Ellen Ellen had suddenly become determined to change the appearance of her home. It had been two years since she'd graduated from university, and she was still living like a student. She had too much plastic furniture in the living room, books and magazines were scattered all over the place, the laundry area looked like an exploded wardrobe on a daily basis and a light layer of dust covered most surfaces. Tidying up was not really her cup of tea, and until now, she had become complacent with her dated belongings.
It wasn’t that she was an unclean person, quite the contrary. Her personal appearance was immaculate; she had her hair and nails done on a regular basis. Her sense of style and clothing were a bit trendy, perhaps a bit Bohemian, and she always looked as professional enough for her job managing a bookshop as was required. This she gave her full attention to.
She simply didn’t invest enough time in her home. It was sporadically decorated: a couple of film posters were taped up, absent of frames and curling up at the bottom edges, an old dartboard hung in the corner, a message board with bills pinned on it adorned the kitchen. Needless to say, her flat wouldn’t be featured in an interior design magazine any time soon, nor would she be winning any prizes in a home decorating contest.
She decided to take control of the situation, so she made a plan to tackle her unruly and unstylish flat, and set aside some time to get things in order. She arranged with her co-manager to have a work-free weekend in which she was going to clean every nook and cranny and throw out anything that screamed 'student'. The only exceptions were the university textbooks she had haphazardly thrown in a bookcase. She was a bookshop manager, after all. She would hold onto almost any book she happened to possess, save for some of the tattered paperback sci-fi novels that littered the floor.
Knowing she might run out of steam on the project if she were left to her own devices, she enlisted the help of her friend Amy, who would ensure she stayed the course and completed her home transformation. Amy, a dear friend since Ellen’s secondary school days, was part of the reason for Ellen’s decision to do this home makeover. Amy often made light-hearted jokes about the state of affairs in Ellen’s house, especially when Ellen would complain about how long it would take her to find her keys in the morning.
Full of ambition on Friday evening, Ellen bought an array of new cleaning supplies and some implements such as dusters, a new broom and even a mop. Content with just sweeping before, Ellen had now decided the floors needed a good wash. The same would go for the windows. No longer would the spotty glass have to be covered up by curtains.
But while Ellen had a practical step-by-step approach to her plan, Amy turned up at her house on Saturday morning with half a dozen design magazines, wanting to flick through them and admire how things should be, rather than how they were. It didn’t take much for Ellen to be persuaded to peruse them with her friend. A couple of hours passed by before they left the well-worn sofa.
The afternoon rolled round at Ellen’s place, and she had still not got down to brass tacks. She had done precisely 0% of the cleaning, although there was plenty of talk about it, if only that were enough to make it happen. |