20 Weeks: Coming Out of the Closet

Welcome back to my 20 Week Organization Challenge!  I’m on week seven (if you’re new, check out my mission, and feel free to join in)!

Earlier this week, a blogger-friend, Jenny, cleaned out one of her closets.  She invited an organized friend over to help her in her playroom.  She talked about how we can often become accustomed to clutter…

Our eyes become glazed over and it becomes more of an emotional issue for us than a practical issue. I totally was numbed out in the playroom – I couldn’t see the problems or potential solutions anymore.

I think that is SO true.  I feel like that a lot when I look in my bedroom closet.  Since our house was built in 1925, we have very limited storage space.  This closet is home to not only Rick’s and my clothes and shoes, but also some over-flow items from the bathroom, and a spare nightstand.  It wasn’t working, and every time I opened that closet and shoved all the clothes from one side to the other or had to root through toilet paper and cotton balls to find my shoes, I felt totally discouraged and couldn’t wait to just shut the door.  Here is the before picture:

The closet extends about six to eight inches to each side on the interior.  It’s small and not only are the two of us squashing all of our clothes in there, but all that extra stuff too.

To get it in order I decided just to pull everything out and start fresh.  Here’s a picture of that in progress.

Yeah.  So I sorted through that whole mess.  The big brown box got filled for the Goodwill, the nightstand got a temporary move (not sure where it’ll go yet, but it can’t stay here), and the rest was divided into the keepers and the “store it for the summer” pile. There was a lot in the storage pile since I can’t fit into half my clothes right now, being nearly 26 weeks pregnant.  We already had an under-bed storage box for this purpose which I also went through.  Here’s that…

Next, I did a quick dig through my three dresser drawers and sorted those clothes too.  Yay for a little breathing space.

For the bathroom over-flow items, I grabbed a basket from the basement (I knew there was a reason I had so many), and corralled the extra cotton balls and contact lens solution and whatever else in it.  I moved our winter duvet to the cedar chest in the other room where we keep the rest of the spare blankets, and now there’s room up there for a large pack of TP.  We’re almost out, so you’ll just have to picture it up there on the top shelf.

Here’s the completed project:

I was actually refreshed when I closed the closet door this time.  And I had to show it off to Rick before bed too.  I was surprised at all the stuff I saw coming out of this closet.  I can’t believe I had ever squeezed it all in there.  Did you tackle any big, discouraging spaces in your home this week?