This has taken almost all day to complete. I completely emptied it and trashed by bedroom with it's contents. It look like a hurricane had hit. I wish I had taken before and after pics of everything, but I probably would have been too embarrassed to show you.
There were two pieces of furniture in the closet; a small chest of drawers that holds sweaters and a standing jewelry box. If you tried to open one, the other was in the way. I tried six ways to Sunday to get the chest of drawers to go up under the hanging shelves. I wasn't smart enough to use a tape measure to find out if it would fit into several spots. I'm blond, obviously. Eventually, I got lucky and found just the right spot. I took the jewelry box out of the closet completely. I'll worry about what to do with it later.
Shoes. Who knew I had so many that I didn't wear? One bag of shoes went into the donate pile. I filled three garbage bags full of clothes that was added to the donate pile as well.
Four, I repeat, four boxes of books (the kind of box that holds copy paper) full of books left my closet and headed to the attic. Egads, that sounds like a lot of books. But in reality, it doesn't hold a candle to the number of boxes that I could fill with all the books that I own.
One large box was filled with books that is going to be donated to the library. Did you know that, unlike clothing, when books are donated they keep most of their value? If you donate a lot of books to your local library, that adds up quickly to be a fantastic write-off on your taxes!
The attic is going to be filled to the rafters. Besides the boxes of books, I added a large storage bin of purses/bags to go up into it. Also, some baskets and one box of knick knacks.
My closet reminded me of Mary Poppins' carpet bag. I kept taking stuff out and then more stuff and then even more. I'm amazed that I ever got all that crap in there in the first place. It's embarrassing.
In between all the closet cleaning I had to make lunch, referee a fight between the boys, give the Eldest a piano lesson, referee another fight, make dinner, referee another fight, you get the drift. I think back on when I had no children and how much time I had on my hands. I reflect, quite often, on how I could complete a task without having to stop a hundred times in the middle of it.
My older self really started to envy my younger self when I came down stairs, trash bags in tow, and saw that a hurricane had plowed a huge path through the downstairs of my house. That would be "Hurricane the Youngest", officially named after this little rascal:
I'm sure that as soon as I get the lower half of the house straightened up again, "Hurricane the Youngest" will go up and demolish my nice, clean and semi-organized closet. :sigh:
