Week 13- HTCI Home Base Zone done!

Well, today (Saturday) is the official calendar based first day of week 13 of 2011. My main focus goal for this week is still on working through the HTCI book. I do have progress to report! It may have taken me all week, but I cleaned out my HBZ (home base zone- hereafter referred to as "HBZ").

My HBZ is the living room. In the book the three examples she gives of HBZs are 1) the kitchen sink, 2) the upstairs bathroom 3) under the master bedroom bed and the floor of the closets in the master bedroom. I really wish I had taken before pictures. I sure had a cluttered, messy living room at the beginning of week 12. But has it ever been transformed! Let me give you a guided tour:

This wall is where I started. Not too much was cluttered over here- a few things on the trunk, but it wasn't to bad:

Working clockwise we come to the piano. She talks about how easy it is to set things on anything with a horizontal surface- the piano was no exception.

She suggested hanging signs so that you don't feel badly when people come over and find your house torn apart as you are working through cleaning and organizing:

The rest of the wall:

DJ's toys aren't quite as neat as I'd like- I'm hoping to get one of those toy trunks eventually- something with a lid that we can close and have completely out of sight. The wires for the TV need some work too... but that's more David's department. We need to brainstorm together to find a solution for those.

The fireplace wall. I rearranged the pictures on top of the mantle- I painted them with the idea that they would get switched around every so often. I particularly like the way they look now!

Couch wall:

My knitting. This was the biggest source of clutter. I took a huge bag of yarn and fiber upstairs, and left only my project back sitting in my Janet basket, along with all my interchangeable needles and a stack of patterns.

One more picture and we're back where we started!

See- there isn't even anything hiding behind the couch!

And the floor is even clear of everything but DJ's play mats:

How I got here:
1) moved everything out of the room that didn't belong.
2) moved everything off of each wall, and dusted the wall from floor to ceiling, one wall at a time. I put things back as I finished a wall.
3) Moved everything off each piece of furniture- dusted all the objects and the furniture, then put everything back.
4) Moved all the furniture and vacuumed the whole floor.
5) Put the room back together.

I'm really happy with the result! The plan is to keep this room tidy and clean as I work through the rest of the house. If something has to give as far as house cleaning, that something won't be this room. I really do feel better with this one room clean.

This week's goal: continue with the HTCI book and exercise 5 days a week.  We'll see how far I can get this week with the HTCI: up next is a prayer walk through the house, photographing everything how it is right now, evaluating the house, set up a devotional station, and then start working through the house room by room.

I leave you with one last picture of our family, taken at David's Grandma Ortiz's funeral.