Eye Level
Photo courtesy of Gratisography
Sunday, July 5th, 2026Continuing on with the arc that is buying a house and moving into it and all the mishaps, adventures, and thought processes that go with that, I think I'm approaching the "routine" stage.
Am I done clearing out the office? Absolutely not. Am I anywhere near? Not even close. Have I made progress?
Yes. I hung one thing on the wall…
The "routine" stage, in my mind, is where I get excited about creating daily, weekly, monthly routines that spread the workload out so nothing becomes overwhelming.
Mostly, though, I just want to make the plan. The work still has to happen. I'd just prefer to be organized about it.
But all of that will have to wait - as imperfect as it will end up being anyway - because!!!!!!!.....
THE COUCH IS COMING!!
It arrives on Thursday and I hope I love it! I will def be disappointed if I don’t. I also hope it has at least a small amount of butt squish and isn’t hard as a rock, but also not super mushy or deep where I have to scooch to get out of it and my feet don’t touch the floor. Not my fave.
The arrival of the living room couch means Wally's couch has to move to the office… Which means the office has to be cleared out… Which means more stuff has to move into the garage… Which means I needed another shelving unit… and cute files for the filing cabinet I got from Buy Nothing… and I should probably get a NOK box too…
How bureaucratic of me…
Every step presents something else that needs to happen first. I feel like I’m trying to untangle a pile of yarn starting from the middle and desperately searching for an end.
I’m starting to think there isn’t an end…
I'm not procrastinating the work. I'm procrastinating the decisions.
The office feels impossible because every object needs an answer. Do I keep it? Do I donate it? Store it? Display it? Why do I still own this? Why did I ever own this? Would it be irresponsible if I just got rid of all of it?
Meanwhile, the concept of “decorative storage” continues to elude me.
I understand books. Books go on shelves.
Curating a shelf by shimmying shit around, turning things this way and that, adding a plant, a sculpture that I don’t need… it all just feels performative… and now there’s more things to dust.
I hate dusting.
Gallery walls are just as bad. Just hanging one individual piece has been a saga…
I know the technical rules. Hang the center of the piece around eye level (approx 67” from the floor). Center the group on the wall. Give 2” between pieces so they have enough room to breathe. I can calculate all of that.
When I hung my calendar, I found the center of the wall, measured how far up from the floor, put up painter's tape to mark it, sat in my office chair and determined that I liked it better at seated eye level, redid all the measurements, reconsidered the mat proportions, cut the mat wrong anyway, and hung it as-is. I’m going to have to buy another mat.
Good enough. Next.
I think I've been telling myself that if I can just organize everything first, I’ll have enough of a handle on things that making decisions will somehow become easier. As if there's a magical level of organization where my life attains nirvana and I know where every picture belongs and how the shelves should be curated.
I'm starting to suspect that's not how this works.
I don’t think getting the stuff out of the office is about finding a home for all of it. I think it’s more about finding the space to see what the room wants to become once all the noise is gone.
Stay Gritty