Purging the unwanted and moving the wanted where it should have been

I have lived in this house for over forty years. During that time, I have rearranged and reassigned and removed so many pieces of furniture that one would think I’d eventually come up with the right plan. However, it doesn’t seem to work that way.

For one thing, life changes. For a time, we had a baby bed which spent some time in the “back room.” Later when there were two little girls, the baby bed moved, although it didn’t remain in the shared room very long. The baby kept the three-year-old awake, so it came back to the “back room.”

I got so good at moving that baby bed, that I could dismantle it, fold it up and slide it up and down the hall in a matter of minutes. However, over the years, the bed lost some of the screws, a locking mechanism on the outside rail, and eventually the bed broke. By that time, it was more of a toybox than anything else.

The baby bed was not the only item that I moved. I like to rearrange furniture. If it seems crowded in one room, I try it in another. One large chair just didn’t look good in the living room. So, one Saturday when everyone was gone, I moved it. It took all day, but I got that chair down the hall and through the door. I had to take the feet off, and eventually had to climb over the chair to reconnoiter the situation. A rolling motion moved the chair through the opening with very little loss of paint, and only a slight tear to the underside of the chair. That’s why God made tape.

The round dining room table is sturdy. It has rolled around the house several times. One year it was in the back room, another in the kitchen, and eventually wound up back in the living room where it nervously sits today. Nothing is permanent about my furniture design.

Recently, I decided to make a guest room where the office has been for these last forty plus years. The desk is heavy, and with the help of a sturdy axe handle, I was able to get it lifted over the door jambs. That’s why God invented levers. The desk exactly fit in the alcove of my bedroom where the baby bed sat at one time. At my age, there will not be a need for a baby bed, and I’m way too smart to try moving it again.

After making arrangements for the furniture, I decided to purge the bookshelves of unneeded old math, science, and psychology books which my late husband had horded over the years. Some of those books were bought at garage sales, library events and college bookstores back when sales were recorded on holepunched computer cards. Of course, I should have taken them to the city and sold them, but I didn’t.

I filled three dumpsters with those books. Of course, my books were more important. They were World, American and Texas history books. They were all worthy of saving. Computer Science, and technology may have changed, but those books are valuable … even today.

Some of the shelves had not been dusted in thirty years. One particularly high shelf could have been cultivated for an inhouse garden this summer. In the past week, I’ve climbed up and down the ladder so much that my desire for rearranging and purging waned at times.

Was it worth the effort? Will it make a great guest room? Will I ever get the room put back together? Give me a few weeks. I’m still not sure if I want that futon on the east or west wall.