Two in the bedrooms, one in the hall, and one in the entry way. That's it.
The two "public" closets are awkward to say the least.
Take closet 1 for example:
It is supposed to be the "coat closet" (note the bar across the top). But...it is SUPER deep and very narrow. If you put coats in it that would be all that would fit - and you could maybe get 4-5 coats in it. It is too tall to keep the vaccum in (without throwing your back out) and it is just a silly closet.
Closet 2:
This closet is right outside the bathroom, so it makes sense that this is the linen closet (since there is no where in the bathroom to actually put towels). But...the shelves are SUPER shallow so the space is mostly wasted (and I can't fold fitted sheets, so it looks horrible 99% of the time).
Since we signed up for our first home exchange (and they are coming at the end of the month) I got super paranoid about people judging us for our nasty closets. So we took action.
"We" meaning I told Bubbs to get the bottom three shelves out. And he did.
Kinda cool to see that the shelves were put in during original construction and were nailed into place through an open wall (that is closed now, so he just had to beat the *$% out of the shelves to get them out).
We still need to paint it, but for now, we had a place for the vacuum!
Since our linen closet now had no place for linens (with only two shelves) and our entry closet was holding ALL of our cleaning supplies (in random boxes and paper bags), we did the old switcheroo!
Remember this closet?
This was what came out of it:
To be clear - that is mostly paper bags. We've stopped collecting them after cleaning out this closet. Who knew we had a paper bag closet. Straight into the compost bin they go!
So Bubbs used some L brackets and plywood and build me some shelves. I ordered baskets on Amazon (who knew how expensive baskets were!?). I tried to buy them locally, but it wasn't easy finding 23" deep baskets. Using baskets (rather than just keeping them on the shelves) makes it so we can just slide the baskets in and out and not have to reach super far back to get sheets or tableclothes.
Bubbs wanted to build movable shelving, but this was easier (read: cheaper).
This closet holds our sheets, re-usable grocery bags and board games (well some of them). We have more that enough room in here now!
A few days before I had organized the bathroom cabinets with little fabric boxes I bought at an import store down the block. They aren't pretty, but they are functional and were 2.50 each.
The medicine cabinet was purged of almost everything and now everything has a place.
(yes, we all use kid toothbrushes - what?)
So we used the extra cloth boxes to store our cleaning supplies HIGH above anywhere the munchkin could reach them.
We realized after putting them all away that we had been double or even triple buying cleaning supplies because we thought we were out but they were just shoved too far into the other closet.
Mama is seriously happy about this.
At this point in the weekend, you could probably say that I was on an organizing rampage.
It wasn't really safe to be in the house with your clutter.
I sent the boys downstairs to Cha Cha in the Rumpus room and I went to town on the kitchen.
I don't have befores because I was on such a tear, but here's the after:
It makes me SO happy. One basket holds wooden cutting boards (we have a lot), one holds baking dishes, and one holds the hand blender and rolling pin.
I threw away:
a warped salad spinner
some bento boxes
cracked serving dishes
dusty paper plates and other funk.
I also realized that the painters that did a horrible job on our house before they put it on the market, sprayed the previous owner's contact paper with paint.
They were seriously awesome. I wish I could find out who they hired so I could congratulate them on fooling us into thinking we didn't have any work to do on painting when we bought the place. I assume that was their intention.
Anyway - we have the bedroom closets to get to next - and the backyard is getting some major love this weekend!
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