passyunk palace

30 day challenge: Pomodoro cleaning

Kate — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 14:00:03 +0000

Although I love the autumn and everything that comes with the change of seasons, as soon as the weather turns crisp my mind can’t help jumping ahead to the most depressing day of the year: January 2nd. Last year’s long cold snowy winter was pretty torturous for everyone, so this year I’m trying to take a few steps to avoid the soul crushing doldroms that January brings. Firstly, I bought Greg snowshoes for his birthday, in the hopes that it will give us a fun outdoor activity to get us out of the house. And secondly, I’d like to try to set 30 day challenges for myself. I’m thinking maybe if I have something to focus on during the dreary months it will give my life a little more purpose than just shivering on the couch and counting the minutes to April. Going forward I’ll probably try to start these on the 1st of the month, but in the interest of getting things started I’m starting out breaking the rules.

September 30 Day Challenge: Pomodoro cleaning

Cleaning is something that I just hate. It feels like one of those things that you spend hours toiling over and before you know it the house is filthy and you have to start over again. It’s like cooking – I just can’t quite get over the fact that you can’t just do it all and be done with it forever. We’ve tried having “Monday Cleaning Night” but you can imagine how popular that was in the house – combining a Monday with cleaning. I thought of instituting a chore jar, but sort of figured it would play out like Lisa trying to get Homer and Bart to help out around the house:

Lisa: Okay, now we’re gonna draw jobs from the chore hat!
Homer: Come onnnn ‘bikini inspector’…. ‘Scrub toilet’?!? Okay, that was a practice…Practice…practice…. Okay, here we go – ‘feed fish’.
Bart: I’ll supervise!
Lisa: You know, the reason for the hat…
Homer: Oh, it’s a great hat. No one’s questioning the hat.
Lisa: Will you at least do the dishes?
Homer: Lisa, I’ll do the dishes when I pick it out of the chore hat and it’s not a practice….. See, there it is! But that was a practice. The system works!

My mom and sister and I, in our many conversations about the drudgery of housework, have talked about using a timer to get stuff done. But like most things, even though I know it’s a good idea and it works, for some inexplicable reason I just never do it. So I thought it would be a perfect experiment – can you really keep a large-ish house clean on 25 minutes a day?

I’m going to refer to this by the official commercialized version, The Pomodoro Techique, mainly just because “Pomodoro cleaning” sounds a bit punchier than the alternative “25 minute cleaning”. Plus the website is kind of neat and helpful.

Here’s the rules I’ve given myself for this challenge:

I’m only committing to doing this on weekdays, because weekends are for fun things, not cleaning
Because I will only be devoting 5 days a week to this challenge, which doesn’t cover every room in the house, I’m going to focus on the more heavily trafficked areas
If I decide that I want to have a free evening, I reserve the right to do multiple Pomodoros in one day
Main areas of focus will be the living room, dining room, kitchen, hallways, bedroom and 2nd floor bathroom, with the guest room, office and craft room being bonus areas

Ok wish me luck! I’ll keep you all updated. Unless of course I give up after two days, in which case I’ll just delete this post and pretend I never said any of this.

ten years

Kate — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 02:30:11 +0000

I can’t believe it’s been ten years. Ten years ago I had just graduated college, worked at Kaplan in New York for the summer, gone to Montauk with my parents over Labor Day weekend, and was in the midst of packing to leave the next day on a five week trip to Europe with my boyfriend when my dad woke me up to tell me that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. I didn’t think it was a big deal, hadn’t that happened before? A little Cessna maybe? I came downstairs to see the surreal footage on tv. Then I saw the second plane hit and my mind reeled. Watching those buildings disappear just did not compute in my head. Terrorism wasn’t really in my consciousness at that point, as it probably wasn’t in most normal Americans’ consciousness. I’m not really sure I ever thought I’d face that kind of historic “where were you when” moment in my adult life. The entire world changed that day, and even though in some ways I can remember it like it was yesterday – the clear blue sky and fluffy clouds, the way my room looked when I woke up – it feels like I can barely remember a world in which people felt safe.

will you wear my pin?

Kate — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:43:24 +0000

Just a quick note to let all of you know that I am fully obsessed with Pinterest. I signed up ages ago but had this elderly moment of “What is this ‘Pinterest’? I don’t get it. You pin things? How do you do that? And there’s boards? What’s the difference between a board and a pin? Why am I following people already? Why is this person following me? This doesn’t make any sense. Forget it.” Then I spent all of three and a half minutes figuring it out and I’ll never go back. Sorry, Tumblr, there’s a new social media outlet in town. But we can still hang out sometimes.

you don’t need Hurricane to know which way the wind blows

Kate — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 01:28:12 +0000

Well well, an earthquake and a hurricane in one week. Not too bad for the Northeast! Hope all of you made it through safe and sound. My parents and brother are currently without power (which means I’m losing half my audience here), but as for the Passyunk Palace, we were very lucky and got by with a couple of inches of water in the basement. I was actually a little disappointed that we didn’t even lose power at any point, as I was looking forward to playing some board games by the Coleman lantern, but I guess it’s for the best. But of course having power enabled us to sit fixated in front of the tv listening to Hurricane Schwartz say “I told you so” for 36 hours.

In addition to taking lots of naps, watching some movies, reading some books, and taking some more naps, we passed the time by…

hanging up some art in the hallway…

playing with our new Dyson vacuum (this is from just one quick run over the carpet – SO GROSS…yet so satisfying!)…

and trying to keep Porter as happy as possible, considering he hates the rain, and hates being toweled off even more…

annnnndddd we’re back.

Kate — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 02:34:51 +0000

Every time I stop and think about how I neglect this little blog, and start to feel guilty, but then make myself feel better by assuming that nobody cares anyway, someone pops up to contradict me. Hope you’re happy, Brenda!

So let’s see…what have we been up to….

I’m sure you’re sitting there assuming that Greg and I did not succeed with our 2011 challenge to finish the house by the first day of summer. And of course you’d be correct in that assumption. HOWEVER. I will say that we did make some good progress, namely that every room in the house is now officially painted, including the miles and miles of vertical wall space in the hallways. Oh, actually we didn’t do anything with the vestibule yet, damn! Okay, so like 98% of the walls are painted.

Personally I think summer is way better suited for things like picnics and hikes and days at the beach and walks to get ice cream than, say, slaving in a sweaty house. So we generally let ourselves off the hook for not working on it in the summer.

So in order to stall and give myself more time to actually work on things, I shall commence catch-up on stuff we’re already done. Beginning with…

The hallway. The funny thing about home improvement projects is that sometimes you put something off and put something off and get hives at the mere thought of a certain project. Come to think of it, that sounds like every project we take on. It was like this with the hallway painting. Our second and third floor hallway involves lots of surface area with cracks and old holes left from various electricians, in addition to the typical high and hard-to reach spots that staircase hallways tend to be plagued with. We brainstormed about half-assed scaffolding, bendy ladders, and just paying someone else to deal with it. This act of dread occupied about a month and a half of our thoughts. In the end, we settled for a Shurline edger on a pole and it worked like a charm.

(I really wish we had enough natural light in the hallway to take decent pictures, but until I figure out how to work my fancy camera better, this is the best I could do)

BEFORE:

The other part was choosing a color, which I hate hate hate. I’m terrible at picking colors, especially for surfaces that will occupy so much of the house. I didn’t want to jerk around with figuring out complementary shades, so instead we decided to just pick one color and go with it. After applying half a dozen patches of sample colors that basically gave us no insight whatsoever, I chose a color called “Toasted Marshmallow” – controversial because of my love and Greg’s hatred of the sugary gelatin treats of the same name. So after lots of patching and a few coats of primer, we dove in and started. And it looked…….basically exactly the same!! You can imagine the bitchy tiff that ensued when we realized that the color wasn’t really a color at all, but basically just a more refined version of the bare walls that we had stared at for the previous year. But in the end neither of us could face another five trips to home depot and six 3/4 full cans of paint cluttering the basement, so we opted to stick with it. Of course painting for days on end when you already know you don’t like the color is less than a joy.

AFTER:

Then about two days later, a funny thing happened. I started to like Toasted Marshmallow. REALLY like it, actually. In the end, we both feel like it gives the hallway a clean and crisp look, and won’t compete with the oodles of artwork we plan to hang on the walls…someday, when we get around to it.

inspiration: lizzy’s place

Kate — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 02:57:24 +0000

My friend Lizzy’s apartment was featured on Design*Sponge! I need to get her to be my personal decorator.

guest room: before and after

Kate — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 22:53:50 +0000

Before the holidays we had our contractor do some work on our bathroom and guest room, so I should probably catch up on that.

As I look back at the old photos I took when we first set up the guest room, they *almost* make it look not terrible. That is, until you see the close-up shots. But we knew eventually we’d have to rewire the electric, replace the light, and do some serious patching. We spent what felt like ages working on spackling, sanding and painting, but in the end it just never looked right, I really hated the color we chose, the map was just a bit too much for such a small room, and a roof leak ultimately gave us the excuse we needed to get the work done.

Before…

Our contractor rewired the room (oh the endless saga of knob and tube wiring), skim coated the walls to make them all nice, put new trim around the windows and baseboards along the floors, removed the monstrosity of a built-in air conditioner, and hung a ceiling fan.

After…

It’s not quite a done deal – it still needs some things hung on the wall, a dresser for storage, and some new curtains. The computer station is a temporary thing, necessitated by the fact that both Greg and I worked from home after the snow storm last week and would have been throwing elbows in the office together. Although I must say, there is something about having a simple and clean computer set up that is so much more conducive to constructive computing than the state of chaos that our office is currently in.

Overall I love the room. I love the color and the lack of clutter – it feels very fresh and relaxing. Now if only we could figure out how to make the rest of the house feel this way.

the good, the bad and the ugly

Kate — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:25:53 +0000

I have a confession to make. I HATE my craft room. Hate it. It makes me really not want to craft. It’s a constant disorganized mess. It doesn’t feel comfortable or welcoming or conducive to creativity.

Let’s dissect things, shall we?

1. I just have way too much crap, which is sort of ironic because I seem to have mountains of supplies but never what I need at that moment.

2. I never painted the trim, and it’s just a grimy mess. Not to mention this crazy situation happening around the window:

3. I’ve had a giant half-dead plant hanging around up there for ages that just doesn’t want to die. Dead plants are bad feng shui.

4. I have this wall of bookshelves for storage, but I’ve never been able to find the right kinds of storage boxes to put things in. I also just can’t seem to find the right method for grouping things together:

5. I have this old Ikea dining table in the middle, which is a decent size but a little wobbly and, I don’t know, just not a great table for crafting. I also have additional boxes of crap sitting under the table – clothes that don’t fit “yet”, clothes that I’ve told myself I’m going to alter into something else, clothes that need to be mended, empty photo albums, random craft supplies I’ve inherited. It means that putting the chair under the table doesn’t work so well, and it also means that tumbleweeds of dust and animal hair accumulate around the boxes:

6. I have the old Klackbo chair, which I do really like, and I thought I’d keep it up here as a comfy reading chair, but let’s face it, rather than reading in it, I just use it to stack piles of transient crap that have no home, including stuff from my old desk at work, mail that needs to be filed, and a box of old papers underneath that need to be filed or shredded or something:

7. I have this closet that goes way back into inaccessible crevices, and that I haven’t really found the proper storage solution for. Right now it’s full of things that won’t fit anywhere else, stuff from the wedding, old wrapping paper, etc:

8. It might also have to do with the fact that it’s a located on the generally unpleasant third floor, where the walls are unpainted, the office is a disaster, the hallway is strewn with unhung artwork that I don’t even like anymore, and the ugly linoleum floor is peppered with dust bunnies, stray kitty litter and cat food bits:

9. I think honestly one of my biggest problems is that I just don’t do enough crafting to use up any of these supplies that I keep accumulating. But again, I don’t really do enough crafting because my craft room isn’t conducive to crafting. But it’s not conducive to crafting because it’s too full of crap because I don’t do enough crafting to get rid of the crap. AAAGGGHHHH!!!!

Ok, so here’s what I *do* like about it:

I like the wall color I picked, a nice fresh minty green. And of course it would look more fresh if I painted the trim a nice fresh white. I like the shelves, because they’re not too high so they don’t overwhelm the room. But that’s pretty much it.

Any ideas folks? I could really use your help on this one. How do I make this tiny room into a more comfortable, inviting and productive space?

The 2011 Challenge

Kate — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:11:55 +0000

Folks, the Passyunk Palace weighs on my mind in a lot of ways. I know that a home is a constantly evolving thing that can never truly be considered “finished”. I’m ok with that, and if it were I’d probably get very bored very quickly. My problem is that in the three and a half years since we’ve moved in, I have never felt that the house has even reached a good jumping-off point for changes. Yes, we’ve had a lot of things done to the house, but they’re still half done. So for example, we had a contractor remodel the guest room and bathroom, but we haven’t done much since then other than slap a coat of paint on the walls. We spent a fortune having the kitchen redone and I don’t even have a curtain in the window. I feel like we’re still in the remodeling phase and I can’t even feel comfortable transitioning to the real “decorating” phase. As a result I have all sorts of ideas floating around that I can’t explore yet, and the house doesn’t really feel like home.

Added to this is the general feeling that I’ve been losing focus in the past few months. My days don’t really add up to anything and I don’t really feel like I’ve accomplished anything in quite a long time. Most nights I come home from work, make dinner, maybe do some reading or watch a movie, maybe vacuum or dust, but my weeks sort of pass by and in the end I feel like I can’t even say what it is of any real value that I’ve accomplished in that time.

So, what is to be done about this? Well I’ve decided that to get myself focused and back into the game, I’m setting a challenge for ourselves: Greg and I must finish everything on the house to-do list by the first day of summer, June 22nd 2011! (Do you like the way I’ve included Greg on this, despite the fact that it’s me who feels unfocused?) I think an official challenge like this might reinvigorate me to get things done in the new year, and a deadline (that I will blog our progress toward, of course) is the perfect clincher.

So this leaves us with about 21 weeks to complete the following list. At which point I can change my focus over to the more fun details of frivolous decorating (and re-doing things I wind up not liking). Not too bad, presuming we can quit our whining and get off our asses. Oh, and maybe as added incentive, we’ll have a big party when it’s finished!

Here’s our updated to-do list:

Living Room
- ~~new tv & stereo stand~~
- strip and repaint fireplace
- ~~new armchair~~
- paint ceiling trim
- paint front window frame
- paint and add legs to record storage

Dining Room
- ~~paint walls~~
- new sideboard
- ~~new windows~~
- ~~curtains~~
- frost windows
- ~~light fixture~~
- paint hutch
- skim coat walls
- repaint
- new rug
- new basement door

Kitchen
- ~~gut completely and new everything!~~
- ~~radiant floor heat~~
- ~~new floor~~
- ~~new drywall~~
- ~~brick up north window~~
- ~~rewire~~
- ~~new ceiling~~
- ~~open up archway~~
- ~~new cabinets~~
- ~~subway tile backsplash~~
- ~~paint walls~~
- ~~paint trim~~
- ~~paint door~~
- ~~stain outside of door~~
- shelf in window
- curtain
- artwork
- mug storage
- reseal counter tops
- touch up paint

Front Entrance/Vestibule
- ~~table for mail, keys, etc~~
- paint entryway table
- hooks for coats
- retile
- paint/wallpaper vestibule

Hallways
- ~~scrape wallpaper~~
- spackle holes from wiring
- ~~light fixtures~~
- paint walls
- paint stairs
- table at top of 3rd floor
- new shelves/table in 2nd floor hallway
- 3rd floor hallway curtain

Powder Room
- wallpaper
- new floor
- new door

Bedroom
- ~~paint~~
- shelves in closet
- ~~new windows~~
- ~~quarter round~~
- new door
- artwork over bed

Dressing Room (now closet)
- ~~scrape wallpaper~~
- ~~paint~~
- ~~quarter round~~
- ~~new window~~
- ~~rewire light fixture~~
- dresser situation
- ~~new doors~~
- get rid of door
- accessories storage

Laundry Room
- more storage boxes
- curtains
- artwork

Guest Room
- ~~empty out boxes~~
- ~~rewire light fixture~~
- ~~quarter round~~
- ~~sand walls~~
- ~~new windows~~
- ~~paint~~
- ~~furniture~~
- new door
- ~~new outlets~~
- ~~get rid of old wall air conditioner~~
- dresser
- artwork

Bathroom
- ~~remove/replace paneling~~
- ~~vanity & sink~~
- shelves
- ~~new medicine cabinet~~
- ~~new window~~
- new door
- ~~rewire light~~
- paint trim
- hang shelf
- artwork
- shower curtain
- curtain
- touch up tub

Office
- ~~paint~~
- ~~wall shelves~~
- ~~shelves in closet~~
- ~~quarter round~~
- re-hang door
- ~~more storage~~
- ~~new windows~~
- add more outlets
- get rid of crap
- touch up paint
- hang artwork
- better closet storage
- new filing cabinet
- get rid of old computer
- paint small storage dressers
- new curtains

Craft Studio
- ~~paint~~
- ~~scrub floor~~
- ~~paint closet~~
- ~~storage~~
- ~~furniture~~
- ~~put up shelves~~
- ~~new window~~
- paint trim
- new trim around window?
- closet storage
- better storage boxes
- new desk/table
- big pinboard
- curtains

Patio
- ~~paint cinderblock~~
- ~~trellis for privacy~~
- new gate door

Everywhere Else
- house numbers
- ~~fix wood piece alongside 2nd floor roof~~
- ~~replace stack pipe~~
- get rid of old washer and dryer
- clean and reorganize basement
- new storm door
- new front door/paint front door
- paint trim around front entryway

What do you think? Are we up to the challenge?

home after the holidays

Kate — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:26:21 +0000

Happy New Year all! As usual, one of my resolutions is to blog more. My mom said she’s sick of seeing the same post every time she comes to the site, so I’d better get my tail in gear and shake the dust off this old thing.

We had a pretty respectable holiday season around here. After a rocky start to the season, involving my car dying two hours away with the Christmas tree on top and my wonderful brother having to drive us back to Philly (and the following weekend mainly consisting of driving many hours to pick it up) things went smoothly from there on out. My sister and her husband came in from California and were able to take advantage of the newly done-up guest room (related entry soon to follow, I promise!). It was really nice having visitors around over the holidays, it made the house feel a little warmer and more festive. Christmas Eve was our tradition of having Greg’s family over for dinner and merriment, and Christmas day we drove up to my brother’s house in Connecticut for a delicious dinner.

The new year for me is usually filled with grandiose plans and resolutions for the upcoming year, but I feel a little differently this time around. Aside from the obligatory “get down to my goal weight” and “finish fixing up the house”, I don’t really have any big plans for 2011. I’m realizing that actually I feel pretty content these days, and my life doesn’t really feel like a fixer-upper at the moment. In the past few months I’ve changed jobs, which resulted in everyone at my old job finally really showing their appreciation for me, and a new position that will hopefully be less stressful and allow for a little more enjoyment of my free time. The house is coming along, I love my husband, I get endless entertainment out of the animals, and I have a Kindle full of good books I can’t wait to read. Life is good.

If I have any resolutions this year, it’s to focus on the small things and don’t let the big things overwhelm me. Break scary things up into small 20-minute chunks. Take time to do some craft projects, hang artwork, knit a scarf, take pictures, tend my houseplants, cook good meals. I tend to put off the little things because sometimes the bigger projects overshadow everything else, and especially where the house is concerned, it feels like putting lipstick on a pig. Just because the hallway isn’t painted yet doesn’t mean that the guest room doesn’t deserve to have some artwork and nice curtains. And just because the bedroom doors are ugly doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make a terrarium to put on a shelf somewhere. Maybe the little things will really be what transform the Passyunk Palace from a house to a comfortable home.

Without further ado, here is a brief pictorial summary of our holiday season (which makes me think that my other resolution needs to be practicing with my SLR):

Selecting that most important of Christmas symbols:

Despite freezing our arses off, we had a great day in New York visiting Rockefeller Center and Bryant Park:

Santa brought Greg and his brother these horse head masks, which were the hit of the evening:

Christmas dinner with the Lynch family

Santa also brought my nieces some mustaches, which everyone proceeded to steal: