Late-winter Cleaning

The glorious sun yesterday inspired me to do a good cleaning of the bedroom yesterday. I remember watching Oprah once and seeing her talk about the bedroom. It should be a sanctuary, the most beautiful room in your house. It should be decked out with fresh flowers, fancy candles and the finest linens, not to mention a comfy chair by the window for reading. Sounds great, Oprah, shall I send you the bill?

Unfortunately, our bedroom tends to be one of the more neglected rooms in the house, mostly because guests can't see it! If there's money to be spent on the house, it goes towards rooms that other people have to spend time in. If Karl and I are the only ones who know that our bedroom walls need painting and we buy sheets on the cheap at Winners, that's fine.

However. Cleanliness I can afford, and it was high time. I did a full closet clean-out, complete with culling. Our closet is miniature, and I'm not the only one who tends to go a little overboard on clothing, so it's necessary to go through it all once in a while to get rid of the stuff we don't wear. I do allow myself a small box of "sentimental value" clothes, but that too must be edited. We ended up with three big bags for donating or consigning, which means the closet is much more workable, and has a teeny bit of room for new acquisitions. I also feel good about putting together a bag for mending/alterations/restyling, and another for dry cleaning. I hate dry cleaning!

Then we washed all the linens and it was perfect weather for drying them on the clothesline. What a treat in February! I have to say, I slept very well last night on my clean, cheap linens, knowing my wardrobe was neat and tidy.