Peace of Mind Organizing

Small change, big impact

30 July 2013

My husband and I have lived in our home for 22 years. (Well, four of those 22 years we lived in New York City, so I guess it’s 18 years.)

One of the big frustrations in the house for all those years was the master-bedroom closet had sliding doors. These were oversize sliding doors—in other words, each one was more than half as wide as the closet.

The result? The middle of the closet was essentially unusable space. To make matters worse, when we first moved in, we had a closet company revamp the closet, which was a vast improvement from the rod and shelf that was there. But the new design divided the closet into thirds. So the middle third of the closet was a no-man’s land. That didn’t mean we didn’t store anything there, of course. It just meant we couldn’t easily access what we stored there.

Ever since we moved back to the house from New York twelve years ago, I’d been lobbying to remove those doors and replace them with a curtain. My husband resisted, because he didn’t want our cat going into the closet and leaving cat hair in there. That was a valid concern—Joe liked to scamper into that closet whenever possible.

When Joe passed away in February, I started my lobbying efforts again. About a week ago, we had our handyman remove the closet doors and install a curtain rod above the closet. In advance, I’d purchased these curtain panels from Bed Bath and Beyond.

This past weekend, I set to work decluttering the closet. Oh my goodness, what a difference it’s made to have access to the middle of the closet! It was very easy for me (and even my husband) to donate the clothes we didn’t even know were living there. We also donated some pillows that we’d stored there. And now we have some elbow room in that closet.

I wish I had more dramatic photos, but here are a couple of before and afters.

Lower part before:

Lower part after:

Upper part before:

Upper part after:

Removing those doors and replacing them with the curtains allowed us to:

• Declutter easily
• Store some of my husband’s short- and long-sleeved t-shirts that were in an overcrowded drawer (that’s what’s in those plastic bins)
• Move my jackets off the rod meant for long hanging items and into the middle section
• Make using the closet easy, rather than an exercise in frustration

It was a small, relatively easy shift to make. And it will remove a daily annoyance. How’s that for a payoff?

Tagged with: change, closets, clutter clearing, declutter, decluttering

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