Re-Claiming Ground

I want my house to be beautiful…I want it to be neat and tidy and totally chic but there’s one major thing standing in my way- ME!  It seems I’m gonna have to overcome a few of my bad habits before I stand a chance at having the house of my dreams.  I’ve developed a few routines that are counterproductive to cleanliness but the one I’m most eager to break is my tendency to accumulate piles.  I don’t know how to explain it to you, except to say it seems the piles just seem to appear on their own…making the process of eliminating them quite tricky.  I don’t want to just soothe the symptoms of my pile problem- I want to get to the root of the dilemma and solve it.  I’m trying to figure out how by attacking my house one area of a time…starting with my kitchen table.  It’s pretty standard to use the kitchen table as a drop off point, but somewhere along the line my roommates and I started using it as home base for various groceries, bags, jewelry, clothes and the like.  Space is tight in our house, so it’s hard to resist making a drop at the big empty table when you’ve got your arms full of Lord only knows what.  The problem, of course, is that the table ends up looking messy all the time- on top of that, when we want to use it for…I don’t know…eating- it’s not entirely available.  After some brainstorming I came up with a solution that’s worked quite well over the past few weeks and has actually made the room look so much nicer (and not just for lack of piles).  With a little help from my Dad, I bought a beautiful fall centerpiece, some pretty cloth placemats, awesome plates, amber glasses, napkins, rings and set the table.  Not only is it a constant reminder that there is no vacancy policy on the table, but it looks really beautiful all the time.  I love how it turned out, what do you think!?  Give it a try and let me know how it goes!