Free Look at My Drawers

 Here is a picture of the dresser in our entrance - I really needed Lynn's positive validation on this, because cleaning out the front closet has been a demoralizing lesson in humility. How many feet are in this family? How many shoes can possibly be needed for six (currently occupying) feet? How many sneakers has Eve outgrown and yet they hang on the shoe tree like poisonous cluttery long-gone-off fruit? 

Don't be fooled. 

And the closet shelf. We have a double shoe rack against the wall opposite the closet. At some point I got the bright idea that I would put a second double shoe rack up on the closet shelf. Double the space! Okay, full disclosure, "at some point" is roughly TWENTY GODDAMNED YEARS AGO when we moved in. Did it work well? It did not. A double wide-open shelf is not at all what you need for hats, mittens, scarves and sunglasses. A double wide-open shelf that is not solid but rather thin slats of wood? EVEN WORSE. The closet has been a nightmare of falling mittens, crammed-in wads of hat and scarf, people chucking other people's winter accessories aside to find their own, absolute fleecy chaos. "Someone should do something about this", I thought at least fifty times a winter (and it's Canada. We got weather). 

So as I was surveying the general area preparatory to painting it, I suddenly had the blinding, largely unwelcome realization that I AM SOMEONE. So I pulled out all the coats and sweaters and a bewildering number of jean jackets and baseball windbreakers, emptied the shoe rack and took it out, sorted the coat things and the winter accessories, ordered some bins and a set of matching wooden hangers because I am a goddamned half century old, and the time for mismatched plastic hangers - some still child-sized - is long past. Then I realized I had jumped the gun a little on all of this because I will have to empty the closet all over again to paint it, but I actually don't care because the dopamine hit I already get from surveying the vastly improved closet situation is extremely welcome right now. 

I should post a picture but I'm too lazy. I'll post a picture tomorrow. I have figured out that I have to add at least one picture to every post or when I post to Facebook it defaults to the same stupid Christmas card picture every time and makes me look even more confused and disorganized than I actually am.

So I didn't actually talk about the dresser, which yay! now we have yet another fascinating home organization post to look forward to tomorrow! It has just now occurred to me that it would maybe make more sense to put the hats and mitts and scarves in the dresser - which the kids do, in the bottom two drawers. The rest of them are reserved for the annoying crap that you sort of want to have near the door and anything else that I want to tidy away when people are coming over and have no room for. This results in having to clean it out a couple of times a year and becoming convinced that it is the Tardis of dressers - bigger on the inside. Matt invariable wanders through the minefield and says "how the heck did all of THIS fit in THERE?" It has taken me an embarrassingly long time to realize that, when cleaning out and reorganizing drawers and cupboards, it's not really enough to just move things around - you actually have to commit to moving a good third of the stuff elsewhere or throwing it out. I am bad at this, but getting better all the time. Given the rate of progress, by the time I'm 134 or so I'll be a pro.

Right then, I'm off for cold backyard drinks. At least I'll be able to easily locate the stuff I need to bundle up with. 

Comments

Ernie said…
I just cleaned out our mudroom YESTERDAY.

I learned (the hard way) that telling kids to clean out their lockers is ineffective, so this room had basically not been HANDLED for probably a year or more.

I also realized that we do NOT need the crazy number of hats and gloves that we once did. Eliminating excess stuff is so freeing. Surprising I don't do it more.

The dresser in the hall is brilliant. Each of our kids has a drawer near the mudroom in the new kitchen. It does encourage them to hoard though. One more place I have to tell them to organize, so they can ignore me.

Envious of your outdoor drinks.
StephLove said…
Our current organizational challenge is that when the kids switched bedrooms a year ago a lot of stuff belonging to each of them never made it to the new room. Noah cares more about this and he finally succeeded in getting North to remove (most) of their stuff from his room. Now it's sitting in boxes on the living room floor because it doesn't fit in North's new room.
Lynn said…
Excellent! I love that it is tall and thin and has lots of drawers. I am off to the IKEA website for options :).
Oooh I LOVE reorganizing things and I have to do that too - you have reminded me that I wanted to buy some shoe racks for our closets. Things are out of control. Also, we need a better system for winter gear but I don't know what it is. We are very space constrained, our mudroom is not even a room. It's more like a landing. So, we will see.
Suz said…
Shoe tree. That is something I've not thought about in many, many years. I can't even imagine all the winter garb that you must need to have on hand for four people.
Next week, can you share with us your flip flop/bathing suit closet? :)
Kidding. Organizing does produce dopamine; I love it!

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