The Big Tidy Up

We have a house inspection this week with the real Estate Agent AND the owner so we've decluttered quite a bit. In the past, our experience has been that it's always worse when the landlord comes along for rental inspections. Having lived here for 2 years we are fortunate that this is our first one of these.  Normally the Real Estate just do one every 3 months and that is hard enough to prepare for. Anyway we really want to get a good rating because we really love living here and most importantly we don't want to move again.

So I wrote a list of all that we needed to do and we spent most of our Sunday tackling the biggest jobs. As the the week goes on, we plan to chip away at the rest of the unchecked items on the list.


The Garage

My husband tackled the garage and did a fantastic job in between rugby games on the tv. Believe me it was much worse before...so much so, that I couldn't bring myself to photograph it....but just trust me on that!

This bike rack was the best thing I ever bought for the garage last year. It is free standing and you can add more sections according to how many bikes you have. Great for rental because you can take it with you.


The Family Room
I have spoken before about sorting Lego and today's effort was 3 hours! I banned the kids from playing with it and got into the groove. I think there is something therapeutic about sorting so many items into lots and lots of boxes. Same as with the garage, no before photo, but I wish I had taken one. It was a mess!

I packed away most of the Lego, the Lego table and put most of the boxes into the Lego cupboard. The leftovers went into crates and out to the garage. So now we have back our large space and sliding door to the deck. 

 I put the craft table and round table back there for the time being.

Earlier in the day our 3 kids had built an elaborate cubby house with all the chairs and tables. So that was dismantled and things set to right again. This will last about a day! The 3 bins are for toys that belong to the kids and need to go back to their rooms once they are full. The round tubs hold our crocheted rugs and cushions.

Our meals area is directly behind and is pretty minimal except for my daughter's play kitchen. 

Sewing Room


Even the guest/sewing room got a tweaking. I used some baby quilts to cover my machine and overlocker for the moment. I do plan on making a sewing machine cover at some stage this year.

We shifted the sewing shelves down into the corner.

I put my craft magazines and dressmaking patterns into the bottom of the cupboard. Unfortunately the doors have both fallen off. That is a DIY job for later.

I put all of my quilt patterns into a folder. Most are handouts and photocopies from magazines.

I moved my sewing and quilting books to the top left corner of the expedit unit opposite. The top wicker basket is for art and craft that comes home from school and pre-school. To be sorted later.

We shifted out the 2 filing cabinets and made room for my ever-growing stash! Yikes!

Main Bedroom


Being now Autumn, we have flipped and spun all of our mattresses around. 

I put our autumnal quilt on the bed. This is the double sided 'Astor Manor' quilt that I made last year. 

'Astor Manor D9P' (front)

The colours are so warm and inviting.

Reverse side of 'Astor Manor D9P'

I'm linking up with...


                                     



Meal Planning 


This is what's on the menu this week...

Now because of our huge cleaning schedule I have resorted to a store bought Spinach and Ricotta Canneloni for dinner. I took 2 of the frozen packets...laid them side by side in the baking dish...and filled the gaps with leftover canneloni tubes and an extra bottle of pasta sauce. If you have ever made this dish from scratch you would know that, not only does making the ingredients take time BUT, stuffing the tubes takes twice as long. I think it is worth paying extra for someone else to do that job (although fresh is definitely better).

I'll let you know that the taste verdict is.






I'm linking up with Menu Plan Mondays at Organized Junkie.