Step One: In and Out of the Closet

As I said in the introduction to the project, I’ve learned to hide a lot of my clutter–mostly in closets and the Dreaded Spare Bedroom (DSB).  While clearing out the DSB is my ultimate goal, I’m not going to start there.  It’s WAY to complicated.  Rather, I’ll begin with a modest closet:

Hall Closet

This closet is right next to my front door and just outside my kitchen.  I’ve had a hard time figuring out exactly what should go in here so there’s lots of different categories of items on the shelves.  Many of those categories eventually found better places to live, but the stuff that got shoved in here never came out.  My goal: get rid of everything I don’t need, move stuff that has another home to its home, organize what’s left.  I’m really hoping that at the end of my work, this stuff will fit in there too:

The Work Begins:

I thought I’d start with this shelf because it’s sort of the worst, and it’s also got the most stuff that I know will come out of here:

Looks like something very bad happened under all that stuff:

Ultimately, there will need to be some sandpaper and paint, but for now a good scrubbing and shelf-paper and voila:

Now, That Wasn’t So Bad, Was It?

It really only took a couple hours to get things moved out, thrown out, recycled and rearranged, and yes, all the small appliances fit in there just fine:

Oh, wait, did I forget to mention the other-side of the closet?  Oops!  Really, it’s not any where near so bad:

Just a move this there, take that out, and…

Much better!  It does occur to me that I probably have more coats and sweaters than I need here, but I’m going to save that for when I tackle clothes.  For now, I am pleased.  My hall closet opens and closes easily.  I can see everything that is in there so finding stuff should be much easier, and I won’t feel ashamed if I need to get something out of here when someone is visiting.  Step One accomplished.  Now on to Step Two: The Laundry Closet.

Laundry Closet