation pile to take to the Lifeline op shop.

But remember I mentioned the disappearance of my flannelette sheets?  Well I still hadn't found them after pulling the whole cupboard apart....  so I headed out to the garage, and eventually found them in more unmarked tubs!  I had washed them and put them with fragrant sachets at the end of last winter, so they were still nice and fresh.  I took them all out and put them away in the cupboard (the sets I found last week are already on the beds!)

So after I'd put what I needed to into plastic tubs for storage....  And put away what was going into the linen cupboard, I was still left with this.....

This pile is what I decided to donate - its all very usuable bed and table linen, save for a couple of sheets which I didn't donate but added to the drop sheet pile in the garage... they were virtually threadbare, my favourite old 100% cotton sheets - definitely not fit for donation!

I dispersed all the other stuff to the places it needed to go (special baskets in the spare room for the blankets, or into plastic tubs in the garage).  And then surveyed my new linen cupboard...  It was fabulous, but I decided if I wanted it to stay that way, I needed to label the shelves, or Boofy would shove stuff back wherever and I'd be cleaning it out again in another 3 months!

Since these shelves are going to be painted (one day) I just used hand written paper stuck on with sticky tape.  When Boofy actually paints them, I will devise a more long term and less damaging solution!

So just a reminder, here is what I started with...

And here is how it finished up...

Not bad eh?  Here are my little labels to assist Boofy (and me) in keeping it tidy...

It actually took me most of the day in the end, but I didn't mind.  I did it at my own pace, and listened to some great music while I worked, so it was all good.

Have you done any spring winter cleaning lately?  Or am I the only crazy one that does things back to front?  I know its not the most exciting of topics, hopefully you're still awake!! Lol...  I was just happy to finally have a clean linen cupboard where I could actually find things!

Bye for now :)