The Apartment Re-Do

One of these days i'll get the hang of relaxing instead of working on the weekend. My arm muscles sure wish i would since they're protesting even the amount of moving needed for typing.

This weekend was the big re-do of my apartment. I have been sick to death of not being organized and having no where to put all the random stuff. My family has decided to do a garage sale next month and it's lighting a fire under me to get RID of everything in my house that i never use and have no idea what i was thinking when i got it.

Friday, I brought home the new headboard and went shopping at Walmart for new organizing stuff. Boyfriend Jon (aka sweetest boyfriend in the world) agreed to come over after he got off of work to help me put the bed together. I spent the remaining time covering paper ream boxes with contact paper. This ended up being so easy and the final product was awesome. They're still a little plain, but they look great and i can spruce them up anytime. Starting with making labels for them that aren't made out of post it notes.

Saturday, we finally took down my hanging bookshelf to make room for the much taller headboard and as soon as we put it in place, we started noticing something. It looked really high. I was undaunted, since i was certain that i had done my math correctly. Original 9 inch legs, plus ten inches of lift, plus an additional 10 inches for the mattress would just a little bit taller than my old bed had been (28 inches).

We pounded the stilts into place with my motorcycle boot for lack of a sturdy rubber mallet and then we put the frame together. Finally the mattress went on and Boyfriend Jon gave me a dubious look. It was REALLY tall. So we pulled out the tape measures. 32 3/4 inches tall. i was BAFFLED. How the heck did i mess that up? And then i realized, the ledge that the slats for the mattress to sit on is not the same as the bottom of the board. I totally missed it in my measurements. So after i kicked myself and called my dad to see what i should do. An hour later, Boyfriend Jon was holding on while i used a saws-all to lop off 3.5 inches from the bottom of the stilts. So much for my tricky foot cap that i made.

In the end, the bed looks awesome...maybe not against my Ikea nightstand and my filing cabinet/second nightstand. But it's getting there. Pretty soon i'll have some kind of theme in my bedroom.

Apparently however, my brain was not done working for the weekend. Because as soon as the bed was done, i was attacking the mess while Boyfriend Jon beat a wise and hasty retreat. I returned the storage bins i had bought on Friday and purchased ones of the right size since the stilt shrinkage. I also bought (and would end up returning and re-buying) drawers for my bathroom cabinet to organize there too. I spirited away all the winter coats, sweaters, and bulky linens that were piled high in the corners. I corralled all the miscellaneous items that had been underfoot for months. I sectioned off the living room into "Keep", "Trash", "Garage Sale", and "Clothes" and began depositing items accordingly. I couldn't walk through my kitchen due to the laundry basket of books and my bookcase. I even went through my pants, trying each one on to figure out which ones fit now and which ones had the promise of fitting without drastic weight loss.

I still have a mountain of clothes that need to be gone through and re-folded...my least favorite task, but at least I found several summer clothes i thought had mistakenly been donated. WIN!

When the dust settles in the next few days, i hope to have a clean and organized...and able to be kept that way, apartment.