The closet where things go to die.

Today I finally began cleaning out the closet in my office. It could be dubbed as the closet where things go to die, as I avoid it and throw everything possible in it when guests come over. For almost two years it has proudly displayed my stained wedding dress. I totally mean to bring it to the cleaner, but I'm sure they will charge more because it's a "wedding dress." I also love the fact that it is totally covered in makeup, white wine, dirt and grass stains. It just points out that I had an awesome time and part of me doesn't want those stains to leave.

But back to the closet. Over a year ago I bought some shelving to throw in the closet and it's been sitting in the corner ever since then. The closet goes to the left about a foot inside and I figured it would be a great nook right now for shelving for books and baskets of stuff that I have in my office. Later on when that room is home to a child, they should work well for kid things -- games, books, and other smaller toys.

Part of the problem is that I already shoved a book shelf and a filing drawer contraption in there when we moved in. It's been that way ever sense. And I just kept piling stuff on top of stuff on top of stuff...

While this is slightly embarrassing (I'm sure everyone has an evil closet), I'm posting this to hold myself accountable. And to hopefully have something great to show in the end.

At the end of today, this is where I'm at:

Everything else has been pulled out. All of the paper stuffs are in a big container to go through later. The file drawer in the closet still needs to be cleaned out but the smaller drawer is empty. The plan is to later go through all of those papers and appropriately file the keepers and shred the unnecessary stuff. All of the actual things are sorted -- garage sale/donate box, recycling, garbage, craft stuff, and house hold stuff (nails, random shelving brackets, etc.). I even went through the plastic stacked drawers and pulled out things for a garage sale/donation. It houses an assortment of odds and ends that I need to go through better still. Once we're closer to actually putting the shelves in, I will pull everything out completely and make sure it's edited and sorted properly before anything enters again.

Hopefully, I can talk Bill into cutting my shelf boards down either tonight or over the weekend...