How cleaning projects spiral out of control

Pertinent to my last post,. it isn’t just my easily distracted personality that stalls projects. Let me explain…

Yesterday, my husband’s new TV was delivered. The TV that had been in his man-cave was moved into the family room, the TV that had been in the family room was moved to the spare bedroom I’m cleaning up. (Are you with me so far??)

I am expecting delivery of two new mattresses for the spare room today, so the old mattresses got sent out to the curb, along with the two dressers from the garage, as the City of Los Angeles came through in record time and let me know they’ll pick those up. The mattresses were gone within a couple hours. The dressers are still there. The spare room has been torn apart, but I’ll put it back together and do a final cleaning after the mattresses are delivered and I can re-make the beds.

The TV from the man-cave is much larger than the TV that had been in the family room, so some adjustment in the arrangement of the room is required. I cleaned the kitchen this morning and decided I really need to put the family room back together.

Well. That’s where the it’s not as simple as it looks factor comes in.

I haven’t been happy with the arrangement of that room for awhile. We’ve added a Bowflex TreadClimber that belonged to my daughter and now belongs to me. It’s in the family room because there wasn’t space for it anywhere else. It’s not small. My husband has rearranged the man-cave, so now there’s room for the TreadClimber in that space, but I looked at the directions on how to move it and it’s not going to be easy. Also added to the space since I last had it arranged to my semi-satisfaction is a spinet piano I swapped with my sister-in-law for a baby grand, which took up WAY too much space. So, I ‘m sitting on the sofa, looking at the room and mentally rearranging. I realize one of the problems is the size of the sofa and chair, not to mention their shabby condition. Maybe I should go shopping for furniture, but I just spent a boatload of money on a new TV so I really don’t want to do that. But new furniture – the right size – would be nice, right? OK, I really don’t want to spend more money, so I have to figure out how to do this without buying new furniture and without moving the TreadClimber, because I just don’t want to deal with that right now. I think if I move those two bookshelves… wait, that means I’d have to completely empty them out. Ugh! OK, but if I move those over to where the piano is, and move the third bookshelf all the way over to the wall… wait, that means I’d have to completely empty out THREE bookshelves. Ugh! OK, but if I do that, then I can put the piano over there on that wall and I’ll have more room for the TV.

Here’s where I completely derailed. Because now it occurs to me that I really need to paint this room. And as long as I’m moving furniture, it’s a good time to paint, right?

I am my own worst enemy.

Quick update: I took another look at the room and I think I can get where I need to go by moving only ONE bookshelf. Whew!