New Joint Venture Blog!!!

For a few years now the Paisley and I have had our very own blogs chronicling different things in our lives.

I believe hers is way more organised than mine, however.

That kind of leads me to our joint venture. Organisation.

The Pais has been reading a lot of blog lately about minimalisation and we have been clearing our home of unnecessary clutter for a few months now.

I'd have to say we have done a good job in getting rid of things in our life that we just don't need anymore.

I won't go into detail here. That  is the purpose of the new blog. The new one is simply titled: Enuff Stuff: Confessions of our Possessions. I had actually wanted it to read: "Enuff Stuff: True confessions of possession whores" but the Paisley wasn't having any of that!! Not that she is opposed to the word whore (since we freely throw it around in reference to my ex), she was just looking for something that conveyed we are consumer hogs in a more professional sounding manner.

Please take the time to click on over and have a read. This is where you can watch us transform our home and our lives to be more independent of consumerism that we as Americans are driven to believe we need to be.

We will still maintain and continue to write on our seperate blogs. Don't worry. There will always be material to read from your favourite Kilted Agent.

Happy Reading!

Storage Unit Declutter; Bath Time for Bon Jovi

So the blog has still been hit or miss so far this year. I have written on more of a regular basis than I did last year, but it's still lacking by the terms I had set for myself.

So this past weekend was a busy one. No kids at home this weekend. Thank their mom for that one. Oh well. It was actually nice to have an extra weekend without them. They are at that age where a roll of duct tape across their mouths would be a good idea. They are 15 (16 next month!) and 14. One is emo.

So this past weekend with no one to run after and keep tabs on the Paisley and I were out in our on site storage unit clearing out more clutter from our lives. At our condo every one has an on site storage unit. It's nice to have and not have to rent one somewhere. They vary in size. They were'nt all built equally. Some are bigger than ours and some are smaller. Ours is ok. It's 9'x9' and has a ceiling clearance of about 10'-11'.

There was a time where it just had "stuff" in it. Stuff that had accumulated during the relationship to the first Ms. Kilted One. Some of it she took with her. Good riddence. To both.

So then the wonderful Paisley has lots of stuff. So much that at one point the storage was filled floor to ceiling and right up to the door. Literally. Those days are gone. Due to some purging and some natural disasters (a neighbours water tank leaked into our storage at one point) we've gotten rid of quite a bit.

And here is the (nearly) final results of our labour!! You can actually see the floor. The only thing on the floor is a hand truck, a table with some train track and my R2-D2 soda cooler. There are still more things to get rid of, but they are sitting on the shelf in their own containers and can be sold on eBay in a timely manner now that we can find/get to them easier. This makes me smile. I'm hoping to actually be able to clear up another 1/3 of this space and be able to say that I have room to spare.

The poor little guy sitting in the shower and behaving.

The day started out however with our little Bon Jovi getting a bath. Poor little bugger. He's so good about it. He really needed it done this time too. We recently had to have his anal glands expressed and that really smells and it made him smell.

Funny that we've had him for about 3 years now and we've never had to have that done until now.

There was also a run to our local Goodwill to donate said items that have been purged from our lives for good. I also had a friend that was willing to take a filing cabinet that I've been using as a bed side table for a few years now.

We have accomplished quite a bit in just a few short weeks, but there is still some more to be done. In a few weeks we take a trip down to Oregon to get away for our 6 year anniversary, but when we come back we will be taking on the storage closet on our back porch. That one is getting a bit crowede and could use some clearing out.

Keep watching for updates on the progress.

Decluttering Part II: the computer nook

The next phase of our declutter and organisation was to dismantle a computer nook that  I had created a few years ago. With the purchase of a laptop it had outlived it's usefulness.

This is the computer nook just before I took everything apart.

So today I set about making sure I had everything off the old desktop and started to dismantle it. Then the shelf had to come down. Not such a big deal until I pulled it off the wall and lost some of the mud off the wall. Some patching is now in order to set the wall right. I just have I hope I have enough of the paint on hand to touch it up after the patching dries.

This is the computer nook now that everything is gone. You can see the patching on the corner of the wall. I just don't know what we'll do with the space that we've taken back in our dining room.

I do like the fact that we've been pretty successful this year in getting the clutter out of the house and taking back our space. The added bonus is that in a few years when we look to sell we will have less stuff to move.

More to look at later when I have the last of the baseboard molding up in the living room.