4. We admire the nail polishes

Opened the door. Big smile from Stella.

Not only was the hallway still clear, she'd potted up two amaryllises to sit on the front hall table.

Stella led me to the kitchen window. There was more to see, she'd also potted up some flowers for the newly cleared garden.

Several times over the past three visits, Stella had said: "I can think of things to do, but I can't actually do them unless you are here." After we'd admired the potted plants, she said: "Guess what! You know how I said I couldn't do anything without you being here, even if I could plan? Well, I've sorted out the downstairs bathroom cupboard and put away the nail polish bottles that have been living on the sitting room side table."

"That's great! What do you want to do today?"

Stella showed me two large empty boxes, which were waiting for us in the front room where there were stacks of video tapes.

"These are the oldest tapes and I want to put them into the boxes. I'm not ready to throw them away, but I am ready to start putting them away. I took on-board what you said on the first visit about videos being an outdated technology. I am upgrading to DVDs and a better TV”

On that first visit, I had slightly moved a stack of videos and had provoked a cry of distress from Stella. I was very impressed by the journey she had made in so short a time. The boxes were MUCH too big and it took both of us to wrestle them up the stairs to the spare room. We laughed and vowed to never, ever again pack anything heavy in large boxes.

Besides clearing the piles on the floor, some bookshelves were freed from videos, so we moved some books from the stair treads onto the shelves. We also started working on a new room, pushing things around and doing some preliminary sorting. There was one last surprise: Stella and I had been meeting every two weeks. She had some upcoming commitments that would mean a three-week break between meetings. Rather than doing that, she wanted to book two appointments one week apart.

Just before I left, Stella said, "You haven't seen the bathroom cupboard yet"

We went and admired the row of nail polishes in the cupboard.

When I got home, I shared my diary with Beverly and we discussed whether Stella would be willing for us to publish it as a diary. We were both very impressed by her insights and her willingness to go at a slow steady pace.

8. Clearing the stairs

Stella let me in and we sat down to discuss how her special event had gone.

She said: "It was a bit much for me and I am still very tired, but I did it. I did leave a bit early, but I did manage to speak to everyone I'd planned to"

I said:"Sounds like a success to me. What do you want to do today?"

"I want to do the stairs. My life is changing. It used to be that I would come down the stairs once a day. Now I find myself going up and down a lot and I'm trying to move things around. The loose stuff on the stairs is getting in the way and it is really irritating to look at. Having the front hall done has been good. This feels like the next step to opening the house up. I like the whole 'clustering thing'; putting like things together. Gradually, the clusters are finding homes.

"Among other things, we found two small mixed bags. Stella said:"Put those in the living room they can be our 'after lunch job'."

We usually work for 3 hours and then have lunch. The 'after lunch jobs' take about an hour. After we had cleared the loose bits, I suggested stacking some of the paper filled boxes more tidily.

"Hey, here's some magazines that we missed the first time around." We both laughed. In any big job, there are always things missed the first time around. It's also kind of relaxing to do those things for which the strategy has been set.

Stella and I started removing the magazines and empty envelopes; not serious sorting, just pitching the obvious junk. Before long we had two big bags of recycling, a black bin liner and all the remaining paper contained in boxes and neatly stacked. I did some hoovering which is our way of signally space has been reclaimed rather than being a thorough clean.

We were both excited by the stairwell. There were still piles of books, but as I said to Stella;

"I've seen interior design magazines with books piles on the treads in a very artful way"

"Oh, good" she replied, "I don't want to leave them there forever, but in the meantime, it looks okay. If someone comes to the door, I can open it knowing that they will see a normal hall and normal stairs"

"Oh, yes!"

"It's going to look even better when I get those pictures hung in the stairwell and that will mean that they won't be cluttering up the floor.

"As we left for lunch, Stella commented,

"My sister came by on Sunday to pick me up for a family do. Just having the hall done meant I could invite her in to use the toilet, if she wanted to for the first time in two years. Now she could actually go up the stairs"

When we got back from lunch, I looked around for the little bags we would set aside in the sitting room.

“I did them by myself, while you were finishing the tidying up," said Stella." And I've called a window washer".

27. Much tidier now

When Stella made this booking, she was expecting friends to come for drinks before they all went out to dinner together. We were going to titivate the sitting room and consolidate some of the things we’d been working on.

‘My friends have had train problems so they can’t come today and I was up late last night seeing Obama through his celebrations. So I don’t really have a plan for this session’

‘Okay, shall we do some of those bits and pieces that have been bugging you? We could start with packing away the Christmas decorations.’

‘That’s good. Can we then go back to that cupboard under the stairs? It’s aired out now. I’ve bought some special stackable plastic boxes for things like light bulbs.’

It didn’t take very long because we’d already sorted under the stairs and disposed of the rubbish in an earlier visit.

‘The place is now so much tidier that I’ve started thinking about decorating. I’ve had these pictures framed and I bought cushions. I want to use the needlepoint cushion covers we found. Come see the dining room. Do you notice anything?’

‘You’ve removed the three vases of fake flowers you were using to screen the mess in the room.’

‘I’ve given several lots to the charity shop and the others I’ve just thrown away.
As soon as I have anything for charity, I rush out and take them immediately!’

Then we went back to our default activity: sorting paper and did a couple more boxes.

Stella said, ‘Please notice, I am actually sorting paper into piles, not just watching you or playing around the edges.’

As we worked, we talked a bit more about the last session when we had to find the box. If it had disappeared altogether, our process would have been thrown into doubt.

As we finished for the day, I said:

‘We’ve only got three more boxes of paper to do.’ Stella replied, ‘Our next default task will be the books.’

28. Sorting books

‘I know we were planning to do the books when we finished the paper, but I’ve been thinking about how we could do the sorting and I’d like to start today. I’ve typed up a list of where I want the subject piles to be. My printer is broken so I’ve put up post-it notes around the house.’

‘Right, I see lots of stair climbing today.’ I replied.

‘We will burn lots of calories. Fiction is a huge category so I’ve broken it down: Classic fiction goes in the front room along with poetry. For the moment, we’ll alphabetize the rest going down the stairs. Children’s books can go in the back bedroom.’

‘What about detective novels? You’ve lots of those.’

‘Put them in that bookcase on the landing. I want to put the special memory books, the ones from my grandfather on top of the piano.’

‘I’ve found a duplicate. What do you want me to do?’

‘Show me both copies. I’ll pick one and the other can go to my sister or to charity. The alphabetizing is bound to turn up more of them. Those will be the easy edits.’

When we finished for the day, Stella showed me where she’d hung the pictures that she’d had framed.

‘I’m really beginning to enjoy my house.’

31. More books!

Stella is a great reader and many others in her family are readers.  There are lots of books to sort.  This time we were looking for inherited ones. We pulled some out of a cupboard in the spare room.   They became another pile in the dining room.  The rest joined the various categories around the house.
 
It is very quick to write this, but our three hour session was hard work walking up and down the stairs shifting piles of books from one place to another.  Each time we work on the books more and more duplicates are found, and then Stella has to decide which copy she wants to keep, which copy should go to another member of the family and which ones can go to a charity shop.

32. Here, there and everywhere

Stella met me at the door with,

‘My nephew who is getting some of the stuff is planning on visiting from the States.  I want to get the house to a point where I can offer him a bed.  I think it shouldn’t be too hard to do.  Then the next time he comes, he’ll know he can bring his whole family because I can put them up.’

That’s what we started, doing little bits here and little bits there.  The most important part was that Stella had regained enough confidence in her home to entertain house guests.

Our next meeting was more preparation for the nephew’s visit.  We consolidated the box room.  There was a box of stationary we had sorted before we re-packed and re-sorted.

‘I’ve got a place now to keep cards and I want to use up all these before buying anymore’ 

We re-packed the sewing/needlework cupboard so more could go into it.

‘It’s amazing how much more space you get just by packing things neatly.” said Stella.

In the kitchen, we packed away some things and put out a new tablecloth that looked very pretty with some decorative plates.   

‘I’m not very secure standing on steps.  Can we do the food cupboard? The one we didn’t do when we were last working on the kitchen. You can go up the steps for the top shelves.’

‘When we started, all you wanted was a livable home.  You didn’t say anything about house guests.

‘That isn’t enough any more.  I’m a bit more ambitious now.  I want to get to the bottom of things. Just going through things once isn’t enough is it?  I now really understand what you mean by ‘a first pass’.  In that first pass, things reduce themselves and looking at them in more detail suddenly seems possible.’

‘Because we’ve been preparing for the visit, we haven’t been doing paper.  Since our last visit I found a small collection of unprocessed paper.  I filled an orange recycle bag.  No big deal.  Never thought I would be saying that.’

 After lunch we did our newest default project: books.