6 Bags Lighter

After reading this post today, I thought I'd share my good news for the day. After the early softball practice this morning [for Therese and Fia, not me ;)], I decided to once and for all tackle our master closet.

My dear husband was so kind to install a new closet system last year, which really utilizes our space in there. Unfortunately, not in the way it was intended.

I started using our homemade ottoman in there as a small ironing pile. Boy, did that thing get out of control. Whenever I took out all the ironables from the dryer, I'd put them into a pile and carry them straight to my small pile. The boys shirts, Paul's shirts, an occasional pair of pants for one of the girls, Paul's pants... one load at a time, they went right on top of the ottoman. Clearly, the problem was that I did not keep up with ironing as I should have. Another problem - we keep our ironing board/iron in our closet too. The board is usually a piece of furniture in there - we have to work around it. But not only that, where else do you think clothes go? Yep, on top of the ironing board. Piles create more piles. I've seen it! It isn't pretty.

So today I just started cramming clothes in bags. Some things I just had to part with. Some I had to trash. Some should never have been bought in the first place!

I did have some clothes that still had tags on them - they were given to me by a neighbor. I'll try and sell those on eBay.

So 6 bags of clothes later, a little trash thrown away, the closet vacuumed - I had a nice clean and roomy closet. I'll have to post a picture tomorrow! I drove them up to Goodwill down the street and heaved a sigh! It's a good feeling to be lighter!


It's difficult to get a picture of your closet - especially with the zoom lens on!


The drawers I used to keep the wrapping paper and supplies in. I just threw in my old purses in there in the meantime. For the wrapping paper, I bought an under the bed plastic container at Target. It's long enough for those longer rolls too. Plus I have plenty of room for supplies. I used a smaller box for all those gift bags/tissue paper which also fits under the bed. I could put them up on a shelf in my closet, but I want the kids to be able to have access to the boxes.

Here's the ottoman Paul and I made about 7yrs ago. Its base is MDF - so it's a real substantial piece.

The best $8 I've ever spent! I love this iron holder. I didn't take any before pictures, but just try and imagine not seeing carpet on the floor and clothes everywhere, and my small ironing pile on top of the ottoman ;) Surprisingly enough, it didn't take that long to clean it out. Now I just need to MainTain!

Oh, you may be wondering what I did with my small ironing pile... I just hung them all up. I'll iron them as needed! At least that's my plan ;)