Spring Cleaning.

I've always found cleaning out closets, donating items from clothes to furniture and everything and anything else quite therapeutic. There is that sense of giving, of helping others. There is sometimes a sense of literally taking weight off your shoulders; just too much clutter and cleaning through things, straightening them out brings a greater sense of order. There is, if I am completely honest, also a sense of pride in knowing I can part with things, I can get others.

Our upcoming move is giving me an opportunity to once again "clean house" perhaps more than the last 2 moves. For one, my agenda isn't as overloaded work wise. This is beginning to cause financial anxiety, but that is a different topic for a different blog (or blogs). While where we are moving is almost as large is here, the layout is different and  overall more usable. We have also been dragging things from the last 2 moves that were never meant to be here and we intentionally bought furniture for here that were really good finds at Goodwill and St.Vincent de Paul so that our investment was minimal and we wouldn't "lose" sleep parting with them.

That said, we have a dining room table I have a feeling I may have to part with as it is very large for most any normal urban dwelling and while we spent little on it, I really love it. We don't even sit at it much, but it was perfect in this place and is a very nice solid wooden table. But, we figured this morning we have literally only had one sit down dinner in a year where 8 guests actually sat at it. Usually when we entertain we most often have buffets so the table gets used to lay out food, but I can only think of perhaps a couple handful of other times of guests sitting with us at the table over the past year. I need to keep reminding myself of this so I don't try and convince myself it will work in the new place. I haven't measured yet, but I am quite certain it will simply be overbearing in our new place. It's a very long, rectangular table with 8 chairs. The design is such it could also be a conference table. Maybe Ben Carson should have asked me to help pick out furniture. We spent less than $300 on the table and it's basically new, albeit from a thrift store. I helped charity and thrifty at the same time. It is very likely it might go right back to the same thrift store literally going full circle. The chairs were on clearance at an auction house and while at a store would be hundreds of dollars each, we paid a mere $115 for all 8! I am blushing admittedly how little! Seriously, I couldn't rent furniture for this little for a year so I need to just let it go! If it wasn't for my fondness of these incredible finds, I wouldn't be giving it a 2nd thought.

We bought a sofa at a thrift store as well. I think Mac and I have sat on it together 2 or 3 times, I have sat on it alone a few more and with a couple of friends over the course of the year. It made for a great "dramatic" piece in front of a brick wall in our "staged" formal living room, but we are happy to see it go. The coffee table in front of it came with the sofa and will depart with it as well. The 2 chairs have been with me near a quarter century. I had them back when I lived in Washington, DC. But, they have spent years shoved in corners of bedrooms, in Mac's parent's garage and I think the day has come to part with them as well. There is nothing Victorian in our home nor will there be anytime soon and while that chair was done with very expensive fabric at the time, it is also near 25 years old and faded. The other chair is the last of 6, I have been slowly parting with them one after another for years.

Then, there is the daybed. We had bought this for our 2nd bedroom, which was also my office, in our last apartment. It is from Ikea. It was a bad choice from beginning. We only moved it here because this place is inordinately large so we had the space to fill. But we are happy to see it go. The rug under it I've wanted gone for a few years and somehow it keeps following me!

If you look closely, there is that ugly plant stand and bench next to the daybed, they are gone too...

Daybed. Looks nice here and seemed like a great idea when we bought it. But, we've never liked it and while it was the bed for my Godson when he was my intern twice and a couple others have slept on it, it's time has come to say "goodbye" (or good riddance).

The "formal" living room.