I live in a tiny townhouse. If you put all the closets together, it would equal one regular bedroom sized closet. The rooms are small, and there is no open space here except the stairways. It's an old house, a converted barn or carriage house, and the wind whips through here almost as if there were no walls.
But this townhouse does have one thing: WINDOWS. Fifteen of them, as a matter of fact.
Two years ago I replaced nine out of fifteen blinds. Of course, stores no longer sold the original ones I had, so I learned how to use the drill and installed those suckers myself. Today I decide to finally get the air conditioners out of the windows because it is so windy out, the breeze is truly flying through the first floor around the window units. Once the air conditioners are all out (I have three because of the small, choppy floor plan), I take down all the sheer curtains and the heavy drapes and run them all through the laundry. It only takes four full loads. That's not too bad for fifteen windows, right?
Once I get the washing machine started, I know I need to clean the windows and the windowsills, so get to scrubbing all of them down until they sparkle (sort of). The sheers can go back up while they're still damp, but the heavy drapes are another story. They all need to be ironed.
Ironing is not one of my favorite activities. It's not horrible. I mean, it's not like scrubbing the bathroom tile (which also needs to be done) or anything. Ironing what turns out to be twenty-two drapes takes me a long time. Once a set is ironed, it needs to be hung back up immediately. The whole ironing-hanging process takes me three hours on top of the time I already spent with the a/c, taking drapes down, and wiping everything down.
I do a few more chores, like repotting two plants and hauling in all the patio furniture. In the end, though, the bulk of my day is spent in the fifteen windows of this teeny tiny townhouse. It may have a living room the size of a postage stamp with barely room for a small Christmas tree, but the good news is the tree will be visible from the street through three out of the fifteen windows, and that's partly because I cleaned them so thoroughly.
Finally.
