Let there be light

Sometimes baby steps can make a big difference.
When we moved into our present flat, we re-purposed the curtains and curtain rods from the old flat. That had been in the highest level of a building, high up enough so no one could look into our windows from outside, and the curtains, consequently, were only drawn when it was very hot, to keep the heat out.
Our new place is facing several houses of equal height, so, some protection for our privacy is necessary. I am a bit obsessive about not wanting to be watched.
Which led to our keeping the curtains closed almost all of the time. I thought that didn´t matter so much because we are both full-time working out of the house. But still, the cave-like feeling of those closed curtains was not what I wanted for our place.
Yet- those curtains and curtain rods had been a housewarming present from a dear aunt who is no longer with us. Removing them somehow didn´t feel right.
Besides, we have many windows, and I feared that a complete exchange would be prohibitively expensive.
Thus, I have been sitting on the fence about this for quite a while.
Not so any more.
It started out innocently enough with a single yellow venetian-style blind I picked up to replace a door curtain that I had gotten as a cast-off from my parents a while ago,
The difference in that room was startling. And it made me see even more how worn the old curtains were by now.
So, I finally took the plunge and got myself a complete set of venetian blinds for all of our windows. They weren´t as pricey as what I had feared, either.
And I took off all of the old curtain rods and curtains. The curtains are already in the dustbin (they were, on closer inspection, not fit for donation any more) and the curtain rods are awaiting trash day, too.
Our flat is now a lot brighter and tidier-looking around the windows, and I have caught myself tidying and cleaning as if we were going to have visitors- which we don´t.
The extra light just brought out all the places where I hadn´t dusted lately, and which were now clamoring for attention.
So, attention is what I gave them. And a good scrubbing-down.
Of course, since I had to fit this in with my other duties, this has been nothing like the tear-everything-down kind of spring cleaning I witnessed as a child.
But the whole place looks better for it.
Actually, the example of how spring cleaning was done in Granny´s household has been an impediment to me when cleaning. It went like, if you want to clean the window panes you have to remove the curtains, too, wash and iron them and wipe the window frames, then re-hang the curtains, or else the windows aren´t cleaned properly. And you have to clean all of the windows on one day.
Which meant that just the cleaning of windows  was a full-day occupation, at the very least, because the curtains were cotton and needed a lot of ironing.
So, more often than not, I procrastinated about it to the point where I was no longer able to avoid doing it. Suffice it to say it was a big surprise for me every time I found there were still  those pieces of glass underneath the grime...:).
Now, I can just dust off the blinds, pull them up and wipe off the glass, and the frames, too, and then lower them back down.
And it takes me just minutes.
Nothing to say of how the brighter light that enters the rooms through the blinds even makes me have a better mood.
And I am already thinking about what the next microstep for improving our flat might be.

to be continued...

Julia