Sunday, April 20, 2008

My Life is a Mess - Linen Closet Edition

Last Saturday, I decided to do the linen closet as my next MY LIFE IS A MESS challenge. I was getting pretty tired of having an avalanche fall on my head everytime I opened the door to get a towel. It was stuffed with towels, washclothes, bedding, and various bits of fabric with miscellaneous functions. And HALF of what lived in there, was in the laundry! This wasn't a hard challenge, just one I never seemed to get around to.

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Before, the top two shelves were crammed with odds and ends - bedding, towels, baby blankets(!). After, the never-used stuff was on the top shelf, and the pillow cases were neatly folded and stacked according to size.

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The next couple of shelves now holds towels, hand towels, and washclothes.

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Um. Not much change here. I looked around for a different place to keep this thing, but as it turns out, this closet IS the perfect place for it.

See? Easy.

But, where is the bedding? you may ask. Well, I'll tell you. In addition to cleaning out this closet, I did tons of laundry and realized that one of the reasons we had trouble with this closet was all the bedding. Comforters, sheets and pillow cases for THREE different sized beds - and the twin size only comes out when someone spends the night and we need to use the air mattress. My solution?
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Plastic tubs. Big ones. The two that are stacked up hold bedding for the twin and full-sized beds. The one on the shelf (in my closet) is bedding for our big bed. It makes more sense this way. We don't change beds every day, but we do use towels. So I simply removed the things that weren't always being grabbed. The one exception was pillowcases. They're pretty interchangeable between all the beds, so I put them all in one place. So far, so good.

Of course, this wasn't all I did this week. Our Friday night guest, Biker Tom, inspired me to clean up the computer room and make it a suitable guest room. I don't think I thought to take pictures beforehand, but trust me, it was a mess. Books everywhere, trash from lots of sorting of odd paperwork (getting ready for taxes), dust bunnies that looked more like rabid dogs. But I must say, the results were worth it.
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It is absolutely pleasant to spend time in here.

NEXT WEEK'S CHALLENGE!!!!They're re-carpeting my office on Friday. I started cleaning out my office a couple of weeks ago, but didn't get very far. So my work-related requirements inspire this week's challenge.

CLEAN YOUR OFFICE - OR WORKSPACE - OR HOME COMPUTER AREA.
I already did my home computer room, now it's time to get the workplace ready to move out, re-carpet, and move back in. What does YOUR area look like?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your guest/computer room looks beautiful. It just crossed my mind dear --- what will you find to do extracurricular when your house is in total order? Because as much as you are doing you will be there in no time.

grins and giggles to you,
Stef

Sayre said...

Honey, I've got a kid and a husband and that means it will NEVER be done.

Kaytabug said...

WOW! That bedroom looks inviting!!
My linen closet is really just towels and all the toiletries like lotions, hair care stuff...perfumes...not worth taking a picture of. If it was just linens I'd be all over taking a photo.
Great job!!! :)

Jodi said...

That guest room looks good. Can I make a reservation?

J.

Emma in Canada said...

When is this next challenge due? On Monday? I would love to try it. I don't have a room to call my own, but I have an area in the kitchen and another in the livingroom. Both need cleaning!