Clutter and word vomit

Painting starts on Monday in the downstairs. I am beyond excited. (The estimate is 2800 and I am expecting to pay 3000 or a little above, which isn't bad!)

I want this house to start to feel like ours, to get some of the history out and start filling it up with new energy!

There is still so much clutter, though!!!

I know that a cluttered room/house leads to a cluttered mind or is reflective of a cluttered mind. I want to be free and light!

There are 4 rooms and a bathroom downstairs, 4 rooms and a bathroom upstairs and a huge basement. One room downstairs is just holding clutter, one bedroom upstairs is just holding all my dad's things I haven't gone through yet, and the basement is holding an INSANE amount of clutter that I am so confused about what to do with.

This house is TOO big for us, Chris and I never dreamed of living in a house this big. We dreamed of getting a small two or three bedroom one floor little house with a huge yard. Instead we got a huge house with a tiny yard. So strange.

I want to clear EVERYTHING out of the house. Like, everything. I like simplicity, minimalism right now. I want my house to be simple, easy to clean.

But, it sucks that it is so emotional.

I am putting off a lot of the throwing away/giving away/selling/etc. It is hard to go through these things... even though I WANT to get rid of them, the act of doing so is hard. So I am putting a lot of it off.

I have time, I know I do. But part of me just wants it all DONE RIGHT NOW, so I can stop thinking about it. But part of me is stopping myself from doing it too fast and sometimes from doing it at all.

All this clutter is just weighing on my physically and emotionally!

A clean, simple house just.... feels better. I feel like I can breathe better when things are orderly and simple.

This is a big step, though, the painting. We will get the downstairs all orderly and put together when it is painted. Get rid of the things we don't want or need downstairs. My dad's room will be a future big step. Getting all the office-y things organized is another big step: I want to get all the papers put into labeled folders and filed away in a decent system where I can find things.

It feels good to write all this down and put it out there. I haaaaate feeling overwhelmed. It is a long process to get this house made into MY house. I need to accept that, for my emotional health, I can't just toss a room full of memories into a dumpster and cart it away.

Time and patience!

:)

Till it all gets sorted out (which I am hoping by the end of the year, this house will be 100% cleaned out and organized!), I am excited to get the downstairs renovated and will be so excited to show the pictures :)

We are taking down wall paper and repainting. Everything is VERY early 80s and smoke stained. We are painting the kitchen a bright, warm, sunshine-y yellow. The living room is going to be a soft sky blue with white trim. The dining room is going to have an earthy color under a white chair-rail with a soft grassy green above it. We want the house to reflect our love of nature. I think having very natural, modern colors will completely change the house and the house's energy.

So.... there you go. Word vomit. My mind is a racing mess. It's not necessarily bad or good. I am just full of... THINGS. It's good to get them out :)