Well, you've been a guest (virtually) in my house a few times now. So, I guess it's time to share the skeletons (or mess) in our closet with you. For such a small area, it really can get jammed full of all kinds of stuff. Whether it be because we are too lazy to take things upstairs (like sweatshirts, dress jackets and shoes) or we haven't found a better place to put things (bags, etc.) this is another location where I wouldn't want a guest to necessarily look...which is ironic because theoretically, if you come here with a jacket...it'd be the FIRST place you'd see. With that said...it was time!
To begin, I removed all the closet's contents. I like starting with a clean palette and moving on from there. This gave me a good opportunity to really see what all was in here. Any items that took hiatus from the actual home, went back...there really is no good excuse for not putting things away in their rightful place.
I then took a look at what was left and determined what other items would be better served in another location. The diaper bag went into the living room next to the stroller and the other bags got hung on a hook in the basement stairwell - they really don't get used often enough warrant prime real estate. Finally, I went through all the coats, gloves and hats and set aside orphans and items that could be donated.
Our coats got loaded back into the closet first, then I stood back and took a good look at what other space there was to work with. We have two large plastic bins -one houses our baseball hat collection (which gets its own - we have that many) and the other our winter apparel of hats, gloves and scarves that needed to go in. However, I had flashback memories of them crashing down on my head and then spilling all over the floor - so I thought it best this time that they be put down on the floor. I was left with a whole empty upper shelf! You might have been wondering earlier in the challenge where we put all the DVDs...well, until now they really were transient. When I saw the big gaping whole, immediately the DVDs came to mind. The spot really does suit them, I don't like having them accessible by little hands who like to dump them out "for fun."
Once everything was loaded back up this is how the closet looks:
It really is amazing how moving some things around can be so transforming. There are a few future projects I'd love to do in here, like install the wire racking that is in our bedroom closets but sometimes you can only do so much and I've come to realize that that, is better than nothing!
