Recently one of the kids came home looking for a box of collectibles that he swears he left in his closet. Upon searching, he was stunned to find a whole lot of stuff, but no cards.
He finally located his stuff in the basement storage area where I keep holiday collectibles and decorations.
I really thought when all the kids moved out for good, I would have more closet space.
It makes sense doesn’t it? Three kids gone, three closets open.
And I dream of organized closets. I see pictures on Pinterest and in magazines and drool as though a slice of chocolate cake were torturously just out of my reach.
That first open closet called out to me like a Siren from Greek mythology.
I decided to make it the place to store all the photos. My idea was simple, beautiful, highly organized albums, with neat colorful pages, in order by year and tabulated by event.
You know, “real” photos, the kind that take up a lot of space in my home, unlike the digital photos in my phone that fill up invisible space until I’m left with a threatening note that if I don’t delete Candy Crush my phone will fail.
For years I had photos spread all over the house in various boxes, envelopes and dresser drawers. It became a goal to get them all together and in one place. And so I did.
But there was no time to tabulate events or organize by year so I just stuck all the photos in plastic tubs. Turned out to be four tubs, 15 photos boxes and a whole lot of frames in various sizes in a giant jumbled heap.
But they are all in one closet. It felt like good use of the space – at the time.
Then another kid moved out and another closet became available.
Yet another siren sang out to me. That closet I filled with spare blankets and robot helicopters that nobody played with anymore, a Simpsons Family chess game, and pictures I bought that I was going to hang when I redecorated the room, but of course that never happened. From the rod I hung all of my fancy dresses that were only worn once, but I can’t get rid of because I paid too much money for them.
I also managed to squeeze a bunch of Halloween costumes in there too. It was a good-sized closet. It looks like a mess.
The third child left and the siren song was more like a wary whisper. It sounded a lot like “Good grief, what are you going to stick in this one?”
But there’s always something. In the third closet I hung coats.
Sure I have a coat closet, but it is stuffed with coats (I’m sure many belong to the kids who moved out, but left their coats). And when guests come over it becomes a mad rush to “hide the coats.” Because if you don’t there is no room for guest coats and then you have to throw them on a bed in whatever bedroom is the cleanest. Who needs that stress.
In addition to coats, I added a bin filled with all my old purses, hats and beach bags and shoved all the graduation gowns – what are you supposed to do with graduation gowns? I’m sure there’s a Pinterest page for that, but all I see is the money hanging in that closet.
I don’t know how it happens. It’s like magic – empty space never stays empty.
Recently, I listened to a friend lament how empty her house seems now that her children are gone. She then went on to tell me how she changed one closet into a craft closet – complete with a desk and drawers for all her crafty stuff.
She’s thinking about turning the other empty room into a library and filling the closet with shelves. I hate her.
Image credit: Arne Hendriks
When we first moved to Flint in 1985, our soon-to-be landlord and former Mayor Don Cronin showed us some older houses for rent next to the Cultural Center. While viewing one of them my wife asked, “Where are the closets?” Surprised, Don looked around and found none. Answer: When the house was built people used wardrobes, an actual piece of furniture, to hang all their clothes.
Fast forward 30 years… and I feel your pain, Brenda! How did we ever get SO MUCH STUFF!?
Hey! That’s a great idea. I can buy a wardrobe – more space to fill. Ugh
Another great column–many other folks have to deal with this, I’m sure it’ll get better once organization becomes more important to those who will have to eventually deal with it.
I just keep promising myself that if I retire – I will organize. Until then, well, rack’em and stack’em.
Promises, promises….I am retired and have no determination or desire to begin organizing. That’s just how I am, and my friends still love me.
Hey, that sounds pretty good!
Don’t count on it. I’ve been retired for over three years and still haven’t organized my kids’ empty closets. I’m too busy doing the fun things I never had time to do when I was working and raising two kids. Besides, no one ever comes over and asks to see my closets…thankfully.
I was doing fine until my mother came to visit and wanted to hang stuff in the closet. Honestly, of all people. LOL
I’ve always wondered who those people were that took an “unused” closet and made it into an office or craft space! I DID make one of my “guest room” closets into my pillow room. Shelves full of decorator and holiday pillows now line the walls (it’s a walk-in closet). Pillows are my little decorating secret when I feel the need to redecorate come on… Cheaper than new paint, window treatments and furniture. LOL
Get more space by just getting pillow covers!
Done THAT too!!!
hahaha! That works!
A closet full of pillows. That sounds perfect. If I can just find one more empty closet!
We built ANOTHER bedroom which freed up the pillow closet. LOL
Well that’s not happening. 🙂
I love your columns!
When we renovated the second floor of our house, the builder made 5 closets: 2 in the hallway, 2 in one of the bedrooms and one in the second bedroom. They each measured 8 ft. long, 6 1/2 ft. high, and 30 inches deep. With the exception of a couple games, nothing in the closets belong to my moved-out-married-children!
When the builder completed the work, he said, “Now that you have all that closet space, don’t be tempted to fill them up with stuff that you will probably never use”.
HAH!
Now that’s some dreamy closet space.
Brenda, you and I (and many other perfectly nice people) are merely hapless victims of science! Remember that annoyingly true law of physics, “nature abhors a vacuum?” Anytime there is a blank space it’s going to be filled with something. You can’t fight science and win! It’s like throwing buckets of water out the window while your house is flooding. We must accept clutter for what it is – the inevitable accumulation of stuff made in China that is neither wanted nor needed, like bread machines and Thigh Masters. So quit beating yourself up about something over which you have no control and buy an aluminum shed.
LOL – I refuse to give up hope, but I gotta tell you that shed idea has a lot of merit!
Whatever you do, stay away from self-storage units! I have three, with my stuff and my mom’s stuff. The stuff is easy to ignore, because you can’t see it. (You can’t see it because you never use it.) You pay for the storage every month. I am seriously considering auctioning off everything, when the storage place has its monthly auction of abandoned stuff.
The way I figure it, if I haven’t used something in a year or two – chances are good I don’t need it.
I recently pared my digital photo collection down to about 74,000 shots. The entire collection fits in my pocket. Too bad I can never find the photo I’m looking for.
LOL!!! 74,000 – wow, I have about 800 and still can’t find what I’m looking for. You win!
Our daughter, as a Millennial, has done her share of moving from one apartment to another during college and beyond. Even though she and her husband now own a house, she developed the habit of getting rid of all unnecessary stuff. When she’d visit home during college, she regularly told me to purge our house and even offered to help with that. I took her up on it a few times, but had to rescue some things from the trash! Now my husband and I are thinking about downsizing as we head toward retirement. We’re trying to slowly go through each section of the house, but it’s a painful process. It might take us a few years!
The idea of downsizing scare me to death. My mom is doing it now – and guess who she’s sending stuff to? I’m in so much trouble.
I think we all tend to ignore the elephant in the room, literally in our case since my wife collects elephants and they are everywhere. I bought her an oak floor to ceiling corner curio cabinet with glass doors/shelves and lights long ago, the once tasteful display has been shoulder to shoulder elephants for well over decade.
I really should sort and sell the junk we don’t use after I retire next year but odds are I won’t. We have no children so I’m seriously considering leaving everything to the Humane Society or Adopt-A-Pet and letting them deal with it. If they sold my house to the right people maybe my dogs and cats wouldn’t have to move.
I still want to believe I’ll get to this when I retire, but lots of retired folks are telling me it’s a pipe dream. Your idea to leave everything for someone else to sort isn’t all bad.