Happy Closet

 

A few nights ago I was struck by some unexpected motivation to redo "my" two upstairs closets - the small one in the playroom/sewing room (shown above) and the big one in the hall. These two closets have seen a lot of action in the scant year we've lived here.  Probably because of my awesome sewing closet in our last house, I immediately assumed that the big hall closet should be the place for my fabric/yarn/art supplies.  However, the lighting is poor, and it is not large enough to actually work in like the other one was, so I found myself constantly fighting to keep my reasonably well-organized materials from being overrun by the dumping ground-nature of everything else in there (empty luggage, gift wrap, Christmas presents, stuff to sort, stuff to give away, etc).  The little closet had been mostly for toys, since it was in the playroom.  But the toys in there were definitely second stringers, and in recent months we simply don't spend as much time playing up here as we did a year ago. So a few months ago I had moved most of the toys out - keeping some more accessible in the playroom, incorporating others in other parts of the house, and giving away still more.  That left the small closet as a repository for... uh, pretty random stuff.  

So, that's where we were.  Until I was standing around waiting for the kids to finish playing in the bath the other night, and I decided to change it all.  After they went to bed I hauled all the miscellaney out of the small closet, and moved my nice sewing stuff in (utilizing a set of plastic drawers that has been stored, empty, in the garage).  I finished sorting everything today, found a place for the last box, and did one big happy dance.  

I'm trying to cut back on the amount of stuff we have... everywhere.  That big hall closet was one big pit of bad vibes.  Now, all my well-vetted fabric project materials take up a much smaller amount of space, in a room with much better lighting, right next to the sewing machine.  It's all very inspiring.  The big closet has been purged, with one whole side of it destined for a tag sale or eBay or Goodwill. 

Happy Closets.