project overload

This is part of what I've been doing for the past few days...

LOTS of measuring, drawing, thinking, and planning for movement/replacement.

Sorry, I know it has been quiet here... a little quieter than I wish I could prevent. I meant to write a post regarding the garage sale - what it looked like, the people who came, plans for the next one... but I've been so uber busy!


The only explanation I have for the silence is that I have been overloaded with springcleaning projects...and yes, projects that are all linked to one another - the moving storage area that I have been writing about, as well as two more areas where all the items from the moving storage area are shifting to. The problem is that both these two new areas are in disarray! Disarray meaning that I have to declutter these two areas to make space! Did I also mention that one of these spaces so happens to be about 7x4 meters (almost 400 square feet packed with a seemingly insurmountable number of things.)? 

Here's a small glimpse of my almost 400 square feet storage area: 

Yes, it's that area with all the boxes and...things.

And yes, there has to be a floor somewhere around that area.

For the past two times that I've been in this place trying to purge and measure the area, I literally tell people "I'm off to battle". 

But this project is seriously not a joke... cause it has challenges of a very different kind. For one, the whole "meeting new 6-or-more-legged friends has not been an issue at all. Other than the occasional spider, insects have been very rarely sighted. My thoughts on it: it's WAY too hot up there in this area for insects to feel comfortable enough to start families or colonies of some sort. You probably can't see it clearly, but this area is situated above a kitchen. 

The equation is quite simple: 

Kitchen = cooking = heat. 

Heat = hot air = rising hot air accumulating in high areas (i.e. the storage area).

The challenges I've been facing have instead mainly been that of working under such uncomfotable environments. Within minutes of simply being in the area, perspiration is inevitable, and I literally have to constantly remind myself to drink enough water to keep from fainting altogether. Especially with all the lifting, carrying and shoving we do, organizing company storage areas can be quite a workout. A workout coupled with immense heat creates a situation of very quick water loss which one may not realize when you're so focused hard at work.

Today, after quite a fruitful day with Y (my amazing organizing and declutter extrodinaire and househelper), I came back completely exhausted. Even right now, my body is complaining and I can literally hear my muscles whining about how much I should just head off to sleep and recover.

The next two days are set to be interesting as I plan to take down the shelves from out moving storage area and bring them to HQ. The whole process has been a very challenging and different experience as I've had to measure almost everything - from floor plans (walls heights and lengths, checking electrical outlets and the like), to furniture, to all sorts of main storage items. I've had to think about work flow, usage patterns, and in creating areas that'd work in the long run. Not to mention that I have to choose which furnitures I should keep and which I should sell away/get rid off altogether. It's been quite physically and mentally stretching (because of all the logistics and planning that has had to be done), but I suppose I enjoy challenges.

I seriously can't wait for the "After" pictures... especially that of the empty moving storage room. That'd be uber rewarding.

Alright, off to sleep. The body needs all the rest it can get right now for the huge task ahead.

Garage Sale Details!!!

Hurrah! The day before the Garage Sale!


I can't wait to just set-up tomorrow and watch things move out! I'm going to be selling off the shelves, spring beds, cookery and bakeware, household items...and sorts of stuff! I CAN'T WAIT!!! Even if ONE person comes, I'll already be uber happy. :)


(Oh no! I just realized I forgot the cookies!!! Okay, breathe, breathe... I can't believe I'm typing as I'm thinking to myself...now where can I get cookies...)


Okay, how to get here:


Address:
Blk 887A Tampines Street 81 03-1018
Google Map is a friend. :)


If you're coming by train/bus
From Bedok MRT/Interchange (take a Bus 69. Stop at the bus stop right after it turns right at the junction after Temasek Poly.)
From Tampines MRT/Interchange (take a 291. Be careful because there are two 291s! Take the one that heads to Street 83)


If you're coming by taxi:
Tell the taxi driver the address. :)
If he purposefully gets "lost"/tries to cheat you of your money, you can buy a pan/get one from one of my freecycle bins and smack him. Haha. :)


Come anytime either on 
23rd or 24th October (Fri/Sat) 
between 11am - 5pm.


Cash only please. 
I'm clearing a storage room, not running some garage business. I is no techy, NETSy, VISAy. Only Cashly. :)


Oh, and to avoid strange situations tomorrow, please kindly not haggle. I already cut a lot of the prices by super-amazing-lot. (I should one day write about the way I've been pricing things - which has a lot to do with 50% cuts and trying to just fit things into my $1, $2 or $3 bins. Haha.) Anyway, please, no haggling, or else...I might develop a strange impression of you and be scared of you...for life. :P


IMPORTANT: 
PLEASE use a bathroom before you come. The one we have is broken and the nearest one is at a coffeeshop which is a bit of walk away. I have containers that you could use, but otherwise, it would be a disaster if you suddenly have the urgent need to relieve yourself, or something.


Okay, off to source for cookies! 

See you soon!

xoxo,

springcleangirl

project move-out : : the way things look now. :)

Hurrah, things are looking nice and organized now! :)

Thought I'd share the current "store organization" so you'd know where to locate what... although I might set them outside on tables instead cause there's just SO much and I don't know how many people are coming.

Still, here are some sneak peaks of the stashes "in store" - garage-sale-store, that is:

Lots of trays and moulds.

All of them going at a dollar each.

These are the $2 and $3 piles. :)

Not enough bakeware? 

Here's more:

Most of them are under $10.

More moulds for doughs, jellies, chocolates, and candies:

Only the Ikea ones are 2 for $3 (which is still a steal), the rest are also all going for a dollar each.

Some of those chocolate moulds were up to $20+ a pop!

And all these are just a little bit of everything else. :)

Oh! And of course, there's the FREE pile:

Yay for free things. :)

ALOT more to do tomorrow.

Man, I hope we can make it in time!

Gotta remember to get those cookies prepared too...

Uploaded more items in the albums...

including this:

No, I'm not selling everything...just the two wooden bookshelves.

(I promise to take a better photo when I clear those items out tomorrow. :P)

I'm selling them at $30 each or $50 if you take both.

Yes yes, I know they used to cost almost 200 bucks, but we have to clear out to move-out!

 Check them out here.

project move-out : : Quick links

Thought I'd leave the quick links so you guys don't have to go trying to rummage around my side-bar. :)


For garage sale rats (or cats). :)
http://picasaweb.google.com/springcleangirl/887GarageSaleCookingKitchenBakeware#


For freecyclers:
http://picasaweb.google.com/springcleangirl/887FreecyleCookingKitchenBakeware#

I can only reserve the bigger items for freecyclers.

As to garage sale peeps, I can only make reservations for you if your purchase is above $50. But don't worry, there are TONS of other items you can get so your trip won't be wasted anyhow.

Remember! It's THIS weekend.

23rd and 24th October 2009.

11am-5pm.

Email me at springcleangirl@gmail.com with
1. Your Name
2. Your Contact Number
3. The item
4. The date and time of your pick up.

project move-out : : two days to the garage sale!

2 days to the first Garage Sale 

and there's still so much to do!

Yesterday I went through one of the most tedious of tasks - organizing tart shells.

There were so many!

To think they've all been kept in storage when they could be utilized to make the most delicious of tarts and pastries...And they were expensive little buggers too!

And a lot of the boxes looked like this...

I should have timed myself in how long I was there just going through them. But the challenge really was in the sorting of the shells. After a while, I realized it was almost like a big game of sorting and matching. It pretty much felt the same as conquering a jigsaw puzzle...and I had enough pieces to justify the analogy too.

Let me illustrate...

This is just one stack of shells that I picked up. How many different types do you see here?

Did you say two?

You can obviously see that in the middle of the stack there are a few round rimmed ones instead of the sharp edges.

But look:

There were two different sizes of round rimmed ones.

The answer was Three.

How about here?

Four.

Here?

Three.

As so:

And here?

Nah, they're the same. It was just a height-perspective difference. :)

But seriously, these were ALL different.

Okay, enough writing. There's a lot to do!

Will update more specific details on the location of the garage sale soon. 

But it will be at Tampines Street 81. :)

Goal Setting Sunday

Hurrah! It's official!

After a couple of hours of tidying up my very messy storage room today, I think I've finally conquered enough to be ready for the first round of garage sale-ing next weekend. :) It's my first!


This week, it's going to be all about preparing for the weekend. I'm prolly going to be burning quite a number of hours over the next couple of days just putting everything together. I think I'm just going to let it spread through word of mouth, so feel free to tell your friends (especially girlfriends...or guyfriends, who like cooking/baking/cake decoration) about it. (I think Blogger has a little button at the end of my post which helps you automatically email people this post with the graphics and details...or something techy like that.)


Though the place is really just a storage area and it isn't really the sort of environment I'd host a party (at all), but I'll still see if I can arrange for cookies as well. Mmmm...cookies. :) 


More details will be released later in the week.
Hope to see you soon!

project move-out : : Update

Another great day of cleaning. It actually started really slow, but as visitors came and the size of the task seemed to grow bigger and bigger with each apology of what a mess the place was, I couldn't help but be increasingly motivated to get as much done as possible.


I think somewhere along the way, I've developed a habit of taking pictures of places that I really want to get accomplished. I almost swear by the before-and-after picture-taking process because I find myself working harder and faster simply to get a nice "after" shot to share.

This was today's:

It might not look like a lot, but there was tons I had to sort through...

As so:

Tons of cake rings and pans and shells and moulds and all sorts.

And more stuff here:

I eventually decided to leave most of these cutters in their boxes because chances are, that I'm not going to sell them away as yet. There's a ton of other stuff in the room that has to go first. Instead, I emptied out a few that were filled with randoms, and stacked the rest away nicely to make room for other things.


The shelves are properly organized now, though I haven't even quite dealt with those drawers yet. I'll prolly tackle them sometime later next week, but this is a drawer that's of interest to one of my visitors today. :)

Found your wooden moulds! :)

Now to price them...argh, more research I have to do.

Other than some nice visitors that came in for first-dips today, it was just another cleaning day...


Then again, there was that one incident where I met with a new fiend - a lizard. Honestly, I thought I had experienced them all: ants, termites, roaches and strange nesting things, but today it was a LIZARD. No, it wasn't alive. And yes, I could tell it wasn't alive for a while (because all that was left of it seemed to be a shell of its body).


How I found it? I decided to be OCD about the area and sweep even in the area under the shelves. Yes, I yelped. And no, I didn't take a picture of it. As the body, with the unintentional quick outward sweep of my broom from under the shelf, pretty much shot out, all I wanted to do was to get it into a bin and out of sight. I seriously couldn't wait to get rid of it as quick as possible. However, the darn carcass of the annoying household reptile refused to make the process quick and painless! 


The events were as such:
1. Position dustpan
2. Position broom
3. Sweep lizard into dustpan
4. Sigh of relief that lizard is in the dustpan
5. Normal exit-swing motion of broom out of the dustpan to conquer other bits of dust around
6. Find that the lizard carcass is out of the dustpan and STUCK IN THE BRISTLES OF MY BROOM
7. Yelp!
8. Quickly try to sweep it back in
9. Lizard still stuck in bristles! 0_o"
10. Shake Shake Shake of broom, lizard refuses to budge. 
11. Sweep in, Sweep out, Sweep in, Sweep out = Lizard in, Lizard out, Lizard in, Lizard out. ARGH.
12. Small panic. Pray that God help to make the process easier.
13. Lizard carcass finally shook loose and was resting somewhere in the deep recesses of the dustpan.
14. Thank God.


Seriously, prayer works. I'm glad God cares about the small things in life too.


Digress: 
Honestly, I'm usually quite okay with lizards because I hate spiders more (there's just something about having WAY too many legs and eyes that kinda freaks me out), but today's events were just gross and mildly frightening. Bad lizard, Bad!

Other lessons learned today:

Do NOT wear white branded shirts when working on an organizing project in a dusty room where there are dusty boxes you'll need to carry that have great potential to ruin your shirt.

No. No. No.

Album update: 
There were so many things I wanted to conquer today I didn't get the time to prepare the freecycling album. I'll prolly open that for collection next week along with the garage sale (that I really hope I will be able to confirm and make in time!). In the meantime, the new 887 Garage Sale album is still open, so feel free to take a look. Some items are already gone, so reserve your items soon if you want anything alright? Just email me at springcleangirl@gmail.com. Will be uploading more pictures over the course of the week.

project move-out : : update

So I just realized that I never showed you the new project areas that I've been swimming in for the past couple of days...well, I got a chance to take a few shots today in one of the locations.

You can't see it in these pictures, but there were cobwebs in Area Three... 0_o"

I can't believe I only have a month to get this place organized and cleared out! 

There's really so much to go through!

I mean, look at this box I found today in Area One that was filled with only Pudding and Ang Koo Moulds!

And that was a "nice" box cause it was generally a "sorted box". 

Most boxes, however, look more like this:

Yes, that's a random mix of kitchen tools, moulds, and what-nots.

It's been a lot of work - what with the organizing, cleaning, sorting, and pricing, but I suppose quite a bit has been done the past two days. I went through at least 7 more boxes today.

This was my "Under $5" box that is now already spilling over!

New items have been uploaded into the album.

Some items haven't been priced yet, but they should all be priced by tomorrow. Sorry! *blush*

These, however, are a few items I especially liked:

Here's a baking tray for what the Germans apparently call "partycrackers".

I think the depth of it is quite nice for cookies and madelines.

It's going at $12. 

I have two of them, you can have them at $20 if you take both.

Ikea Moulds and Trays.

I believe they market it for ice-cubes, but we've found them to work just as well for shaped cookies.

They're at USD$1.99 online, and I even saw one at $6!

And we're pretty much giving them away at any 2 for $3. 

There are a ton more designs we have and they're all new (as you can see, the tags are still on). You've got to come and take a look.

Took LOTS of photos of baking pans today. 

Thought these two minicake pans were really pretty:

Yes, that one at the back is perfect for the Halloween season. It's the Jack-O-Lantern pumpkin! :)

The heart shaped pan is selling at about USD$10, i.e $15 (and I saw USD$23 or about SGD$34, at the Wilton site) online. And the Halloween pan is about the same at USD$9.99 (plus, it's a discontinued edition!)

Garage sale prices say "$10". Yes, SGD. :)

(But only so you can make people happy this Halloween...and at any time of the year with the heart-shaped whatever yummies you're going to bake. :))

Garfield fans? This was darn cute:

It's a 3D cake pan! 

I.e. You bake the front and back and stick the two together to make a 3D standing up Garfield.

It even comes with a set of Garfield eyes. :)

(If you can read the box, Garfield is saying "...even Jon could do it". Haha.)

Here are some of the new pans and pretty things in the album

Go ahead and get browsing-happy. 

Email me at springcleangirl@gmail.com if you see anything you fancy.

(And once again, sorry I can't reserve any orders below $50 because of the overwhelming number of things I'm working with now. But if you arrange a time with me to come grab stuff yourself before someone else reserves it, I promise you, they will be all yours. :))

There's also a TON of other things that I simply can't take photos of because there are so many! So if you're coming down, do give yourself some time buffer (or at least warn the possibly-needing-to-wait husband/boyfriend) for you to do a little rummaging. :)

P/S: The freecycle album opens tomorrow! 

I think there are enough decent things to open it...once I finally get this round of pictures uploaded tonight. 

In the meantime, here's a picture of ONE of my freecycle boxes.

Ceramics, baking pans, glassware, you name it.