Keeping Things- or NOT -Part 2

Fair warning, the first photo is a scary one! I'm just glad that there wasn't any garbage on this pile, although, to me, it definitely looks like it is a pile of garbage. And that's all my stuff...

I should have taken the photo a little to the left. The bookshelf was a mess, too!

So, first I had to figure out what everything was. It seems that this is a catch-all spot. We don't know where to put something...it goes there. Uh, not any more!

The sterilite drawers have arty/crafty/fabric stuff. The Wally World bags are full of more fabric. The canvas bag is full of yarn (and you can see a few skeins of yarn up top of the boxes to the right as well). In between the boxes and the drawers are felt sheets and under that is fleece. I like fabric :) I just don't have anything to do with it lately. 

In front of all this is where we put our shoes. The rug that they are on is about 6.5 feet and the shoes run the length. How many of those do we really wear!? Yeah, that was a good question.

Where to start. It just looked like a daunting task but it was actually kind of fun to get going and sort through things. The blue tote that you see under the boxes (with Noah's Ark Animal Workshop logo on them) is full of unstuffed animal skins. I am technically still an independent crew member but I have never done anything with my 'business'. I buy them because I love them... and never sell them. Yea...anyway. I started there.

Took out all of the unstuffed animal skins (which I'd conveniently stored in large plastic bag inside of the tote) and filled the tote with almost all the spare fabric that wouldn't fit in the drawers. Fit perfectly! Next I went through the boxes that are on top of the drawers and consolidated the items to one box. Threw away a lot of strange little things (scraps of paper with no purpose- those went into my recycle box that sits on top of my printer -in another room), and found that we do have safety pins! Score!

I didn't quite fit all the fabric into the tote so the remaining bit I put in another tote that sits at the bottom of our hall closet (it holds curtains, all those tshirts that my ds has outgrown throughout the years and some other odds n ends). The mustard colored box is a sewing box. It holds thread and needles. My mother in law gave it to me the first or second year I was married- so I've had it for quite awhile :)

I went through the shoes and decided that the snowy season is over here and that neither of the kids will be able to wear their boots next year. They will be donated to a 2nd hand store tomorrow. There were two pair of dress shoes that are dd's so they went in her room. Now there are five pair of shoes where there were 10 :)

Here is an after photo: 

Doesn't that look so much better? I even herded all the dust bunnies (ugh), vacuumed the rug as well as swept under it. I wasn't happy with the bookshelf though so I did a little rearranging. Here's the finished product!

 

LOL don't mind the vacuum. I emptied it after taking the photo...figures. 

Before

After

Ahhh, it feels so nice to get rid of things and/or consolidate. I've not figured out yet what to do with all the animal skins I have. I have at least 50 (and I have stuffing too!). But for now they have gone to a closet that is rarely used for anything. So they are out of the way and my living room looks a little bit better :)

Ahhh...it feels good :)