Clean Week. Day 2. The Computer Desk.

The computer desk is my space. Its more my space than my bedroom (which I have to share with a stinky Sasquatch and an attention starved cat). More my space than the bathroom counters (I keep cleaning them and personalizing them, but somehow his deodorant keeps wandering over to my side, no matter which bathroom I try to claim). More my space than the kitchen (which is totally my space too, with the exception of messes that don't belong to me and a near constant carpet of Tupperware and silicone baking trays that the kids insist on pulling out of the cupboards that we've left unlocked). The computer desk though, is mine.

I don't have very many connections with the outside world these days. I don't have a job (I haven't in nearly a year now, ever since the first round of premature labor with baby Charlie), I don't belong to any groups or clubs (the rockin' mama's club, maybe, har har), I'm a mother and military wife- I sacrifice my physical social life for my family's well being (and I'm ok with that, most of the time. I knew what I was getting myself into.). When I do leave the house, its to go grocery shopping, take the kids outside to play, or to go running (I try to go 3 times a week). Other than that, I'm a very stay at home type a gal. The computer is my main outlet (I hope that doesn't sound as pathetic as it did when I read it back to myself). I blog here. I edit photos here. I communicate with the outside world here (both friends from back home, friends from the other side of town, and friends that exist only on the flat screen, all of which make me equally happy). Any mess that occurs here at this desk, can't really be blamed on anybody other than myself.


First off, lets start off by talking about the desk itself. My dad made this desk. He didn't make it for me, but he made it, and now I have it. I think it was a "college dorm room" desk, or, something like that (he used to own a furniture business, its not like he just went around making nice ass desks for no reason). Well he let me have it a couple of years ago, and I could/would never bring myself to get rid of it. Ever. Not even when my butt is completely numb and my back is screaming at me (this chair is the worst). As I started taking things off of it (its not very big, and gets easily cluttered), I realized that I have never cleaned this thing. The surface, I mean (I must have cleaned out the inside at least once before). The outside has never been cleaned. I've had it since I was 18 years old I think, so, 6 or 7 years? In places, the finishing was gunked up and turning black? Now I don't know much about lodge pole furniture, even though it is my favorite style of furniture ever (did you pick up on the sarcasm? Please don't send me a lodge pole picture frame for Christmas), but it probably shouldn't be doing that, right?

Look at the tops of the chair posts in the pictures above. In the "before" picture, you can see the black tar like substance. Not very well (thanks to my rad in-a-hurry photography), but you can see it. Now look at the chair posts in the "after" picture. Yeah-ya, woot woot! I scrubbed this thing with Murphy's cleaner. My arms are still sore from the intense dirt removal workout. My throat burnt from the lemon scent that I was praying wouldn't find its way into my daughters highly allergic mouth (we lucked out, she didn't eat the desk), and my head was floaty and foggy from the fumes.

And I have got to stop using the printer as a shelf. Its not a shelf. Its a printer. And a scanner. And a coppier. But its not, a shelf.

Oh, and isn't my purse cute? I get so many compliments on it. My very good friend Becky made it for me last Christmas.


I love my bulletin boards (Goodwill!). They're mostly stocked with postcards (my favorite things ever), but sometimes an important bill or document of the financial variety slips through the cracks and finds its way up there, ruining my creativity and killing the cute zone. Well no more of that!! I took all the icky stuff down, put up a few more of the frilly things, and I think it looks much better.



The inside of the desk isn't even used for anything more than a garbage can, clearly. See that pen packaging? Notice, there aren't any pens in it? Awesome. Old receipts leftover from nothing important, there were like 20 of them. A broken camera that will never work again- why was it in there? A measuring tape, which I moved out into the laundry room, placing it with the sewing things. My old broken glasses frames that we kept for parts, since we replaced them with the exact same kind- I moved those into the kitchen junk drawer (batteries, hammer, nails, that kinda stuff). And um... how did we end up with so many dang things of tape? They're all different brands too, haha.

So that's done and out of the way, thank goodness. I took everything off of the desk, dusted and cleaned it, both the desk, and the stuff, and then put it all back together. I took everything out of the desk, threw most of it away, organized the few things that were worth keeping, and then put that back together. With taking care of kids on the side, the entire project took about 4 hours. I'm so glad that I took the time to do it right though. Hopefully I can keep it this way.

Have you been participating in clean week?! What did you clean?? Show us. Post your link!