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!

This post about didn’t happen–but determination (and frustration/anger) won the day. 😀

Despite feeling generally awful all week (again, I was not about to let this project down in the middle. I’m a little bit infamous for that around the house–I get all gung-ho about a project, only to quit in the middle of it because I begin to lack the energy, support, and time to keep moving on it.

So, having conquered one shelf in the closet last week, I resolved to strike at the next shelf down, which you’ll see pictured below from left to right.

…Yeah. THAT’S what I had to tackle yesterday. I thought, “Well, okay, this will probably be a little more involved than last week’s effort, because there’s more stuff on this shelf, but I can still manage it.”

The (Gross) Discovery Lurking in the Closet

Well, I thought I could manage it easily, until I took the first big bin off the shelf. Below the big bin, which I thought contained everything on that part of the shelf, was a layer of junk. And not just any junk. Mouse-poo-covered junk.

I wanted to laugh, and then I wanted to cry. I used to love mice…now I wish I’d let my indoor cat run wild in my room and kill all the little critters so they wouldn’t poop all over everything. I really wasn’t prepared for the sheer amount of mouse poo, either. (I know this is disgusting to read–it was even more disgusting to confront!)

I was disgusted with myself for having let the closet get this way, and disgusted that I had to deal with this RIGHT NOW…ugh. I stood there thinking, “Really? I have to get into THIS and make sense of it? I have to TOUCH all this?”

Anger Takes the Place of Determination

After a few moments of mental whining and cringing, I finally just started pulling stuff off the shelves in a mad scramble for cleanliness–the things I was mumbling under my breath aren’t fit to be written here (LOL). The disgust and shock of what I had found had resolved itself into anger.

In the process of going all RAWR at the closet, this small avalanche of junk happened. In that angry state, I was just tearing toys and junk off the shelves, shaking off the dust and debris as best I could, so inevitably some of the stuff began to free itself of its own accord. I kept working, picking up the fallen stuff off the floor as well, until finally…

…I was left with these random little items. I didn’t really have a good place to store them all, but there they were–obstacles to wiping down the shelf and really getting it clean again.

*heroic music* But never fear! A random shoebox is here!

During one of my earlier episodes of Slaying the Clutter Dragon, I had found and kept a lot of small boxes like this one, knowing that I’d probably need them for organization and storage purposes. I thanked myself for this, now that I’d found myself in need of a tidy way to store these little knick-knacks.

A Tip for Fellow De-Clutterers

As you de-clutter, keep any sturdy empty boxes just for situations like this; you’re probably going to run across tons of little itty-bitty stuff that needs to be moved and sorted later. This way, you can store the small things neatly until you have time to sort them all out. Trust me, you’ll thank yourself later, just like I did!

And this is what the bed looked like, after only half of the shelf was cleared. SIGH…junky, dusty bed, yet again… :c

Half The Shelf Conquered–The Other Half Remains!

With the aid of a couple of paper towels (one damp with cleaner and one dry), I finally had half the shelf dusted and wiped down of all the mouse poo. Now for the next part of the shelf, which consisted of two old closet storage system units. (Forgive the blurriness of this pic–didn’t realize it was this bad till I uploaded it from my phone. :/)

After moving one of the units, look what I found–two random, tiny laundry detergent boxes stuck behind it. *shrugs* Who knows? This is just more evidence that the mess in my room randomly gobbles stuff up and spits it out in the most unexpected of places. LOL

Once I moved the other (surprisingly heavy) storage unit, I finally had a fully clean shelf to work with (once I had wiped it down, of course).

Using the Newfound Space

Now that I had yet another empty shelf in the closet to work with, I was temporarily at a loss as to what to put on it.

As you can see, that temporary uncertainty was quite temporary, indeed! LOL!

For this shelf, I chose to store some miscellaneous items that keep getting lost in the piles of junk in my room. This shelf’s contents, like the rest of the closet in general, will likely change as I work with the other shelves and areas in my room, but for now these items are up and out of harm’s way.

Last Step: Dealing with the Bed

As always, the bed held all the junk I’d removed from the closet. But I learned my lesson from last week–this pile of junk was going downstairs to the basement immediately, so that it would not stand in my way of doing the next shelf.

About 10 minutes of hauling boxloads and armloads of junk downstairs ensued, in which I sweated about as much as I do at Zumba classes (LOL). But at last, the bed was clear, and the floor was clear. The stage was now set for my next challenge in the Closet of Horrors:

…Um, yeah. There’s a reason I’ve waited to tackle this until now. xD But I have less fear of it now. After all, if I get this closet floor cleared, I can actually close the closet doors for the first time in 20 years! GASP! :O

And all this closet clearage IS having an effect–the piles of junk are slowly getting smaller. Soon, all that junk will either be donated, thrown away, or stored in the closet. Oh, what a day that will be when my carpet I shall see! 😀

I’m back with another installment of defeating the Clutter Dragon in my bedroom! This time, flushed with the success of last week’s efforts, I endeavored to clean off the top of the plastic dresser next to the catchall bins.

This is what I planned to clean up, anyway. But there was a problem.

…THIS pile of junk was on the floor in front of the dresser. I could not even reach the other side of the dresser to clean it off without slipping and falling on the pile (and believe me, I tried). There were literally no places to put my feet, and no floorspace to work within.

The Clutter Dragon had struck back at me with its vicious tail. If I were to get anywhere with my original project idea of cleaning up the dresser top, I had to clean up the floor first…and that meant tacking on much more work than I had expected.

But it had to be done. I was heartily sick of living this way. And, after all, I didn’t want to disappoint myself, or you, my faithful readers! 🙂

Uncovering the Floor, and Hidden Treasures Galore

I began by picking up most every item off the floor, throwing obvious trash away as I did so, until my entire bed surface was again full of items that needed to be sorted.

Again, I amaze myself at how much utter crap I can cram into such a small space. Argh. >_< But surprisingly, I found that about half of this stuff did not actually belong in my room at all--I had just stored it on my room floor because it was a "temporary" storage spot. (Note to self: no place I set any item in is going to be just a "temporary" spot. If I've learned anything about my organizing habits, it's that.) Thankfully, I was able to take some items out of the room entirely and put them back where they belonged. AWESOME! 😀 (The less junk in my room, the better.) Other items just needed to find another, more permanent home within my space, so I took time during this first step to find each misplaced item a home to belong in. For instance: several travel bags, which were lumped in with the clutter, but which actually need to be stored with the rest of my luggage in a corner of my room. Once all these big items were dealt with (or stored on the bed for the moment), I discovered that there was a hidden layer underneath all the keepable items: a layer of paper clutter, unbeknownst to me.
Did I mention how much I hate paper clutter? Especially having to stop and read through it to see whether I need to keep or toss it? Drives me nuts. It’s the worst part of cleaning, I swear. >:(

Anyway, the trash bag again came in handy, as I slowly sorted through all this detritus pictured above. For this part, I had to sit on the floor; my ankle was beginning to complain, as was my back, from having to bend and lift as I had done for almost 45 minutes thus far.

But, once all the random paper clutter was cleared up (either thrown out or put aside for sorting/shredding), I had this lovely vista to gaze at:

This is what was left behind after clearing away the larger paper mess–little bits of paper randomness, crumbs, and general dirt. (How all that dirt got in underneath all the clutter, I will NEVER know. I think it just burrowed under there or something. SIGH…)

Lacking a working small vacuum cleaner that can maneuver into these tight spaces, I improvised with a broom and dustpan. Though my floor is carpet and really does need a good vacuuming, this will have to do for now.

As you can see, I did a pretty good job of sweeping up most of the crumby dirty mess. You can actually tell that the carpet used to be white, now. xD

First small win of the day: in the process of picking up and sweeping, I found about $2.50 in coins hidden on the floor. Hidden treasures, indeed! Every little bit helps! 😀

Tackling the Dresser Top, At Last!

With most of the obvious trash gone, and most of the large items sorted, I was left with less of a pile on the bed. I then deemed it was time to tackle that messy dresser top. So I took all the stuff off the dresser and put it onto the nearest available surface…the bed, again.

Um, yeah. I know this looks pretty terrible. But all this clutter carnage was necessary…see what happened?

See? Proof that there WAS a surface under there, and that I DID clean it off completely! 😀 I even dusted, which is a small miracle in and of itself. xD

Once everything from the dresser was on the bed, I began the sorting process again, throwing away obvious trash, laying aside important financial bits and papers (pay stubs, receipts, and the like) where I would not lose them till I have dealt with them, etc.

One of the unexpected wins I came across during this cleaning spree was a selection of shoeboxes, shipping boxes, and a few organizational bins I had purchased in a futile past effort to clean.

Each of these little boxes and bins came in handy to sort out and store little items from the dresser top which could easily get lost. (Pardon the blurry picture…my hand must have been shaking or something. 🙁 )

In the process of organizing, sorting, storing, and throwing away, I found even more treasure hidden by the Clutter Dragon:

Yay! I think there’s close to 4 bucks in there now. 😀

At last, when I finally got everything from the dresser top sorted and/or dealt with, I put back just a few items that were meant to sit there:

Mainly, the dresser top holds mail, my cell phone (especially while it’s charging), some assorted arts/crafts supplies (because I don’t have desk space for them yet), and other things I’m generally using on a daily basis. I even have a mail/paper sorter off to the side for bigger paper pieces. But I’m never going to let it get so stacked up again!

YAY a clean bed! Proof that I did actually do some real cleaning, right?

The floor beside the bed, which I worked so hard to clear, just has a couple of bags set there so they will not get damaged elsewhere in the room (because I am prone to accidentally trampling on stuff). Ultimately, they will both go somewhere else in the room…but that must wait for next week.

Next Week: The Cluttery Abyss

What horrors next await me in my battle with the Clutter Dragon? This picture does not even do it justice. Next week, this procrastinating warrior will face the hardest challenge yet: the Abyss of Closet Clutter! Stay tuned!