Day # 8 The Coat Closet

I had not been looking forward to this. Our coat closet is kind of a catch all for things that don't really have another place to go, as well as our coats, bags, hats, etc. It's in a narrow hallway so it's not super easy to maneuver around, either. (Or take pictures.) Since we don't have a mudroom or a hallway entrance, this is the dumping ground for whatever we walk in the door with.

At first glance, it doesn't look too bad. Maybe a little messy and cluttered.


Then you look down.


And when you push past the coats, it's even worse.


And even when you're almost done clearing stuff out, you come across more crap. (The sand, not the cat.)

"We don't live anywhere near the beach."
Shut up, Zoe.

Then you look at the picture below and realize that's not even half the crap that was contained in there. And sigh.

Is it simply blurry because I'm looking through tears of frustration?

Okay, back to talking in the first person. Naturally, I found a lot of stuff to give/throw away, which made me feel a little bit better.




After I vacuumed up the sand and all the other little treats on the ground, I started methodically putting things back in.

Bulky items like the table leaves, motorcycle helmets, and vacuum cleaner attachments had to stay. So I organized them as best I could with boxes we already had. (I actually stopped myself from buying some containers yesterday because I know I need to wait until all the clutter is taken care of first. Then I gave myself a little pat on the back in the middle of the Dollar Tree.)


The large printer box contains 500,000 cables for just about every electronic gadget known to man. I'm not allowed to throw any of them out because I don't know what they're for, and I'd probably end up throwing away the most important ones.

Instead, I used some of the unused linen packages from the linen closet and organized them as best I could.

It doesn't really look organized, but they are all untangled and pretty much in their own little package, which I think makes it a million times better. (I shoulda taken a before picture.)


One thing I did buy today was a shoe organizer to put on the door; Ralph said he'd hang it for me when I was done. Here it's sitting on the floor patiently waiting with two umbrellas and a host of gloves, hats, and scarves.


I have a thing for scarves, which is funny, since I live in one of the hottest places on earth. Winter in the desert is cold, trust me. Stop rolling your eyes, Ralph!

I took another empty box from the linen closet and put my scarf collection in there. It probably won't stay looking this organized, but at least they will be contained.



The other three items on the floor are things like backpacks that we use every day, and which most of the time aren't even in there.

And the coats all fit!


We actually use our coats a lot and I was sad at the thought of parting with a lot of them. But after taking out my scarves from hangers, as well as all the extra hangers themselves, they actually fit without me trying to wedge them in like one more person in a telephone booth.

And since a lot of what was on the upper shelf went into the shoe organizer, there's finally room for just the essentials, namely Ralph's hats and eye and ear protectors for when he's working with power tools, and lawn mowers.



Maybe one day we'll put shelving in the back or some such contraption. For now, though, I'm happy that I actually know what's in there and can actually reach the back of the closet!