To kleen iz fun? Ya?

OK, I don't want this to be a "How I cleaned my house" blog, but since the entire living room looks like a hurricane hit it I'm having a hard time concentrating on anything else. This is mostly because Papa Bear threw his back out (WAY out) carrying the bookshelves we bought yesterday...and let's just say Mama Bear is doing the lion's share of this particular reorganization! This is complicated by the fact that Little Bear will only let me not-hold him for maybe 2o minutes at a time these days (today is worse than that). This includes times when Papa Bear is holding him, of course.

I have to say that I take a certain artistic pleasure in reorganizing things. What was cluttered and ugly becomes beautiful -that kind of thing. What was a trunk standing on end and supporting a houseplant becomes a home for the insane number of toys Little Bear has already amassed. What was a way-too-small DVD shelf is transformed into a combo-change-table-and-baby-book-shelf. What was a completely empty and useless rolling plastic dresser becomes just the right sized unit for the baby clothes we use all the time, and the bathtub Little Bear has outgrown holds his cloth diapers perfectly.

But of all the transformations in progress around here (and I say "in progress" because half our stuff is still strewn around, and it's the half that doesn't have a clear place to live) the biggest and most noticeable is our entertainment centre. For years we've had a GIANT pressboard entertainment centre -0ne of those ones with shelves and cupboards and a black cardboard background. It was covered in dust, stuffed full of CDs and DVDs, and it just attracted mess. Papa Bear hated it because it was a visible reminder of the fact that we still don't have a big flat-screen TV. I didn't realize I hated it until it was gone. So yesterday we went out to Zellers and bought two big bookshelves for our DVDs (yes, the shelves Papa Bear strained his back with. I would have helped him, but I was carrying 22lbs of dead weight aka a sleeping baby. My arms STILL hurt). We were going to completely throw out the entertainment centre and put the TV on an old coffee table in between the bookshelves, so when we got home we started ripping that thing apart!

The thing is, once we got everything out of it and took the top and the shelves off we thought, "Hey! That thing looks pretty good!" So, instead of trashing the WHOLE entertainment centre, we kept the bottom part where the TV rests and threw out the rest of it. It's actually pretty perfect, since this way we keep the hidden storage that was the best feature of the original piece. And Papa Bear is happy because now it can accomodate a big TV when/if we ever get one.

I know it's all hard to visualize, so I promise to post photos when the mess is cleared up...whenever that may be.