making room: update

Project making room has (so far) been a grand success! Though I've halted for the last week or so (writing papers instead), before that, I did some serious cleaning. I started with my clothes & threw away several ripped/torn and generally junky pieces of clothing that I have no idea why I still had (& wore!) in my wardrobe. Then I made a slightly smaller pile of items to give away.

After this, I spent the next night completely reorganizing my kitchen cabinets. I added some shelves to the giant shelf-less cabinet that anchors my kitchen cabinets (amazingly enough, my landlord had left some extra shelves at the house (hooray for free projects.) I'm not sure I actually got rid of all that much in my kitchen, but now at least I can find things (two years after moving them here...)

Next came my dirty little (house) secret: storage. First, I had all these storage bins and boxes hidden in my kitchen nook (you couldn't see the stuff under my kitchen nook benches, but oh was it there.) Next came a lot of stuff from under my bed (which mostly went back there--ladders, fans, stuff like that.) Finally, I took apart the dirtiest secret of all: my living room closet.

First, I realize it's pretty weird to have a closet in the middle of your living room. Well, I do. and it's so small, I often forget I have a closet. Actually, the only time I was ever using it was to yank a winter coat out now and then (I live in Missouri where it's winter for like 2 weeks.) And yank is the operative word here. This closet, despite its diminutive stature, was stuffed. Stuff piled on top of more stuff on more stuff--much of which I couldn't even reach. And worst of all: most of it was stuff I never unpacked when I moved here two years ago (yikes!) (You might not believe me after this post, but I am a generally neat person! Apparently just not in my closets.)

Well, I made a giant pile of all this storage stuff on my living room floor and I sorted through every last piece. And when I was done, I had a couple of boxes of stuff left, and that was it! All that stored and I actually use/need/want hardly any of it! I had all this random junk that I can't figure out, for the life of me, why I moved from Colorado all the way to Missouri (like a broken printer, for example...what in the world?!)

Well: now my kitchen nook no longer stores things, my living room closet stores luggage, purses and coats on actual hanging racks and my kitchen has (mostly) neat drawers and shelves. Next up on the agenda is to sift through my magazines and papers. (I have years worth of New Yorkers & several shelves of grad school notes & papers. (Mind you, this is my third time in grad school.) These are, of course, all nice and good, but I'll probably never look at most of them ever again. So: sifting here I come.