We Have Added More Space at Our Little House
This is the top of the pantry/laundry room (see floorplan on this site). We store needed kitchen appliances and hang coats in this area.
Ha! Gotcha. No, we’re not abandoning small house living and didn’t add on, but when completely cleaning out pantries and closets, it does feel as though we’ve added space to Our Little House.
I am a terrible organizer and cleaning is the last thing I like to do. I do rotate the closets every season so we have in-season clothes, but quite honestly, I don’t think in the 17 years we lived in our other house, I ever actually completely cleaned out a closet until we moved. We had plenty of extra room and storage space, so we just kept adding to it.
That’s why living in a little house is good for people like me. There aren’t 2 extra bedroom closets, a country kitchen full of cabinet space and a huge storage closet under the stairs in which to pile what is mostly just unneeded crap.
Cleaning out the bottom of the closet gives us room now to see what we have in shoes, purses, backpacks, scarves, hats, etc. which are neatly tucked into boxes
As it was, we had stuff in our closet here that had been there since we built the house in 2003. Dale’s suit and my only dress sat crumpled in a garment bag at the back of the closet from our daughter’s 2007 wedding (that shows you how much we dress up).
I’m not a fashionista; there was a time when I was a size 4 that I loved buying clothes, but that was a long time ago. However, we do need some new stuff every once in a while and since the newest clothes in my wardrobe was 11 years old and some of the oldest was well over 20, I decided it was time.
I still don’t need much, but needed a couple new outfits for trips to the city. I had not followed my own one item in, one item out rule, so things were very crowded in our little closet. While at it, I decided to finish what Dale started last weekend while on my annual girlfriend’s getaway and finish the laundry room/pantry closet, which also has a pole to hang our coats and the kitchen cabinets.
By the time it was all done, I had 4 ½ large plastic bags to donate to the local women’s shelter thrift store and a box of shoes and other misc. items.
It feels like we have all kinds of room now on the floor and the laundry room/pantry.
A bonus: I found a long forgotten new shower curtain and our old set of silverware from our house in the city.
Do you do a complete fall/spring cleaning?
