The Great Wave of Organization

It started with the bookshelf. I had to pull every book from the shelf and stick it in a pile before painting the shelf, and looking at them sitting there, intermingled with an entire DVD collection and countless CDs, I decided to make improvements.

I bought giant rolling storage bins to fit under the bed and put all the DVDs and CDs inside. That left the bookshelf dedicated to just books--which was a huge step. Then I found I had my various pens and pencils (which I had shoved on the bookshelf, too), with no home.

That wasn't right.

Also, I had pulled out the craft storage from under the bed to fit in the rolling storage bins. That didn't so much work, because the craft bin wouldn't fit back under the bed with the big storage bins in place. I was left with a giant pile of crafty things. Oops.

There was no place for this stuff to go.

And, well...there wasn't about to be space for it, either.

The only thing I could think of was getting my new mattress frame. But shattering my body in a car accident (figuratively speaking), left me unable to work on my Big Project, which involved using a staple gun and foam and stretching fabric over everything and more stapling.

Something had to give, but it didn't, because my neck HURT.

And then yesterday, I got a call from Mum, who had found the table I'd been looking for since...well, ever. It would take the place of an oversized trunk (that we'd picked up from Hobby Lobby on sale) as my official entertainment center. Here, finally, would be a place to fit my TV and DVD/Blu-ray player! It was at T.J. Maxx, one of my favorite places on earth, and it was CHEAP.

When I came home, one other giant thing had been added to the huge mess I had in my room. It was a beautiful giant thing, but it was giant and in the way, so I had to rearrange things RIGHT AWAY.

I enlisted help with moving heavy objects--I still can't manage that--vacuumed, and settled down to sort through things.The trunk had been filled with pictures from ages back and everything travel-related from my trips to England and Europe. It is still filled with those things, but now it is filled with them outside of my bedroom while it waits for me to bring home archival boxes for the photos and memorabilia.

Then I drug everything out of my nightstand. This would be re-vamped to store office supplies in one drawer and knitting notions in the other. sorting this took several hours, but once it was done, I had two neat drawers and easy access to everything I'll need. This leaves only the craft supplies to be sorted, and I picked up three modular boxes (they stack well) for those. One will be dedicated to only paper and ephemera, the other for painting supplies, and the third for jewelry. I might pick up one more box for scrapbook paper, if it doesn't fit nicely in the first box.

My hope is that these boxes (which are tiny), will actually slide nicely under my bed right now, meaning I can take my time finding and purchasing the right mattress frame without living in chaos.

Next step? A complete closet rehaul. This will involve getting rid of tons of clothes that no longer fit, sorting all my yarn once and for all, and making good use of space (which I'm not doing at the moment. Here are some of my closet goals:

Photo via Positively Splendid

 I'll make some magazine boxes to hold knitting patterns and other whatsits. Here's a tutorial via Positively Splendid. There's absolutely no reason to spend crazy amounts of money on a set of fancy, color-coordinated boxes when you can make them yourself for the cost of a bit of foam-core poster board and some cute scrapbook paper!

Next up I will hunt down some wire baskets--and goodness knows where I will find them or how long it will take to do so, spray paint them, and attach them to the back of my closet door.

I'll use these to store scarves, belts, and the few clutches that I use the few times I go to fancy places. In the process, I hope to pare down the sheer quantity of bags I have to the few that I actually use.

The effect will, I hope, be something like this project from The Lovely Cupboard.

photo via The Lovely Cupboard

My baskets will likely not be so cute to look at, since I doubt I'll find such neat vintage baskets, but they will be a cute color! 

I have books in the closet, too. And the books will have to find a nice place that is NOT the closet. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and I am drawing the line at my closet door. No books allowed!

I promise there will be pictures of all these going-ons, once the room is fit to be photographed. Right now it is still a disaster zone.