Winter Cleaning

Back in January of 2014 hubby and I started on the successful journey of home-ownership.  We searched and searched and in May settled on a small, three bedroom, one bathroom house built ninety-five years ago.  It's a small little place but it was in our price range, in an adorable community, boasted updated windows, roof, and hot water heater, had a fenced-in backyard, and a really cute front porch (my favorite part of the house!).  It was in desperate need of some cosmetic work so before we moved in at the end of June we painted EVERY ROOM IN THE HOUSE, ripped up all the carpet, and got the wooden floors cleaned and re-sealed.  We moved in and spent the rest of the summer unpacking things, setting up our home, making daily trips to Home Depot, and doing everything else new home owners are supposed to do.  

We've gotten every room of the house set up except for the two spare bedrooms.  They currently serve as our spillover rooms for everything we didn't know what to do with, couldn't find a place for, and were undecided as to whether we wanted to keep or not.  We're turning one room into a little den that houses hubby's movie and DVD collections.  It'll be a place were we can go, sit, relax, read, listen to music, put a puzzle together, etc.  And at some point hopefully it'll be a little play room.  The other bedroom, which we started calling the nursery (now known as the green room), will be cleaned out to hopefully one day serve its intended purpose.

This past Saturday, we worked for a few hours on getting both those rooms cleaned up and ready to go.  I worked on the green room and this was the first time since we found out we would miscarry that I spent any significant amount of time in there.  We have a rocking chair that my mom used when I was little and I've had the chair with me for years and plan to use it when we have children, but for now it just sits there happily waiting for someone who needs it.  Before I started my cleaning I sat down in that big comfy chair and just rocked while looking around at the room and thinking of all the plans that quickly got put on hold.  I hugged a blanket that hubby gave me at Christmas (it was addressed to 'mommy and baby' from 'daddy') and teared up.

That's how hubby found me.  He came in, gave me a nice little squeeze and a kiss and said his comforting phrase, "we'll be alright."  I nodded my head, smiled, got up and started cleaning.

I spent much of the subsequent few hours going through boxes and bags, setting aside things for Goodwill, and consolidating things into storage boxes to be put into the basement.  I wish I could tell you we finished and both rooms look great, but I'd be lying.  We still have stuff that needs to be sorted and our hallway now houses our "to be donated" pile; but it's a work in progress....much like our lives.

The before photos...

Hubby's room

The green room

After photos coming, hopefully before spring.