>Space Savers Clean That Closet Challenge- *I* need to enter this one!!

>Space Savers is having a Clean That Closet Challenge.  Having just redone the ceiling, walls and flooring in our closet, the closet is next.  Our house is from 1946 and storage presents a problem.  We have a larger sized closet for the time when our house was built but its poorly designed and, as Mr. Bargains says, I have too many sweaters (as IF, buddy).  So I saw this challenge and thought, maybe, just maybe, this might be for me.  Anything that lessens clutter and saves space is a good thing in my book!  I stay home with the kids, so I don’t have that many dressy outfits left…just a few.  But Mr. B has shirts for work that need to hang, and pants, and golf shirts with work logo, etc.  Plus fleeces, vests, sweaters, sweatshirts, extra shoes, slippers, bags (we all know that having just one bag per person isn’t common), and for us, the sanitizing wand my mom got us for Christmas 2 years ago.  This, and we do not have any set space for bed linens- they are stacked precariously in the one closet  in the upstairs hall that holds all upstairs cleaning supplies, medicines, towels, sheets, blankets, pillows, etc., for FIVE people.

Right now, when you “walk” into our closet, on the right is a narrow shelf (not sure who designed that but its not functional) and a single wooden rod underneath for hangers.  There is a second shelf about 4 inches off the floor (seriously?  no clue what the point of that is!!) that is really narrow (maybe shallow is better descriptive) and even my slippers are too long for it.  Basically we have this usable rod that won’t hold the clothing we have for 2 adults, and 2 useless shelves that things slide off of because they are longer than the shelf is deep.  At the back of the closet is a metal shoe rack hanging which is fine but its NOT a good use of any of the space, and something is going to change, ASAP.

My goal is to have the “rod” for clothes move about 5 inches higher (Mr. B can handle having his stuff a bit higher) and add a 2nd rod lower so my stuff hangs just above the (brand new) carpeting, across the back of the closet.  Then on the right side of the closet we can do some built in shelving floor to ceiling and get bedding up there, a laundry basket, etc, but we can then make use of all of this poorly designed and wasted space.  My dreams.  I dream big, don’t I?

I am going to try to get a shot of the closet, although it is almost empty since the carpet guys came yesterday.  But at least you can see how useless it really is.  I can show you the mounds of stuff that was precariously balanced on the shelves and stuff that is now in the kids’ rooms!

Here is the press release of what exactly this challenge is.