Even better is when you de-clutter and clean, and then you're gone for a few days and come back. Or even when you only go to bed for the night and forget you did all that work, and you walk in on your NICE "new" space. THAT is a really nice shock.

I'm the de-clutterer, but Hardi's the cleaner. The other day I came down late, one AM, after he'd left for work, to find that before going to bed the night before he had started the annual summer re-arrangement of the LR-- the post-hockey configuration where the chairs move to the breezy windows after cold drafts are gone for the season. And it really motivated me to de-clut the space that had been next to my main chair, becaue he had simply moved big stuff without waiting for me to de-clut so we could vacuum dog hair and dust as we moved each piece.

He had set his need to clean aside, in foavor of supporting my need to de-clut, and by moving things he had exposed the mess AND made more room to get IN to where it was lurking-- stuff that had tumbled off my chairside table, etc., was now easily reached.

Partnership is SO COOL. The LR always looks huge when we do this-- spacious and breezy and aimed toward the focal points that make us want to keep order. [sighhhhh.....]

~S~