A New Hive

I’ve been a busy little bee this week with organizing & sorting & planning. Unfortunately very little work has made it through the madness, but hopefully that will all be rectified next week when the boys & I settle into our new hive. That’s right! After months of searching, we’ve finally found a new place to call home. Huzzah!

The new pad is probably a little bit smaller than our current space, but it’s laid out in a way that will work much better for our family. Right now we have a huge open concept living room/kitchen/computer area, but very little storage. That means the one living area that everyone spends time in is constantly covered in bikes & hockey equipment & laundry & yes, sometimes even MY stuff. hehe

The new place is the main (top) floor of a house, so we have a slightly smaller living room, but then a big kitchen that opens up onto a huge deck. And our own backyard where the puppies can run around. And I can grow stuff. And I can sit outside & paint on warm days! Ahhhhh!

We’ll have access to a garage to store our bikes & sports stuff, plus a downstairs laundry room with space for seasonal stuff like the Christmas tree & boxes of old tax returns & paperwork I currently have stuffed under our platform bed. But since the new pad isn’t really bigger, just different, there are a whole host of planning issues that I’m attempting to tackle. The living room has one wall that’s a full window (yay! LIGHT!!!) & one that has 2 smaller windows & the fireplace. The 3rd wall has 2 doorways on it & is basically the pathway from the front door into the rest of the house, so that leaves us with only 1 wall to put furniture up against. In a battle between the TV, a large shelving unit that holds 90% of the things we own & my old antique piano, guess which one lost?

Getting rid of the piano that once belonged to my grandmother, that I played as a little girl, that has moved across 3 provinces…well, it’s going to be hard. I don’t play anymore & it hasn’t been tuned in a decade, but I like the idea of playing. And I just really love this piece. It’s currently at our front door, basically sharing space with our kitchen & it works pretty well as a beautiful piece of furniture. We throw our keys & sunglasses in a basket on top. We drop the mail & things to take back to the library on the sheet music ledge. With the lovely carved details, it’s like a hall table – albeit an enormous, heavy hall table that I have an irrational attachment to.

I’m trying to let go, I really am. Watching the new A&E show on hoarders while I pack has definitely helped. I just want to see it go to a good home, you know? And unfortunately, in Vancouver, very few people have space for an upright piano. *sigh*

OK, back to packing & prepping for my shows this weekend. If you have any stories about how clearing out clutter was a really good thing for you (including getting rid of things you really loved), please share! I need all the help I can get. 🙂