A Cat Nap

Well, it’s summertime, and somehow it seems that for me summer and home organization/improvement seem to go together.

Last year, I renovated the bedroom - painting the walls a lavish, dark red, and adding real bed and dresser furniture, care of my lovely momma. There are still a few upgrades I want to add to the bedroom - a new mattress, for one, a few more bins/baskets for some excess clothes we tend to keep out, and some wall art. I dream of getting this nice space-saving sewing workstation, too. Admittedly, it’s not the same color as our current bedroom furniture, but it folds up small (essential in a NYC apartment), and it’s on wheels, so I can easily wheel it out to the living room if the hubby is sleeping. Maybe I can get it later this year for my birthday (I’ll be 25!) or our 2 year anniversary.

This year, Husband and I are both spending lots and lots of time at home. He’s been working from home for a year and a half now, and now it looks like I’ll be joining him. I work from home many hours a week on T! stuff, and I also do data analysis for the lab from here too. If I start pursuing freelance science writing, I’ll be doing that from home as well.  This also means we use the kitchen more since I’m home more to cook and prep food. (Husband typically feeds himself, but rarely chooses to cook anything elaborate.) We’ve accumulated a fair number of things that no longer fit on our various media shelves, and we also have new business related things that we need to store. So I’ve been thinking mostly about how I can upgrade the living room and the kitchen.  Finally, I’ve also just been thinking about what our living patterns have evolved into and how we could make more efficient and fun use of our living space.

So today I made up an organizing list. I started by writing out everything I could think of that needs a place to store. I categorized them by room, including closets as rooms. Then I thought about what we actually use daily, monthly, or only seasonally, and planned the storage location accordingly - making the things we use most often the most easily accessible. Next, I considered what would be the best storage solution for each item - drawers, boxes, bins, or shelves. I chose drawers or open-lidded boxes or bins for things we use often, and boxes and shelves for everything else. Things used only seasonally will be stored in lidded boxes on high shelves, in closets and out of the way.

I’ve picked out items and made a plan for everything. Now to buy the storage furniture and containers - a little at a time. Even though I can’t buy it all right now, I enjoy planning and organizing so much that I don’t care. I ordered a little bit of it, some really cheap organizers from Amazon.com, and I’m on my way to more efficient living…

A friend of mine was recently talking about how she splits up various household chores with her husband, and so I’ve been thinking about it myself. I thought I’d share it here because it’s interesting to me how different things work for different people. To give you an idea of how long we’ve been working on our own balance of chores: Husband and I have been living together for 3.5 years but have only had our own apartment and the chores that go with that for 2 and a half years. And we’ve been married for a year and change :-D.

For Husband and I, it’s always a bit hard to tell if we’re splitting work equally, because we both tend to consider not only effort but pleasure or nuisance level as well, and our individual perceptions of that are not straightforward. So instead of just saying “You spend x hours and I spend y hours and they’re even (or not)” we look at how much we like or dislike those hours.

With cleaning, this has led to an imbalance in hours spent because Husband has a much lower cleanliness threshold than I do. It’s hard to make him clean a room constantly and in a timely manner when I can tell the disorderliness doesn’t disturb him at all. So I settle for asking him to help clean up sometimes, when it reaches a level that I dislike, and he doesn’t mind, although sometimes he’ll ask to do it later in the day. It’s like that for lots of chores - I can get him to split cleaning the dishes (no dishwasher) with me, but it requires that I not mind them sitting there for up to a day. Sometimes, I just feel like I don’t mind it as much - I don’t always see it as a nuisance (sometimes I even find it a bit relaxing), so why should I make him do it when it’s clear he really dislikes it? So I guess we maybe split the dishes like 10% him 90% me in the long run, unless I’m going through a stressful time and ask him to help with it more.

However, he does help out with things that he doesn’t enjoy doing. We don’t have laundry in our building so we drop it off a few blocks away and pick it up the next day or two. We agree for him to do it because neither of us likes it but it requires lugging a heavy cart up two flights of stairs on the way back.  He always makes the phone calls (deliveries, bill pay issues, troubleshooting, etc) and takes the trash out (down the stairs and around the building into the alley…fun).

He never cooks dinner for us both (maybe once a year he’ll make a tortilla pizza that he gets into), but I don’t cook when I don’t want to. He either makes himself something simple (his menu options are usually: ravioli; beans, cheese, tortillas; cereal and milk) or orders food. He’s a creature of habit so this is good enough for him. He never asks me what’s for dinner, and genuinely treats it as a special thing when I do make dinner, even when I do it as often as 2 or 3 times a week. But the rest of the time we just take care of ourselves for food. Sometimes if he wants something and I only sort of want it, I’ll agree to make it if he keeps me company in the kitchen, but he doesn’t help cook. We just talk while I do the work.

So our cake-cutting algorithm has led us to this, for most household chores: It likely won’t get done if I don’t ask for it to be done. Sometimes it’s done better and faster if I do it myself (cleaning bathroom, floors, dishes; cooking). But, he always acknowledges the work that I do, and would never, ever ask me to do any of it because he wanted it done. He says thanks when I do different things around the house, and I make sure to do the same for him, even when they’re small things. (i.e. Thanks sweetie for remembering to refill the ice cube trays!) This definitely helps us to avoid feeling unappreciated.

My point is, if you just look at what he does and what I do with regards to cooking and cleaning, it would seem uneven. But, we talk about it often enough, and he takes on some chores I don’t enjoy and runs various errands for us both. We’ve tried out arrangements where he did higher amounts of housework, but I was constantly being the household manager and it just didn’t feel right to me because it was adding stress. He always appreciates when I do do things and never minds or asks about them when I don’t do them, so up to now, this has worked for me.

A big thing is we don’t have kids yet, so who knows what will happen then?!

What is your household chore split up like, or if you live alone, what would you think is acceptable?

We just learned that one of our deliveries was supposedly delivered on Thursday.  That means they left it outside our door again.  And this time, it had fun things in it, so it’s gone.  Woohoo!

There is now a sign on the outside of our apartment building bearing the symbol of the NYC Police Dept, with a clip-art picture of a cat burglar, warning us that there have been numerous apartment break-ins recently in the area and that tenants should be extra careful and reported any suspicious activity to 911.  We found this sign the day after one of our packages which had been left outside our apartment door (which they are NOT supposed to do) was opened when I found it.  Good thing it happened to be the package with the $10 cake caddy instead of the much more exciting video games that we are expecting to be delivered.  This was not the first time a package had merely been left on our doorstep - even those that require a signature are sometimes merely left outside our door or with a random neighbor whom we’ve never met.  But this was the first time that our suspicion, that this wasn’t safe here, was confirmed.  And then the very next day I see the sign on the building’s door. Lovely.  Perhaps we’d better start looking for some renter’s insurance, so at least we’ll be insured against theft.

So lately I’ve really been wanting a baby.  I’ve written about this before; it’s been particularly strong this month.  I think one reason might be because they refilled my birth control prescription with a different generic brand, and even though it’s supposed to all be the same, they do have different effects sometimes.  I’ve been having various unwell feelings all month (like nausea, sweating, and headaches) that can be explained by hormonal changes, so I suspect that this brand is affecting me.

In addition to the feeling that hormones are really affecting my body, a new couple-friend whom I met last spring and kept in touch with all summer is having a baby.  Like right now, as we speak.   I visited their apartment earlier this week, and when I walked into the bedroom and saw the empty crib and the baby swing and other stuff all ready for the baby’s arrival, I felt so emotional that tears came to my eyes.  Lately I think about what a wonderful father Husband will be and what a wonderful mommy I will be, and I just can’t wait to bring a little being into the world, our little being.

We are, of course, far from being able to afford it right now, as we are in more debt than just credit-card at the moment.  I get a stipend payment in September, and I shall be using it to pay overdue rent and rent for the whole semester too, so that will eat up most of the check.  Still, as depressing as it is to barely see the money, it’s good that it is enough to pay both our back rent and our rent through December, so we will feel much better once that is taken care of.  Living in NYC and a fairly minimal life, the rent is by far our largest expense.  All week I have been visiting and talking to new students who have just moved into apartments through the campus housing office, and although their apartments are cheap for the neighborhood, I can’t help but feel that since we struggle to pay our rent out here in our burrough of the city, we just couldn’t have afforded a one bedroom on campus.  Our rent is only 2/3rd that of the average rent for a one bedroom through campus housing, which in itself is probably only 3/4 of the rent of a one bedroom in the neighborhood that isn’t through campus housing.  Ah, to live in NYC.

Well, the bedroom is almost finished painting. Yesterday I painted a lot - I finished the trim, but ran out of trim paint for the last 3 cubic feet on the door. Then I got to painting the walls - 1/4 of them were still white, the rest needed more coats of paint. So now half the room is completely done, with 3 coats of the paint. We used Raspberry Truffle from Benjamin Moore. I actually used the new Aura paint, but that was because when I first went in, the salesperson told me that it was so good I didn’t need primer and I only needed one coat. He also sold me only one gallon even though I was sure I’d need more, because he said it goes on the walls so thin. I was skeptical, but he assured me, and so I took it and left. Well, 2 more gallons later and I’m out of paint and need more again. Moral of that story? Don’t believe salespeople when they make outrageous claims about how good the new paint is. One thin coat? Hah. Took 3 coats on each wall, and as I’m about out of paint again and not finished, in the end it’ll be about 3.5 gallons of paint for the whole room. My original calculations were that I’d need 3 gallons of paint plus tinted primer, so I guess in amount this isn’t that different, but the Aura is expensive and it’s been annoying that they keep telling me “No, you’ll only need this one gallon, more than that would be overkill” and then I have to make another trip to the store to get more paint, and if I had bought it all at once, it would have been mixed all into one container to ensure that the paint color exactly matches for the whole thing.

Here’s a picture of a corner that is finished, with part of the door in the picture, which is just about finished:

One thing to note, however, is that the amount of light in the picture is not the same as is naturally in the room; I had the lights on AND the flash, so the paint looks brighter than it actually appears in the normal lighting in the room. Still, you can see the walls are nice and even now. Once the furniture and other decorations are added, I’m pretty sure it will look awesome! (I was going to say it’ll be the best room in the apartment, but as this is a 1-bedroom, that’s not saying much.)

Well I haven’t posted in a few days, including over the weekend. One of the reasons is because I’ve been very busy painting the walls of our bedroom. I had never painted a room before so it’s been an interesting experience. I’m not done yet though, because I’ve been taking only a little at a time - like 3-5 hours a day. I did the ceiling, the walls above the above molding, the upper molding, and the window frame. Now all that’s left is the walls and the molding by the floor, and the door and door frame. It should be easier now though because I won’t need the stepladder nearly so much, maybe only for cutting in by the top molding. So far it looks pretty good, but I am looking forward to the whole room being done and getting the furniture, so we can see how it looks when it’s not so empty.

It’s been a rough week overall. Not that things have been going badly; they are about the same. But I’ve been very down. Yesterday I cried like three times, and it’s basically for no good reason. But it was really emotional crying, like I could have just choked on the depth of emotion, the depth of sadness, that I was feeling. It really hasn’t been much fun, but Husband has been a great companion to help me through the feelings.

I won’t be posting much this week as I’m going to visit people for the 4th of July and the rest of the week. Happy 4th of July to my American blogging friends!

So I took Saturday to try and finish more of the cleaning that I had on my list of things to do. Last weekend after my post I did finish cleaning the bedroom, moved everything out and washed the floor - went over it multiple times, because hey, how often do I bother to remove everything from the room before washing the floor? Then I put things back in the room in a neater, more manageable manner. It looks so much better, and Husband and I agree that the room seems more relaxing now. Even the cat thought so! Fluffy was found napping on the mattress shortly after the room was cleaned, which wasn’t her favorite place to nap before. I had finished cleaning the kitchen as well, so there were only two rooms left. I did all the dishes in the sink and began the unpacking of some of the boxes of things we had from the last time my mom visited when she brought wedding shower gifts from last fall. One of these was a box full of dishes, matching the other box we’d gotten earlier, both as gifts. I registered for two boxes of these dishes because a) I wanted a set for at least 6 but it was for 4, and b) I know I’m a clumsy person and pieces will break. I’d rather not have the whole set be lacking when I break a piece or two, so extra matching dishes seemed like a good idea. The box, which had been shuttled around a lot through multiple states, had not been enough to protect all the dishes, and some of them were broken in the box. Kind of a bummer, but we still have 6 total small plates and all 8 big plates, so really it’s not so bad. And it was nice to have the extra space back!

This past weekend I emptied out the remaining boxes of things, and I moved the stuff around in the living room and cleaned the floor. There was so much dirt! It looks a lot nicer in here now as well, but I still need to clean the curtains and blinds. And of course, in the whole apartment, I want to add more decorations. In particular, I take a LOT of pictures, and I’d like to have some printed and framed and decorate the apartment mostly with art and photographs that were done by me or my Husband. This will be fairly cheap but I would like to use nice frames, etc, so it won’t be the cheapest thing I could do.

Another note: I’ve discovered washing things by hand in my bathtub and hanging them to dry in my living room. As it turns out, this is really handy for when we haven’t gotten to the laundromat and don’t have the cash to have it all washed anyhow. I’m out of the necessary clothings and so I washed a handful by hand, and they are drying now. Problem solved, and for no money at all!

So, I talked to my husband yesterday about how I want to make our apartment more inviting, homier, more comfortable. I think often about painting the walls, and I know right now we can’t afford to go out and buy paint supplies and all that stuff, but maybe in a month or two I can paint at least the bedroom as a summer project. The bedroom is our barest room, particularly owing to the fact that almost a year ago the box spring on our bed was curving so bad we decided to get rid of it. Except all we did was prop it up against the wall and get rid of the metal bed frame, and place the mattress, which is also pretty worn down, on the floor. So for something like 8 months, we’ve had a single mattress on the floor, with sheet and a quilt over it, and a box spring leaning against the wall, all covered in rips from the cats. There is a single piece of real furniture, a nightstand, which we got for $10 off craigslist. Our clothes lie either in piles on the floor, or some of mine are in plastic bins that we have. Sometimes the piles aren’t very neat, either. And the walls? They are white, with two hangings on them. One above the mattress, which I bought at the save-a-lot for $10, and another on a wall near the window, which was a gift to me when I was younger - a winnie the pooh scene. And there are curtains over the windows, which my mom was gracious enough to gift to husband and me when we moved into the apartment two years ago. So this is a pretty undecorated, empty room.

The living room is a little more decorated, but lately it’s gathered a lot of clutter - our small NYC apartment doesn’t have much discreet storage space, so when I get things that I haven’t had a chance to unpack, they sit on the floor in the entryway or the living room.

So anyhow, we’re too broke right now to do any decorating that costs money, but I decided that the apartment will feel better if it’s cleaned and organized. So I began cleaning this evening.

This is what my task list looks like:

• Wash the dishes in the sink (by hand of course as most NYC apartments, or at least those of my friends and other people in my economic class, don’t have dish washing machines)
• Wash the kitchen counter tops
• Wash the stove top
• Attempt to wash the blinds in the kitchen window. Do this as the sun is going down, and it is getting dark because the light bulbs went out in the kitchen about a month ago and we have by turns not had enough money to buy new ones and not known where to find them or had the desire to go looking for a hardware store with this specific kind of light bulb. Wash by the light coming in from the foyer and a flashlight. These blinds have not been washed since we moved in, and they are really grimy. I think they need to be washed further, but at least they are improved.
• Wash the top of the refrigerator, which has been covered in grime since we moved in. I have this new no scrub bathroom grime product, and it works really well so I thought I’d try it on the fridge. I think it’s about 80% clean now.
• Spray the wall by the trash bin and wash off the stains from wet tea bags that splattered.
• Scrub down the trash bin.
• Move everything off the square shelves in the entryway, and wipe them down. Put it back. Move the shelves themselves, wipe down the dust and cat fur that was between them and the wall.
• Move to the bedroom. Take down the curtains, which are dusty and covered in fur. They are particularly dirty right by the air conditioner, where it blows air at them all the time.
• Wash the curtains by hand in the bathtub. Do this by hand because a) the nearest laundromat is about 6 blocks away, it’s raining outside, and it’s probably closed already anyhow because it’s sunday, and b)it’s free to do it at home but costs money to do it at the laundromat. Hang them on the shower rod to dry. Hope no one needs the shower tonight!
• Move the clothes and clothes bins out of the bedroom, to prepare to clean the floor.
• Unpack a box that’s been packed for two years, sitting under a clothes bin. Get excited because it has an unfinished oil painting in it that I want to continue working on.
• Husband takes out the trash.
• Move the box spring, which is still in the bedroom against the wall, to the entryway. Ask to take it outside with Husband, but he returns to tell me it’s raining outside.
• Wash the blinds in the bedroom. This actually goes well, because they are less grimy and because there is plenty of light in the bedroom. Still, cleaning blinds is not so fun.
• Finally, take a break. Make scrambled egg whites and whole wheat english muffins, thus producing more dirty dishes. Write this post.
• Move the mattress and remaining things on the floor out of the bedroom. Wash the edge of the molding near the floor to get rid of the dust and fur that’s collected.
• Wash the floor, which is wood, with Murphy’s oil soap.
• Move the bed back in. Change the sheets.
• Move the clothes back in, preferably in neat piles.
• Take the stuff off the nightstand table, and wash the blanket that is resting on top of it (a gift from my mother in law).
• Wash the rug in the kitchen in the bath tub.
• Clean the cat litter box.
• Scrub the kitchen floor by the litter box and cat food.
• Wash the whole kitchen floor with Lysol.
• Unpack the box of dishes that’s been sitting in the living room since the end of last year. Wash them, let them dry, and put them away.
• Find a home in a cabinet or closet for the fondue pot that was also a wedding gift.
• Unpack the box of things that are left over from the wedding reception, that is also sitting on the floor in the living room.
• Unpack and find a home for the tray tables (another wedding present that’s been sitting out for a while).
• Vacuum the quilt covering the futon in the living room (which we got from a friend when we moved in and I really really want to replace sometime in the next year).
• Take down the living room curtains, wash them and hang to dry.
• Wash the living room blinds and the windowsill.
• Tidy up Husband’s desk, and tighten the screws that keep it together. It was another craigslist find, a used Ikea desk which is pretty sturdy, but needs to be repainted.
• Dust the bookshelves, and put away stray books.
• Clean out and organize the space between the living room and the window that goes to the fire escape. Hang up any of the wall hangings that are resting in this space.
• Clean out under the futon, where the Feisty cat likes to hide things.
• Once all the crap is organized and off the floor, wash the floor with Murphy’s oil soap.

Things to do sometime over the summer, that aren’t free but will be relatively cheap redecorating:

• Reupholster the chairs at the dining table (which is in the living room) to be some sort of navy print to match the living room.
• Find some throw pillows for the futon, or make some with the same fabric as the chairs.
• Pick out a wedding picture for the signed frame, have it printed and put it in the frame; hang up on the wall.
• Make a collection of pictures from the wedding and honeymoon for the walls in the bedroom.
• Paint the bedroom walls.
• Possibly, paint the bathroom walls.
• Hang the wall mirror in the bedroom.
• Find something blue or navy to fill the crystal vase with. It was a beautiful wedding gift, but fresh flowers? a) the cats eat them, b) they cost money, and c)we’re too lazy.

Woo….what fun! I’ve made good progress, but there’s more to be done. Time to get back to cleaning!