Getting organized

It sounds unbelievable but five and a half years after moving to the suburbs, we have yet to get completely organized. Even after the construction of the kitchen extension, we still had a lot of stuff that remained in boxes.

During our first two years in this house, I was too busy. I was still working then and there was never enough time to attend to renovations and such. We bought this house ready-made, so to speak. We knew we would have to take care of whatever additions and customizations we required but nothing got done during those first two years.

After I quit working, finances were cut in half and renovations went down to the bottom of our list of priorities. When I started working again (although I don’t like to think of blogging as work — it takes away the fun), we opted to have a new kitchen wing constructed and the storage cabinets and book shelves had to wait again. Well, we just kept accumulating stuff (junk) and, every year, the house just seems to get smaller and smaller.

Part of the reason, of course, is that my husband is such a “collector“. While striving to find a cure for his condition (addiction hahaha), I finally decided to have new cabinets constructed. That should explain the slow blogging — it’s not easy to write these days. The constant noise, the interruptions, the sawdust… it doesn’t help that the past few days have been windy. Not that I’m complaining about the wind. The wind and the cool weather feel wonderful but the wind does carry the sawdust inside the house so we keep the front windows closed all day.

The decision to have new cabinets built and installed came by accident. See, on many occasions, we checked out ready made cabinets in malls. But nothing seemed right. Either the size wasn’t right (we want to maximize the walls), the color of the wood was wrong (we don’t like dark wood) or the design just didn’t meet our requirements. Custom-built cabinets were best. We knew that. The problem was finding a good carpenter that specializes in cabinet-making.

Then, at a party over the Christmas holidays, a friend showed us photos she took with her cell phone of the new cabinets in her sister-in-law’s kitchen — all custom-made. She told us that the guy who made them was a one-man team who took on short-term projects while waiting for his working visa to Australia.

A few weeks later, at another dinner party where the hostess was an interior designer (a very famous one, I should say, although I didn’t know it at the time), the conversation strayed to furniture and cabinets. I mentioned that a carpenter had been recommended and we were hoping he would have time to do some work for us before he left for Australia. Our hostess advised us to grab the opportunity as good carpenters are fast becoming an endangered specie in the Philippines. True, everyone’s leaving for work abroad where the pay is decent.

To make a long story short, we finally got hold of the guy, Marlon, and he started on the cabinets-cum-bookshelves last Monday. Boy, he’s good. He understands about maximizing space. He understands about respecting my preferences (some workers insist on their ideas). And, most importantly, his workmanship is wonderful. He didn’t demand an arm and a leg either.

So, we’re having three huge cabinets built. Two floor to ceiling units (maximize space! maximize space!) and a shorter but wider one for the kitchen (yeah, I keep accumulating kitchen tools and equipment — not as collections though but as tools for everyday use).

I’m really excited. I can already taste being organized. Finally. I’ll take photos when everything’s finished and all the junk have been neatly hidden away.