Rearranging

Ever put something down somewhere in your house, then it just stays there?  I do it... all the time!  At first, I think, "I'll just put it here for now."  Then after a few days, it's, "I gotta put that back soon."  Before I know it, whatever it was I put down has been in that same spot for a few weeks, or even a month, or even longer.  If I clean up a little, I might shift it, moving it to another spot or to another table, but it doesn't really get put away.  Things just stay where they are.

Sometimes I feel like that's how my life is, too.  I fall into routines, move in certain patterns, say the same old words, work around the objects that I have put down... and I don't really take the time to move things - either physical objects or thoughts in my head - to where they should be.  Things just stay the same.

I recently decided (for a number of reasons) that I would clean out and rearrange my house a bit.  This is never - NEVER - a small nor easy task.  I can't just move one or two things.  Moving a plant from one corner to another results in moving half the furniture around.  It always has, probably always will.  So for me to consciously decide to rearrange more than one or two things is a big deal.  I know I'm getting myself into a big project.  But, it needs to be done, so here we go!

My first major conquest: The living room.  Last week I switched cable providers, and I knew that when the guy showed up to install the new cable he would have to get behind the TV.  So I pulled the massive TV/stereo stand away from the wall and swept out all the dust bunnies (and anything else living back there) in an attempt to make the back of the stand presentable for said Cable Guy.  Once the new cable was installed I started looking around at the placement of all the furniture.  I will be getting a new TV.  One that does not fit in my current TV stand.  Can you see where this is heading?  I need to replace the TV stand, which then poses the question of where do I put my stereo equipment?  And since I'm going to be moving out the TV stand, I might as well move the couch, the love seat, the plants, and the CD rack.  (Welcome to my OCD brain...)

On the other side of the room, I know that I have to clean off and move out a table, as well as move the cabinets that are nearby.  If I can get rid of the fish tank, I can push the couch down a foot or two, move the telephone stand to the other side of the couch, and put the cabinets where the telephone stand and fish tank were... Maybe I can use that table that is covered in papers and stuff as an actual dining room table, which means that I could get rid of the current dining room table.... It just never ends.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of project that will bite me in the behind, because if I don't finish in a timely manner (say, within a week), I lose focus and interest and the furniture and other various objects just... well, they just stay where they are.  Which means that I revert to moving around them and leaving them as part of the current environment.

I'm kind of halted until I get the new TV stand a few other pieces of new furniture.  So, with the living room efforts somewhat stalled, I decided to take over the bedroom.  This is a fairly self-contained project (I hope!) and I can move furniture around pretty easily without bleeding out too much into another room.  There will be some new pieces of furniture in this room as well, and I decided that instead of just replacing something that's already there, I was going to actually move things around and do things a little differently.  I'm somewhat limited in where I can put my large furniture, seeing that I have to maneuver around things like doorways, light switches and windows, but I came up with a new arrangement that will hopefully work well.

Rearranging my bedroom is symbolic to me, in a number of ways.  I have touched very little in the layout of the inside of my house since my ex left a year ago.  As I said in the beginning... things just stayed where they were.  I took some frames down off the walls, and cleaned up some papers and others things of that sort, but as far as rearranging furniture... hasn't happened yet.  I have entered into a new chapter of my life, and I finally realized that with a new chapter comes new scenery.  I finally allowed myself to wake up enough to move outside of my little decorative comfort zone, and started looking at ways to shake things up a bit.  My hope is that this will not only help me clean things up physically, but mentally as well.  With a new layout, and new placement of furniture and wall hangings, comes a new outlook, a new perspective.  A new beginning.

I spent quite a lot of time yesterday prepping to shift around the furniture in my room.  And I spent a few hours tonight actually shifting.  Moved my nightstand, my dresser and my bed.  Must have swept my floor 187 times.  I cleaned off the computer desk and replaced the old, unused computer with a TV. These are small shifts, but sometimes any shift can help shake things up.  The bedroom looks different now.  It looks a bit bigger, and I think it will feel bigger once I get rid of the piles of stuff.  My computer desk now has a purpose and there's not a ton of junk sitting under or in front of it.  I have a reason to move that box of papers that's been stuck in one spot forever.  It's now in the way, and prevents me from walking to the far side of the bed.  There are some things in the top of the closet I've been meaning to get rid of.  I bet the box would fit nicely up in that space.

I've known people who randomly and without any advance notice, rearrange a majority of their house on average, once a month.  I'll never be like that (at least I don't think I will), but I do like "starting over" every so often.  Cleaning out and moving things around is not only good for the house, but it's good for the body, mind and soul, too.