1/20/2010 Closet Day

For years, my default way of un-spinning my mind at night was to bore myself to sleep by thinking about how to re-do the boys' closet. This habit far predates Katrina, though her closet got tacked into my dull-thoughts repertoire. Both kids' rooms closets are small and need to be carefully thought-out to make the best use of them. The one hanging pole they both had was a total waste.

And today, the problem was finally solved. The closet installation guy arrived today with the kids' new closets, and I'm thrilled. One of the most un-glamorous, drudgerous tasks in "doing" a house is finally done!

This job wasn't really about closets though. It's about taking back over spaces downstairs that have been overrun by toys. In order to move kids' toys to their small rooms, clothing-storage space needs to move into the closet. For years, their closets have been prime real estate that were barely used, except for storing things like big pillows or a Pak'n'Play.

No longer! The boys' closet.


Katrina's closet.

(The smaller basket is a sort of lark; it's for her to do what she wants with -- scarves, dress-up stuff, animals whatever.)

I was really counting on LOVING the deep baskets for laundry, though I knew there was some risk I wouldn't. Guess what. LOVING the deep baskets for laundry. I'm very very glad to get laundry baskets off the floor in the main part of the room. We'll see how this works in practice, because it does create an extra step of pulling everything out of the built-in baskets and into a laundry basket. Ooh, god forbid I do one extra step with laundry (no, really).

Right away, I populated the boys' shelves with their winter clothes. All of them. ALL of them?! Wow, when you look at it like this, no wonder I do so much laundry. This is all their pants, and all their long-sleeved shirts (Julian on the left, Gabriel on the right). And that's with having bought Gabriel a bunch of jeans recently.

Socks, underwear, T-shirts, shorts and pajamas are still in their old dressers (to be replaced with one dresser for both), but this is the extent of both their day-to-day wear. It didn't look like so little until it was out there. Katrina doesn't have much more, though she gets a lot of hand-me-downs. Clearly, I'm not a shopper.

This is the first link in a long chain of events to take back over the downstairs space -- and give the kids their own defined spaces that they each need. Next: desks for everyone.

1/20/2010