Apartment Therapy Progress Report: Week 2

So, well, I've been a bit of a slacker this week. In my defense, I did have to work a double shift last Sunday, then we had company for the next 3 days, including a belated Christmas party on New Year's Day. It's been a little hectic, and our schedule has really been thrown off. I'm going to take 3 extra days to finish everything up. For Week 3, I'll be out of town visiting my friend Diana in Maryland and having another belated Christmas celebration in Detroit with my family. Why have 12 days of Christmas when you can have a whole month?!

Here's my progress so far on my assignment:

1. Fix one thing in my home myself - I fixed the wobbly dining room chairs, which have been bugging me for a few months
2. Clean the kitchen from top to bottom and throw away old food - I'm halfway done. I cleaned out the fridge, but haven't made it to the pantry yet. All of the counters and surfaces were wiped down.
3. Buy a water filter and use it (we have well water that is taste-free, so no filter is necessary)
4. Run my hands over every wall in the house - check
5. Clear space for an Outbox - There's now a small box in the office just waiting to be filled...
6. Clear one surface utilizing the Outbox - not yet... It would help a lot of our surfaces had things on them. Most of our stuff is still packed in boxes, safe from sawdust and the other hazards of renovation. Maybe instead I'll go through one box that we have stored in the basement??
7. Buy fresh flowers - Haven't been to the store...
8. Determine our style - I'd label us as Mission/Craftsman with some contemporary, eclectic influences. Shayne and I do have different tastes, but we have the above influences in common. We've also recently found that we like Art Noveau, especially Alphonse Mucha. What's funny to me is that things I've always liked, I'm now finding out fit into categories that go together. I've always liked Craftsman homes and Mission furniture, but didn't realize until a few years ago that they came from the same time period and were meant for each other. Now it's art noveau, which was still popular into the teens and twenties, and is sometimes considered to be an offshoot of the Arts and Crafts movement. It makes sense that I like them all, since they are all part of the same movement and time period, but I didn't realize that when I started liking them...
9. Find a new recipe and cook one meal at home - It wasn't new, but I've cooked three meals! I'll work on the whole "new" part in the next few days...

I might have picked a bad time to start the whole AT thing, but our lives are always busy and slightly unpredictable. I don't see our schedules improving any time soon, so I'll just have to do my best to work around it.