Tag Archives: closets

What’s in Your Closet?

Posted on by
46

This is my office which has been taken over with stuff from our closets. The painting is of our Palm Springs backyard.

Yesterday, we were getting new carpet installed in our guest room and casita. We went through Costco because a neighbor recommended them. First, you have Costco’s backing if you aren’t satisfied or something goes wrong. Second, you get a percentage back from Costco on a gift card.

We had a salesperson come to the house with samples. We selected what we wanted, signed a contract and paid. The salesperson did measurements with an electronic device. He said I needed to empty out the closets and remove little things, but they would do the heavy lifting of beds and dressers.

We decided to replace the carpets after Christmas. My son is very allergic to cats and even though I raked the carpets to get rid of Olive’s hair (yes, there is such a thing as a pet rake) and I had the carpets professionally cleaned, my son couldn’t breathe. His doctor told him to leave or go to the ER. Not a great Christmas memory.

I’m sad to lose Olive and I miss her every day. She loved to hibernate in the daytime under the beds in the casita and guest room. Hence the cat dander.

We have a friend who is a retired pulmonary physician. He said cat dander can last in carpet up to three years. There’s no getting rid of it.

We had no carpet in our Palm Springs home. We replaced the carpet in our kids’ bedrooms with hardwood floors because of the allergy issue.

I can’t believe how much STUFF I had crammed into two closets. Now that it’s all out in public view in my office, I think it’s the perfect opportunity to go through it all. We are having guests for a week starting Sunday. What a great time to empty out the closets and have new carpet.

In those closets I had Christmas ornaments, gift wrap, and giant jugs to purify water from our pool in case of an emergency. Also, a sewing machine and fabric. And lots and lots of photo albums. Where will I put these things now? That’s the question.

What oddball things do you have stored in a spare closet?

The big box

Posted on by
45

I made myself a treat. My husband had to meet with clients over the weekend, so while he was busy, I bought two pounds of little neck clams and made myself a feast. I had clams while I was visiting Seattle, of course, but I can never get too many!

I’m finally attacking some chores that I’ve tried to avoid. When I say avoid, I mean I’ve successfully put them off for years!

First there was a huge box that my brother mailed to me in 2015. I know the date because its stamped across the two-foot by three-foot-long box on the UPS label. It was a box from Mom. I hadn’t looked at it until after she died. When I was getting ready for my trip to spread her ashes on on our riverfront property, I thought perhaps I’d take a peek inside the box. I found several photos to share with family and promised myself I’d get into the box when I returned.

The box had lived in our hallway closet in Palm Springs until we moved. Then it found a home in a hallway closet in Arizona.

I ordered a couple photo storage boxes and decided I needed to sort through the photos from mom’s childhood through my adulthood. The keepers are now in a 11.25″ X 7.75″ box.

I discovered tiny little photos from my mom’s childhood of relatives I’ve never met. I think Mom said she had a Brownie camera. I wonder if that’s what made the teeny tiny photos?

I found color polaroids from my childhood. Photos from our trip to Hawaii when I was in second grade. Vacation days in Victoria BC where my brother and I were dressed up like we were going to church. Several years of birthday parties with neighborhood and school friends.

Mom also had tons of photos of my children, from when they were babies to beginning grade school. I did more throwing out than saving and felt somewhat satisfied to toss the huge cardboard box in recycling.

Now I have four boxes out from the same hallway closet to conquer. I’m on a roll and don’t want to stop now. These boxes are full of framed photos. I think I’m going to take the photos out and if I want to keep them, store them in a photo box. The frames I’ll take to the Kiwanis Thrift Shop. It will feel good to get rid of all this stuff that’s sitting in boxes for years. These are boxes that were stored for years in Palm Springs and rather than making decisions about them before we moved, I moved the boxes with me.

Here’s a photo my mom took of my husband and me when we first got together. My husband was my son’s age!
Do you have any chores or boxes in closets that you’ve avoided?

Less stuff and lighter in spirit

Posted on by
8

 

IMG_9635.JPG

I found these iphones 4, 5, and 6 plus chargers in a drawer.

We moved into this house 25 years ago this month. I have a few areas of the house I like to call “hot spots.” You know, the places where things fill up with stuff you don’t know what to do with. Our closet was definitely one of those hot spots. This weekend my husband and I decided to clear out the closet so we can do some remodeling.

One of my friends warned me when I told her we were getting ready to clean out our master bedroom walk-in closet. “You know what happens when you do that,” she said. “It never stops. You’re going to start a whole house-wide cleaning.”

I bought several clothing racks and we moved our clothes we decided to keep in the guest room—until construction is done. It’s amazing how much easier it is to see what you own and what you want to keep when it’s hanging neatly in the light of day, and not tucked away in a dark closet.

On Saturday, eight hours later with tired, sore back and legs. I was done. I can’t believe the amount of clothing I had stuffed into that closet. We made several trips to the closest Angel View Thrift Shop with our old clothes. Why is it hard to get rid of stuff? It seems exhausting because every item forces a decision. If way back in your closet, clothes are gathering dust, it’s probably a clue to let things go. I feel like I could have thrown out much more than I did and maybe I will.

The excitement on Saturday got me going on the drawers on each side of my sink Sunday morning. Then, I went into the bathroom shelves. There’s no end in sight to all the fun I can have. I still have my kids rooms to go through, too. Whenever they visit, I try to get them to throw their belongings out that they chose to leave behind. They never get around to it, though. I think I’d feel 20 pounds lighter in spirit to go from room to room clearing out all their junk.

We have way too much stuff. It feels so good to let it go. Once you start throwing things out and have made a few tough decisions, it gets easier. Just throw it out and I promise you, you won’t miss a single thing.

IMG_9404

Our casa where we raised our kids.

 

How often do you throw things out and clean out closets? Do you feel a sense of freedom by lightening your load?