Week Two, the report

Things have been accomplished this week, I'm pleased to say. Perhaps not quite all I'd planned for the kitchen actually happened, but so much more happened in the storage room that it's a happy trade-off.


First, the kitchen. Return with me to those less-than-thrilling days of yesteryear (two weeks ago), when the kitchen looked like this:

It now looks like this:

I hope you can see the difference (I apologize for the lack of light -- the fluorescent tubes in the kitchen gave up the ghost yesterday, after years of sterling service). Although you can't see it, most of the grout has been given a first pass with a soapy toothbrush (it needs more work, but it's way better than it was), the counter has been scrubbed with Blackie Brushhead (Reddy is just for dishes, Blackie's for sinks and counters), and although it, too, needs more work, it's better than it was. The extra "stuff" that was cluttering the counterspace has been either trashed, Outboxed, or put away. The water filter has at least made it out of the cupboard, and to a spot next to the sink, awaiting the day when I actually remember to buy new filters for it. The dishtowels (both the clock one visible in one of the pictures linked below, and the key one visible here, are not my optimal choices, but they'll do for now.)


To see the After pictures of the inside of the cupboards, please click here and here.


Now, what else has happened during this week? Yesterday, my amazing friend C, who deserves a medal, or perhaps a knighthood (okay, make that dame-hood, since she's a she), came and carted away all of the Outbox and Adjunct Outbox (the interior stuff). Some things have already made their way into the Outbox since she left at 1 p.m. yesterday afternoon:

The Outbox Annex was heftily depleted (although the trash remains for another day -- everything was covered with water after the snow melted, so we left the drippy trash bags to another, hopefully drier, day):

AND (dramatic drum roll, please) we dealt with the stuff on top of the trunk, and the trunk itself! If you will recall, in my original plan I thought I *might* get to the trunk by the last week of the Hybrid Cure. Scroll way down in that linked post for a clear appreciation of my dread of dealing with the trunk.


We finished the task in a little over an hour, and that's including several stops while I exclaimed with delight over things I found in the process (for example, my favorite childhood picture books, long lamented as lost -- I didn't know Mum had kept them!) More trash, more Outbox, some keepers, some things that were immediately designated as things a friend or family member would love. There's much more work to be done on the storage room, of course. In the following picture, the trunk has been dragged to the center of the room, to make it easier for the guys to take it out when they come over to do that and to put up the shelving units, and I need to deal with the things that came out of the trunk and the suitcases that were on top of it, but -- after that, the rest of the storage room work will be PUTTING THINGS AWAY!!!! (Can you see me pumping my fist in the air? This is going much easier than I'd anticipated. I am so relieved.)

As a reminder, here's the Before picture of that end of the Storage Room:

And here's an Interim (not an After, as yet) picture of the Storage Room (which needs a new name):

I'm eager to post the Before pic of the entryway closet and get on with that work, but that's a task for tomorrow. Enough is as good as a feast. Or something.