Lately I’ve been staring at my work room and I’ve got to tell you, it’s been driving me out of my skull. It’s cluttered, and the shelving (or lack thereof) is not working for me, and the lighting is frustrating, and and and…
I need to KonMari this room, but in the process, I need to figure out what the path I’m going to take going forward from there is, because that is a huge part of determining what stays and what goes.
It’s more than a little daunting, and I’ve been hemming and hawing and staring at the walls and avoiding thinking about it, like a good little packrat.
Earlier today, Himself mentioned that he’s been wondering why we didn’t make this room the bedroom and floated the idea of swapping the master bedroom with the work room. (He wasn’t aware that I’ve been pondering a massive overhaul in here.) See, when we first moved into the house, we sort of defaulted to “X is the master bedroom because that’s the master bedroom, so obviously that’s where it goes”, and to be honest? It’s a massively wasted space. It literally has the bed, two nightstands, a table for folding laundry on, and a whole lot of unused space. The dressers are kept in what is basically an antechamber that separates it off from the main house, which doubles as a sort of walk-in closet. The work room is half its size at the other end of the house (standard New England ranch) , and is a much more reasonable size for a room that is literally only used to sleep in.
So, we’ve decided to swap the rooms and see if it works better. I mean, we own the house, it’s not like we’re moving any time soon, and if we hate it, we move things back. Which means that I need to do the thing with the going through All The Things so we can do so is a sane fashion. Which also means that I need to figure out that thing where I decide the creative path I head down is.
To be honest, I’m pretty sure I’ve already decided that route, but this is going to make it official. There’s a lot of stuff I’ve been hanging on to, unused, for nearly a decade now, and honestly, if I haven’t used it by now, I’m really not going to, and if I change my mind later, I can replace it.
Something tells me that I will never bother replacing things like the plastic rabbit I found at a junk shop that I was going to incorporate into a mixed media sculpture that I don’t remember anything else about, or the now-rusted shut old tin that once held skeleton keys but hasn’t even been opened since 3 homes and 7 years ago. They honestly don’t spark joy anymore, or even a glimmer of nostalgia, but are starting to spark guilt and self-reproach, so it’s probably long past time for them to be thanked for the happiness they once brought me, and for them to go on their way.
Let’s face it. I’ve been mostly focused on writing and paint/ink based art for a long time now, and that’s where I’m happiest. It’s time my work area reflected that. (Also, the other room has exponentially better lighting and enough space for me to actually set up and use the floor loom, which the current room is too small for.) On to new things!
(As a note, for the applicable tiers, due to vaccine-related joint pain, the monthly postcard is going to be delayed a bit. My hands have been REALLY unhappy with me, and not up for the level of dexterity I need to do something I’m happy with.)