All I Wanna Doo……….

Is have some fun. Or so the song goes. In Partner’s case, all he wanted to do was write a book. Another book. He’s already written one (no, not published, but thanks for showing interest, which, apparently was more than the lonely two publishers he sent the manuscript to did) Any-way, all Partner wanted to do, he said, was write.
Easy, I thought. Dead easy. We’ve cleaned out the computer room, providing the perfect space (that was the other spare room, if you’re keeping up – and why wouldn’t you be?) Hell, I’ll even let him chose the colour, as long as it’s not screaming scarlet or some form of khaki drab. No worries there, we agreed on a cosy mossy-green, that blended superbly with the existing carpet (lucky break!) Partner insisted that all he needed was a small corner desk, large enough to accommodate his laptop, so corner desk it was. We chose a really cool frosted glass circular segment (if you get my drift), which, by happy coincidence, happened to match my desk next-door (Partner referred to Witch-Craft, but he’s wrong, I left the coven months ago)
So there I was, mission accomplished, two redundant disaster areas, transformed, via my genius into integrated, de-cluttered, uber-cool work spaces.
I had a day. A whole day. 24 hours. ‘Twas but a short time to bask in the general well-being of a job well done. Then Partner (who, I might add, had not written a skerrick (ancient Aussie word meaning Nix, Nada, Zilch) in that time announces that he now feels the need to re-visit his bloody childhood. He wants a ‘hobby’. And what hobby does he want? Are you ready for this?
Radio Controlled Aircraft.
Not a video camera. Not gardening. Not even restoring old furniture. RC aircraft (I’ve been told never to call them ‘toys’ ……………..O………..kay)
Well, there goes my uncluttered space.
Well maybe
I have a plan!!
See ya next time, when I will reveal all!!!!
SorterSuzy.

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..’We Fade To Grey……’

Or, in this case (recycling the opening line from the last post – after all, we are apparently in a recession) blue. I like blue, I’ve always wanted a blue room, so the choice of colour for my new minimalist office was……blue.
For those that came in late, this entry is going to focus our attention back on the original spare room. (The bedroom backwater of the first post)
So, the walls are now blue (did I mention that I like blue – I even like the sound of the word.) I know, I know, I can see you flipping back to the other posts, I can see you scratching your head, wondering why I jumped from cruddy spare bedroom to cool blue walls. How did she do that? Where’s all the detail?
OK, detail. Gut the room, trash the hideous cheep sofa-bed/other stuff we don’t want, store the stuff we do want, prep the walls.
There, it’s in nice bold font, all the detail you could want. (I guess you see why I was going to miss it out altogether now, hunh?)
The room is blue (there I go again) for those readers that like specs, the colour is ……….. Now I need a desk/workspace/station. A place to contemplate my plans for world domination. (sorry, watched an old James Bond movie last night, you know, the one where the bad guy/mastermind is on the point of ridding the globe of Roger Moore, and he just has to stop and detail all of his hitherto secret plans. I’m sorry, but don’t you wish that once – just once – the bad guy would just pull the @#$$%^$#@# trigger?)
The desk, the desk! OK, what I wanted was a functional unit that would blend into the cool minimalist look I was going for. After all, why go to all that trouble creating a genuine wireless office if the furniture just cluttered it up again? So I chose a really funky frosted glass surface with slender charcoal legs that blend into the background. I teamed this with two matching shelves to give me an oh-so-chic return for that little extra space. And finally, I tracked down an office chair to die for. Cool, pale white leather (yes, I’m calling it pale white, you had to be there) and chrome, a triumph of modern engineering. (I mean, c’mon gas-strut height adjust? I know it’s been around for over a decade, but it’s still a bloody miracle)
There you have it; A gorgeous, minimal and above all clutter-free space, that just happens to be my office.
I’m loving it.

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Don’t you just love mixing up metaphors? (or in this case putting them through the blender)
I know the question on all of those lips out there, out in my vast arena of   Suzy fans. (OK ego trip over now) But I do hope you still want to know. What do you want to know? Well, of course, you want to know the answer to the last blogs cliffhanger ending. The subject of endless discussions around office water coolers and on building sites around the globe. How did she do it? How does she bring such order to such chaos? How is such genius contained within one person? (Sorry again, ego under control now. Promise)
So how did we do it? How did I manage to clear the up the space in those unused bedrooms, and still get to use most of what had been hermetically sealed into plastic crates and stored?
iTunes (and no, this is not an advert for any particular brand of software,  it’s simply a tool, please feel free to choose your own) solved the major problems. The files are stored, catalogued, and then accessed through the computer interface, and then played through the appropriate stereo/surround sound equipment, whether we are playing music, or watching a movie/TV series.
Just a note here, about copy-write or DRM (digital rights management) You are permitted, and always have been permitted, to make one backup copy of any movie/piece of music/TV show that you own, and have purchased. In other words, if (in your past life) you saved your pocket money up, and then raced down to your local record store to buy the latest single by*********** (insert name of favored teen idol here) then you were entitled to make a copy of said single. (if you had a cassette recorder, yes, I’m going back a ways here to make the point) You can do the same today (using easier more digital methods) What you cannot do is sell/give/or otherwise distribute the said copy. OK? ‘nuff said.
So, we used iTunes. But…..you may ask, what about the books? How do we access them? Surely iTunes can’t help out there?
Well, yes it can, it can deal with eBooks, but reading 365 books of varying lengths into a computer wasn’t a job that my partner was going to attempt (although he does have a great voice, and I did beg) So we did the next best thing. We used a great program that allowed us to catalogue every single one of them and log exactly where each one had been stored. If we need a book, we know where it is. (Again, the software is just a tool, you can use whichever suits you).
Now, if we want to listen/watch/read, all we have to do is click a mouse button. We have the space cleared, and we still get to enjoy what used to be clutter.
I think that’s neat.

Next blog, we’ll move onto more sweaty, practical stuff. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to clear the old computer room/office. Its going to get messy!

Cheers for now

SorterSuzy

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Here it is people, the blog you’ve all been waiting for, (you have been waiting haven’t you? You have been checking your RSS feed every day, if not hour/minute for the next installment? C’mon, ‘course you have! Oh, just go with it and humor me for now.) Anyhoo, Day ONE; Ground ZERO; Spare Bedroom Alpha, or, if you prefer, the previously mentioned Backwater.
So what do I tackle first? Ha! easy one, I’m an organiser; I organise things. This space is about to be organised to within an inch of it’s life.
Just to put you in the picture, like most typical spare bedrooms this one has long since ceased to perform the function of peaceful dormitory. Oh, there is a bed housed within it’s cube-like dimensions, but since we have few freinds/family that feel the need to stay with us (my once-a-year-visit from my US girlfriend excepted) and, my partner, being possessed of incredible good taste and discernment, still finds joy in sleeping alongside me, it rarely gets used.
So, like most spare rooms, it has become a storage space for THINGS. What are THINGS? Well in my case, THINGS are Compact Discs, (CDs) Digital Versatile Discs, (DVDs – bet you didn’t know what that  stood for) Large discs of Black Plastic (or LPs, or vinyl, or records, you know, the things you used to buy in record shops last century) and last but not least, row, upon row of Books (or, to make the tie-in with the title complete; long dead trees) Now, before you start to picture a chaotic disc and book induced wasteland, please remember; I’m an organiser. These objects were (for the most part) neatly stacked into and onto racks, shelves and cases. But, they were still taking up space. Not what I want. This is going to be my office. I want minimalist. I want order. I want these THINGS out!
Time to enlist the help of Partner. You see, he’s something of a problem solver. He sometimes manages to think laterally. So, I hit him with my dilemma.
It took him five minutes to solve it. It took him two weeks to fix it.

So, what was the great idea? Simply, technology.
All the CDs went onto a purpose bought hard drive, (Via iTunes) and then into a large container, sealed, and then stored.
All the DVDs went onto the same hard drive, via an extracting software, and then into iTunes. The physical discs came out of the cases, and into multi leaf wallets.
The LPs took a little longer (most of the two weeks) First they were digitised (played into the computer, then imported into; you guessed it; iTunes) LPs have to played in real time, and seeing as my partner has collected around 300 of them, you start to get an idea of the time involved.
Books; Ah, the books. the one thing out of the list that couldn’t fit onto the hard drive, well OK, they could, but not many people have the technology/patience to do this. So we had a good look at all the books we had. Then had a good think about how many of these books we had read – recently. Then we decided, that most of them could go into sealed containers (really sealed) and stored.
The really clever part of all this was that, although all of these items are now neatly stored away/digitised/sealed up, we know exactly where any one particular item is, and, what’s more, we can go to the right container and retrieve it.
And how we do that, how we achieved that piece of brilliant organisation ………is the subject of the next blog. Bye for now.
Sorter Suzy.

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OK, so this blog finds me in the middle of a redecorating our home. What? Home decorating? Doesn’t that sound like the most un-organised/un-decluttered/ (is that a word? Oh well, it is now) un-everything-I-try-to-be? (Now I know that’s word; I just hyphenated it!)
Well, yes, and then, most definitely and resoundingly, no. Hang on, and I’ll backtrack a little to get you up to speed.
A short while ago, my partner and I decided it was time to move out of our humble-dormatory-suburban-abode, and get us ourselves closer to the fleshpots (Ok by fleshpots, I, of course, mean cafes) and other bohemian delights that the city of Brisbane has to offer. Don’t laugh, we really do have some great places, just not anywhere near our side of town.
So, decision made, we started hunting for townhouses, (don’t worry, we’ll get back to reno/declutter stuff in a minute) and ran headlong into the PET problem. The pet problem is, to put it in simple words; “If you have a pet, forget about renting a townhouse.” This is the final word, no appeal, do not pass GO, do not collect 200. I can see the point to an extent. All pet owners have wonderful/quiet/sweet/cute/housetrained/clean/troublefree animals, don’t they? Unfortunately, from a landlord’s point of view, the only pets that fit those criteria are either stuffed or goldfish. So, long story short, no townhouse for us in the near future. So, after much discussion with partner, I decided to make our present three bedroom, one bathroom, one pet suburban space, more liveable…..and so…..
Back to the renovations.
I came to the conclusion that, if I did this properly, the opportunities for a major de-clutter (honestly there isn’t much left, yet there is always something else to toss out) and systematic re-organisation, were enormous. How enormous? How mind bogglingly brilliant were my de-clutter ideas, and most important, how did I convince my partner that all of this was going to be his best lifestyle change since he met me……..?
I’m sorry, I’ll tell you next blog (hehehe)
If you want to join this Odyssey, check this space with great regularity. Each time I’ll be giving you the highs and the lows of each stage of the process. C’mon, you know you want know what happens next, how I co-opted my partner into going along with this; How I transformed a bedroom backwater into a funky office Uber-space; How I created a writer’s cosy retreat from a computer room disaster area. All this and more. I’d suggest you subscribe.

Cheers

SorterSuzy

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