As late as 4:00 yesterday, I resisted working on the next part of the closet, which I’d ambitiously assigned myself last week. Procrastination plus a stomach bug and a series of headaches kept me away from the task, and by Monday afternoon I was seriously doubting whether I’d even have a blog post for you this morning.

I even parodied this song with a few appropriate lyrics:

“Looking at the closet,
Feeling down, down, down
Looking at the closet,
Whew! Don’t wanna work now
Looking at the closet
Feeling down, down, down
Looking at the closet,
Whew! Don’t wanna work now

5:00 in the evening
I gotta get this blog post done
Lord, I’m so tired
I don’t wanna start this now

Because I’m looking at the closet
Feeling down, down, down
Looking at the closet,
Whew! Don’t wanna work now…”

LOL! But after staring at the huge mess that awaited me within the closet for a few minutes, trying to psych myself up to tackle it, my thoughts took a different tack. “What’s keeping me from working on this, really?” I wondered. “What’s so daunting about this?”

Then, my eye lit on this area, directly in front of one of the closet doors:

This pile of junk has been sitting in front of the closet door for a good while now (at least 3 years), and it blocks the door from swinging completely open. Plus, it makes standing in front of the closet very awkward. In a way, I dreaded working on the bottom section of the closet because I knew I would not have room to work or to even stand comfortably, let alone get anything constructive done.

So I decided to fix that, with the little amount of energy I had left to my name after the week I’ve had. If I couldn’t do the bottom of the closet this week, I reasoned, then at least I could remove the last obstacle to getting it clean so I could do better next time.

Picking Up, Cleaning Up, Et Cetera, Et Cetera

I began by picking up all the items from the floor, throwing away all the obvious trash and paper clutter as I did so, until my bed was covered again with keepable items:

Yeah, that all came from that area behind and kind of on top of the TV. Amazing how much JUNK I can cram into such few square feet of space! XD

LOOK AT THAT! I FOUND MY CARPET!!! [/inordinate amount of excitement]

But seriously, folks, this is the first time I’ve seen that corner’s carpet in several years. Once all the keepable stuff was up out of the way, and all the big garbage was dealt with, I could actually see the floor. Small victory, but a victory nonetheless!

Side Quest: Sweeping Up Packing Peanuts and Other Floor Clutter

Unfortunately, not only had I found my carpet, but I had also found a huge mess of packing peanuts back behind the TV. The only thing I can figure: at some point in the (distant) past, I had a shipping box full of packing peanuts set on top of the TV, and the box had overturned at least partially. The box was likely carted off, but the packing peanuts hid in the corner, just waiting for me to find them.

Yep, packing peanuts plus a few other random trash items…this was what lay behind the TV.

So I set about sweeping all these little nuggets up and out of the way, recruiting a broom, dustpan, and a tall kitchen trash can for the job. (Pro tip: get small floor clutter out of the way ASAP, otherwise you’re going to end up tripping over it the whole time you’re trying to get the “big stuff” done. Learn from my fail.)

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate packing peanuts? Especially when they randomly jump away from the broom because of static electricity, and end up underneath other furniture, underneath your feet, and pretty much everywhere BUT the dustpan? *sigh* LOL

Getting Back to Business

But finally, after lots of sweeping (and grumbling), I had a clean corner behind the TV. Now, all I needed to do was to move the TV so that the closet door could finally swing open fully.

…Yeah, you can see what began to happen as I moved the TV. Small closet avalanche, ahoy! xD But at least the door could finally swing open, which is a small miracle in my room these days.

With both doors now free to swing open, I took the liberty of arranging hanging hooks so that I could use the hanging space temporarily.

Newly-freed Closet Door #2 is now an impromptu coat closet, at least till I can make room for these coats elsewhere in the house.

As you can see, the doors do not close fully because of the junk still left on the floor of the closet (which I was too exhausted to start tackling yesterday). But they DO open fully, allowing me lots of room to work when I do start working on it!

Random Stuff I Found While Cleaning

The corner of the room seemed to be a trove of hidden gems. For instance:

I found this little beauty (an old half-dollar coin) trapped partly underneath the TV. 😀

This candle holder screen, with electronic candles, was a gift several Christmases ago–a gift which I thought I’d misplaced permanently. YAY for finding stuff! (Double wow: it’s not broken! :O)

Also found: a hoard of super-old makeup. This dates back to at least early high school (1999-2000). Need to toss, much? LOL

The Fruits of My Labors

After a little repositioning and closet configuration…

The corner was finally finished, or at least finished enough for now. At last, there’s space for the closet doors to swing open, and I can finally begin work on the bottom of the closet, where childhood lies in wait for me. 😛

Stay Tuned!

Next time, the bottom of that closet WILL be tackled. Hopefully. “Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise,” as my Nannie used to say. LOL!