Rearranging Deck Chairs

It's February, my favorite winter month because it's only 28 days long, and the sun sticks around a little longer on each one of them. It's also time to start spring cleaning, of the studio kind.

It's a simple concept: I have too much stuff. Despite my constant effort in organizing, and I love organizing stuff so much that sometimes I think I buy stuff just so there's stuff to organize, there comes a time that there is just no where to put even carefully organized stuff.

But there has to be room for more stuff, right? Physics be damned, it's just a matter of getting stuff properly arranged, and then there will be room for everything, right? My husband, an engineer who often formats factory layouts for the most efficient use of space, drew out a schematic of the current floor plan, and then gently pointed out that before I could bring in anything new, something had to go. Sure, I could push the furniture around the room to new locations, but that would just be like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Of course, the first step is putting away the stuff that actually has a space, and getting rid of the junk that doesn't even belong in the studio. That grocery bag, for instance. It's empty, but I'm saving it for recycling paper. On my sewing machine cabinet. Nice. And, unless I decide to start seasoning my projects, it's time to get the salt and pepper grinders to the kitchen. We often use the studio door to bring our shopping loot in, and sometimes it's hard to get it past the first level surface. I'm sure that never happens to anyone else.

It's been decided that the oval table has to go. I have an emotional attachment to it. We bought it unfinished, back in 1982, for the dining room in our first house. When we moved here it became the kitchen table that hosted thousands of family dinners.

The ultimate plan is to replace the raggedy carpet with wood laminate flooring. And I have a new space hogging toy due to arrive in a week or so. (More on that later, and no, it's not a long arm.) Later this spring I'll be hosting a quilter's rummage sale to find new homes for stuff I'll never use so I can replace it with new fun stuff for me to organize. In the mean time, that grocery bag has to go.