THE DE-CLUTTER BEFORE THE DECORATE

Last week, I vowed AZ and I would dive into starting her apartment redecorate on Saturday. First problem facing us though was all the clutter.

I went to sleep that Friday night with the utmost resolve…up early…out the door…and in one day we were going to tackle AZ’s apartment.

We planned on rolling up our sleeves at 9a on Saturday morning (although AZ called me early Saturday morning and said that she would prefer to start at a time that was in the “double digits” (10,11 or 12 – I think that is what she was referring to)…because she had a huge migraine and didn’t know why (well I could have told her why and I could have told her the night before that she would have a migraine…as she had been partaking in several glasses of wine (red) with our group of friends at a wine bar in Culver City). Little did she know that I was truly relieved for her migraine misfortune. I was relieved because I was hardly about to get up at 8a to get over to her place…so much for resolve.

Note to self…don’t have resolve about anything…because resolve is an absolute…absolutes are impossible. I.e. I resolve to lose weight, I resolve to be nicer to people, I resolve to exercise four times a week, I resolve to do charitable work twice a month…all wonderful things to resolve…but…can they really be achieved? I would say “no” on being completely achieved and “yes” to partial achievement. Needless to say, I sauntered over to AZ’s apartment at about 1pm on Saturday. There goes the resolve.

I was happy to see that AZ was already in her work clothes and had a big cheerful eager smile on her face. She had already gotten started with the de-cluttering. Clearly she too had the same smidgen of resolve that I had.

We started in the bedroom where we relieved AZ of 3 bags full of clothes for donation to Goodwill

In the middle of all this busy de-cluttering-do-gooding, our good friend HW called and offered to bring us sandwiches and wanted to drink wine and watch Gossip Girls…hmmm….wine/de-cluttering/Gossip Girls…not sure it was right on track with our mission of the day but it worked because HW provided much needed lightness and entertainment.

Before HW arrived, AZ and I moved over to her closet where she picked at each item one by one…one by one…one shirt “oh I like that”…one pair of pants “I think I’ll wear those”… one pair of shoes “I didn’t even know I had these, I’ll wear them…put them in that pile over there”….and it went on…and we seemed to be making more piles from the piles we were trying to get through.

I finally elbowed passed AZ in the nicest way anyone could actually give someone the elbow…gave her a different assignment… and dove into the closet…on hands and knees with focused vision of getting it clean.

AZ was in the living room with HW. HW was feeling a little sick so AZ gave her some wine and they watched Gossip Girls on AZ’s DVR … AZ was shredding papers (supposedly).
Needless to say…on that day we made a major dent…and on the next Sunday… we achieved a victory….we got the living room and kitchen in shape.

Finally a palette to start thinking about decor…we still had about one full day of work to do on the clutter…but we were making headway!

AZ’s apartment and furniture are ADORABLE…good bones…really good bones….AZ didn’t need design help…she just needed some elbow grease help. We’ll add some really good touches to dress this up…but good news is AZ has more than enough really nice furniture and a really cute layout…more than enough to get us started.

AZ’S APARTMENT – BEFORE DE-CLUTTER

AZ’S APARTMENT AFTER DE-CLUTTER

Lesson/Tip of the Day: First step in decorating is simply undecorating!