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December 2010 Moms
theuntaggablek
member
weekend projects?
theuntaggablek
member
We just moved. There are tons of things I'd like to do at the new house. I know a lot of you are in the same boat. When do you find the time to do non-cleaning house-related stuff, like painting, finding furniture/curtains, hanging up pictures, etc?
I feel like I have no time to do the zillions of things I'd like to do to get this place in order! My weekend is spent with the normal tasks: grocery shopping, cooking/meal-planning for the week, laundry, some basic yardwork & cleaning tasks, prepping for daycare & maybe an outing for a playdate or a bit of time with friends. Admittedly, I'm super picky on some things which slows things down (e.g. we still have simply the curtain liner up because I can't find a shower curtain I like), but even so, it would be nice to have more boxes unpacked upstairs & more than just a couch in the middle of the living room!
How do all you people with nice-looking houses and toddlers and jobs do it?
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Re: weekend projects?
I just did a bunch of decorating stuff while hazel was napping today. I hung a bunch of pictures that I've had framed and waiting for like a year and I repainted a huge old mirror that I rescued from my aunts' cottage. It came out pretty awesome if I do say so myself.
I think the key is to do housework on the weekdays and on weekends spend one day running errands and other on projects. Of course a lot of weekends there's other obligations, but even a couple project days a month are better than none.
Once a month my MIL comes to get Oliver on a Saturday. She picks him up around 9am and brings him home around 3-3:30. I wait and do all of my house projects in those 6 hours. It's amazing how productive you can be without a toddler running around un-doing whatever you just did.
I will say that in a normal week when she isn't taking him I usually split up housework over the week-monday dusting, tuesday vacuuming, etc and then I try and do my errands at my lunch break-run to Kohl's or the grocery store and just leave my groceries in the mini fridge in my office.
On Saturdays/Sundays I do my yardwork while Oliver is napping or once he goes to bed at night if I can. I have basically resigned myself to the fact that its almost impossible to be productive when he is awake!
Way to go on all your picture hanging! That's awesome!
Ah. You're right that I could be more productive with housework during the week. I just have trouble motivating after S's bedtime to do cleaning & vacuuming & laundry & all that jazz. I'll give it a go, though.
Our family all lives > 500 miles away, so sadly the MIL or parents watching him for a Saturday isn't possible. They did help when we moved for a week, which was awesome, but there's only so much one can do in a week.
I totally understand. We just moved this weekend-not far but we still moved our whole house out of storage and into a new home. It has been exhausting-I feel like I am at work "resting" today. I know we are super lucky to have family around to help. Good Luck!
I actually do my weekday housework while she is awake. Typically hazel and I get home around 5 and i give her a snack then tidy up, sweep, vacuum, clean counters, whatever needs to be done that day. Hazel loves to swiffer, so she helps out. When SO get home around 5:30-6ish he will wash dishes while I do some other chores with hazel. Then we feed her dinner. We don't start cooking until around her bedtime, so after she's asleep we can eat and relax for the rest of the night. We have a small place and no yard, so an hour of chores each evening allows us to keep up with the basics.
Ahhhh, this is a constant struggle. We've been in our house for 1 1/2 years now (shortly after DS was born) and it is very hard to get little decorating projects done. My family is 3 hours away, so we also don't have the benefit of getting stuff done while they watch DS. Sometimes when my family does visit, DH and I will do house stuff while they watch him, but that's rare.
I swear it took us 3 months to buy furniture and 6 months before we got curtains up. We are now focusing on painting and decorating the family room and it is slow going. Basically, DH and I brainstorm ideas and DH follows through on them, while I watch DS. So far DH has painted a mirror and our TV stand. We have not hung a single picture in our house! We have some frames on the mantle and a to-do project of doing a hanging photo gallery, but haven't followed through.
So basically, I can't give you any tips, because I struggle with even keeping the house clean!
Oh yeah, I don't have curtains up yet, except in hazels room because her old curtains fit the window. Our windows are weird shapes because we live in a basement apt. I've had the fabric to sew them for 2 months now. that's a big project I don't even want to think about.
I would like to add one other suggestion-
I have a friend that lives a couple hundred miles from family. She and her mommy-friends do "work dates" where they alternate hosting. So her firend will come to my friends house with her children and keep all the kids entertained while my friend can work on stuff around the house and the next time she would go to that friends house and watch kids while the friend does projects. She loves it and its a pretty good system!
Ooooh! Good idea mamaholmes...we do have friends here, so perhaps we can make this work some time. I think I'd take my little guy to their house, since he'd cling otherwise, but it could work for a few hours some afternoon....long enough to prep a room for painting or hang some pictures, or whatever.