I have a date! And cleaning to get ready for it.

It’s nothing lame like dinner and a movie.* It’s gonna work like this. At the end of the month, Mario comes in. He’ll have another guy or two with him. I hand him a bank envelope. They’ll be in and out in about 2 hours. Wham. Bam. All the walls in my entire house will be taped and mudded. They come back the next day and do it again. The day after that they sand.

*Note: any time I claim to have no interest in actual dating, I’m probably lying. Probably.

So this means that (1) my house is almost ready for finish work. Everywhere. And (2) I have a lot of tedious odd jobs to finish before this can happen. The drywall has to be completely finished. Not almost finished. And… the house needs to be empty. The tapers will be running around on stilts. January 31st sounded like it was ages ago when we set the date… not so much anymore.

First thing to declutter is what I maybe shouldn’t have had in the first place. 9 extra doors that I took because they were free and because they’re too pretty to get thrown out. They’re now listed on craigslist. I sold this one, which was original to a house on my street, to a friend on the next street over. Her block and mine have identical houses so I’m glad I at least hooked her up with the perfect door! The rest, I’ve decided I’ve been a hoarder long enough. I could put them in the basement, but if I can’t sell them (or maybe even give them away) I’ll truck them up to Philadelphia Salvage myself. At least that saves them from the landfill.

Then this weekend, sorting all the crap. I tidied up the basement so I could fill it more, and then brought everything in the whole house into the living room. And then I just stared at it.

But a few rounds of putting tools back into their cases, consolidating boxes of screws, breaking up useless cardboard things, bagging up filthy clothes and rags, etc. and it wasn’t so bad.

I won’t leave the city anymore without filling my car with stuff  I don’t need anymore. Hopefully my dad is glad to get his stuff back! Because you can see trees in this photo. You know I’m not parked in South Philly.

And the best part? A lot of the random crap I found is stuff I bought but didn’t end up using. Or stuff I think my plumber left there but I’m not sure because I don’t recognize it. Here it is, all piled up by the door. Gotta love Home Depot’s no questions asked return policy! (Obviously I’ll be getting store credit for some of this – if they accept it at all)

So there, the house is a lot more manageable now. 3 weeks and 2 weekends to be ready for the tapers doesn’t sound so bad after all.