The Great Closet Project Part One

I’ve fallen off the discipline wagon when it comes to writing blog posts. The one I posted earlier this week about my dreams was one I wrote and originally scheduled for the week after my hand surgery but I didn’t use it because my recovery was faster than I anticipated and I wrote a post in real time instead. I’m totally off my sync for when I write and when I play and partly that’s because I’ve been doing something a few of my blog followers have been laying a quilt trip on me for not doing sooner. Yes, someone out there in Bloggerland shamed me into starting the Great Closet project. Thank you. I needed the kick in the posterior.

The photos below might not look like they have much to do with a closet makeover but they do and it took me a three day weekend to swap that short bookcase in the living room out for the tall one in my closet. And I moved them all by not-so-little self…with the help of my handy dandy E-Z Movers pictured above. Living in an apartment house, means I had to get my E-Z Mover kit out of storage and put it back down there again which involved an elevator ride down to the underground cage storage area that is attached to our underground parking lot. 

Nothing is easy when it come to storing items you don’t use often when you live in an apartment building. For one thing you have to be fully dressed to make the trip and if you get creeped out easily you won’t be going down there after dark. It doesn’t bother me---it’s well lite and we’re not in a high crime area---but some people think they’re going to get mugged in those lonely hallways. Those are the same people who avoid underground parking and storage after dark who also keep their second and third floor deck doors locked because presumably some mastermind could rappel off the roof down to their decks to steal their family silverware. Not going to happen. I’m on the ground level and I didn’t even close my deck door all summer long, let alone lock it. With twenty-five apartments and the security guard’s desk having a clear view of my deck, I feel completely safe and the only action out front of my apartment during the middle of the night are the geese that are fooled by the bright lights. They think it's daylight and they walk around like they own the place.

Since we’re talking storage areas I’m proud of the fact that I don’t have extra boxes littering up the floor in front of my car the way about ten people do. Management is starting to lean of them about it and I don’t blame them. It’s been a year that we’ve all been living here and if you can’t find room inside your apartment or cage storage for 10-30 boxes of stuff it’s time to let go. I understand it though. If you don’t want to donate it, we’re limited on how to sell stuff.

Anyway back on topic: The first picture below shows the way my living room looked with the short bookcase and the other picture is of the taller bookcase taking its place. And if you're wondering what the heck they have to do with overhauling my clothes closet. Quite a lot, actually. With the lower bookcase now in the closet it frees up the wall above it up to get maintenance in to put a shelf and clothes rod, giving me three more feet of space to hang hangers. The tall bookcase was full of boxes and folded T-shirts, etc., and paring that stuff down involved making another elevator ride down to put some donation bags in my car to drop off at the Salvation Army. The back seat of car looks like a storage unit, by they way. It’s filled with toilet paper and paper towel. The last few months when I’d look around my apartment to make a grocery list I’d put those two items on the list, forgetting I didn’t have room on my cart to bring them upstairs the last few times I’d been shopping. Once I remember the back seat of my car looks like the paper products aisle at Meijer I won't have to buy those items all winter long.

Anyway, now that I've made the swap of the bookcases I was able to  put in a work request to Maintenance for the new bar/shelf combo. He’s also going to replace the tension rod with a regular rod. Both will cost me under $75 but worth it not to have clothes that are wrinkled from hanging too close together or being folded up on the bookcase. I though about having the closet designer company come out, gut the closet and start over. I’ve seen their work and know it would look better but it would cost over $1,500 and I’d rather spend that money elsewhere…like on new clothes. I’ve already started by making a trip to Land’s End where I bought the first part of jeans I’ve own since the last century. 

While I’m in a holding pattern waiting for Maintenance I’m starting part two of the Great Closet Project---trying on everything to determine if it stays or goes. I'm terrible about holding on to things I don't like wearing or that doesn't fit right---not a good thing if I ever get moved over to Memory Care or assisted living and I have to depend on a caregiver to help dress me. What a frustrating mess that would be for both of us.

Part three will be the fun part of making a few purchases to fill in the gaps when I get rid of some thread-bare pants and tops that have seen better days.

The short book case now in the closet

---boxes hold, purses, hats, scarves and mending.

The swap will also have an added benefit of bringing music back into my life…as soon as the maintenance man comes and can drill a hole to pass a plug through the back of the bookcase in the living room. I had the CD player on the short bookcase but I couldn’t keep my CDs out where they were easy to get at---they were under my bed---so they never got played. I really miss country western music. I realized that the other day when I sat in underground parking listening to my car radio. I would have stayed there all afternoon except that I had ice cream melting in a grocery bag. Songs like in the video below make me happy. For my writing group (update in my next blog post)  I've been writing poems like this song---the concept being to take a simple idea and turning it into a mini slice-of-life. ©