I'm Giving Myself Six Months to Furnish and Unpack This Apartment

I've been putting this off long enough. I've had my reasons, but now I need to bite the bullet and just do it. So starting November 1, I'm giving myself six months to completely furnish, decorate and unpack this apartment.


Six months may seem like a long time to some of you, but I don't make a lot of money so I will have to do this slowly. That will put me at less than 2 years from the day I moved in here, and I've already
made some progress -- well, mostly outside in the garden, but progress.

Here is the plan right now. Of course, it's subect to changes as I go along.

1. Start going through boxes and paring down possessions -- This will be a simple 4-box declutter: keep, toss, donate, sell. By the end of it, I hope to have half as much stuff as I do now and a lot more space in the bedroom.
2. Furnish the living room -- yes, this will force me to move the bed into the bedroom, where there willl still be many boxes, but that's a good thing, because it will motivate me to do step 3.
3. Buy furniture to hold what is still in the boxes, hang artwork, etc. I have a lot of artwork that has been put away for a long time, most of it unframed. It's time to do something with it. Of course, some will have to wait until the bedroom is cleared and I can actually arrange furniture the way I want it, but a lot can be hung in the LR.
4. Once all boxes are emptied, hang curtains --  Why is this waiting until #4? Because I'm allocating my resources to what needs to be done first, and I have blinds in the windows, so don't really need curtains right now.
5. Start DIY projects (may take longer than 6 months) -- a few of the DIY projects I have planned are:

• Paint and refurbish/repurpose furniture.
• Build a pegboard to go in the doorway of the pantry to hold pots, pans, utensils, etc.
• Create a partition to extend the kitchen out into the DR area -- I don't really need a dining room, but I do need more kitchen space. More on that later.
• Make pretty boxes to store items on the top of the kitchen cabinets
• Build spice rack -- I have an existing shelf unit that needs a little work to become a spice rack for the kitchen
• BIGGEST and long-term project: Build (or have built) a bicycle and garden storage shed for the courtyard.

So that is the plan for now. I think I can do all of this in 6 months, although I may need to hire some help for some of it. Still, at least I have gotten to a place where I feel comfortable making a plan, so that's progress all in itself.