It's Good to Catch up With Old Friends

There I was putting on my rolled up jeans and new Sperry Topsiders this weekend and I shouted, "Hello 1980! I haven't seen you in forevah!! Have you seen my friend Big Shoulder Pads?" Sigh. I've missed them all so.

Fun Monday-My Closet. Yikes!!

RDHMom is hosting this week and what a scary assignment this is.

I want to see the inside of your closet!! I want to see if your closet is as messy as mine!!! You can't organize it before you take the picture!!

Can I just tell you that it's probably as messy as yours and skip the pictures? No? Well, okay. This is going to be humbling. Before I show you the pictures though, let me fill you in on a little secret. Our house looks neat a as a pin when you walk through it on any given day, but open a drawer or a closet door without wearing a hard hat, and you're in trouble. It's kind of the compromise Hubby and I have worked out over eighteen years of marriage. He's a neat freak, as in he used to alphabetize his canned goods before I came into his life. Yeah, scary, I know. I'm not a complete slob, and I don't like dirt, but I don't get worked up about a few things out of place. Over the years, we've figured out that we can live in peace if things are neat in appearance but not necessarily neat behind cupboard doors. So please, if you come to a dinner party at my house, don't snoop in the cabinets.

Our house is forty years old and is short on closet space. We struggled for years for a way to maximize the space. One day, I jokingly said, "We should turn that spare bedroom we never use into one big walk-in closet." Then we looked at each other and said, "You don't suppose...." After fiddling with the idea for about a year, we finally did it. We stripped it down, installed a whole bunch of closet stuff and voila! We ended up with a great big room that holds five hanging racks, 17 drawers, 72 shoe slots, fourteen cubbies and a whole slew of nooks and crannies in which to shove things. It is glorious. It went from the least used room in the house to the most effective use of space in our humble abode. I keep the laundry hamper in there, and since the laundry room is right across the hall, everything is washed, folded, ironed and put away within the same general area. The regular closet that was in there to begin with holds the off season stuff, and I simply rotate summer and winter shirts when the seasons change. That task takes about fifteen minutes. At any time of the year we can have all of our clothing at our fingertips. It's really one of the best remodels we've done in our house. Let me show you around, but I must warn you, it's kinda' messy. (In fact, I was a little embarrassed when I downloaded the pictures and looked at them closely. And not just because of the mess. It's obvious I'm addicted to clothing. I mean when it takes a whole room to hold it all, you know? There are two distinct areas, Hubby's and the one Teen Angel and I share. Here's our side.

This rack holds dresses. At the top you'll notice the purse parking. To the left of the dresses is her shoe bin and her drawers. To the right is that disaster of bins that holds my exercise clothes at the top, accessories in the middle, jeans down below and spare towels. The basket at the bottom holds dog toys. Rotten mutt doesn't have anything to play with. To the far right is a rack of suits and jackets and a rack of pants, skirts and shorts.

Oh, and lots of boots on the top shelf. Here's another section.
It contains my shoe bin, my drawers, a rack of my shirts and sweaters and a rack of Teen Angel's shirts and sweaters. Those baskets on top hold winter stuff like gloves and hats. Those bins on the right hold hats , accessories and my Parrothead paraphernalia. Those drawers on the right hold swimsuits and other odds and ends. It is pretty messy in here...EXCEPT for the next section, which is Hubby's. How can you tell it apart? Well, what do you think?Yeah, it's the neat side. The side where the shirts are sorted by color and sleeve length. See? The white long sleeved ones are all on one side. His pants are organized by color and style as well. Can I tell you how much this drives me insane? How much I long to just shuffle that stuff around? I resist for the sake of our marriage. But let me tell ya' I nipped that alphabetized canned good crap in the bud a long time ago. There's only so much a girl can take. Now shuffle on over to RDHMom's and check out everyone else's drawers.