De-cluttering: Week 17 - Distraction Sometimes Does Wonders

I thought it would be really easy to do this week's de-cluttering project.  The idea was to put away the winter coats (and hope that I don't need one again for many months). 

I also store the vacuum cleaner in that cupboard though, so the first thing I did was drag it out, of it's hiding spot.  I had not vacuumed behind the furniture since January, when we put away the Christmas tree. For some strange reason, I suddenly thought this would be a good time to do it.

I started off pulling out the big chair, and the table beside it.  Before Christmas this chair was on the end wall, but I moved it to be beside the window, just so there would be enough room for the tree.  I thought, if I'm going to pull he furniture around, this would be a good time to put it back.  Basically that just meant interchanging it with the love seat.

As I may have mentioned, back when we bought this set, it's bigger than our previous furniture, and it has not really fit into the room as well as one would hope.  Once I had the loveseat pulled away from the room,  I took a notion to move the one piece of the set that had never been on the end wall to that position.  The couch.  I wasn't sure it would fit though as there was a dresser and an end table in each corner.

I know, you are wondering why on earth a dresser is in my living room. Well, I inherited it. It was in my Grandmother's living room when I was a child, and then it was in my Aunt's living room when my kids were growing up.  Now it's in mine.  It's never made it to a bedroom, at least not within my lifetime, so it just seems like it belongs there.

To fit the couch into that spot meant I was going to have to move the dresser. It's old. It's genuine wood, and it's heavy.  It also had drawers full of a lot of heavy stuff that made it impossible to move without emptying them at least partially out.  That, of course got me to sort and eliminate some things that I found in there....like really old financial papers from way back in the 90's, and some gardening and nature type magazines that I guess I thought I would paint from.  But really, I prefer to paint from my own photographs, so why was I keeping them?

I made a fine mess of the room, and the coats never did get put away.

But in the end, after a lot of pushing and  pulling and grunting and groaning, and even a few moments of wondering if I was going to have to wait for hubby to come home to put it all back if it didn't fit (as I was too worn out by then), the room ended up looking better than it ever has.  I did some unscheduled de-cluttering of drawers, and maybe even the room as it actually looks like it's bigger now.  I even got all the rug and baseboards vacuumed. I think I did a good job, even if it wasn't the one I intended to do.
 

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