The Messiness that is Me

*Disclaimers:

• I am not good at photography.  I use a point-and-shoot and probably don't even know how to turn off the flash.
• I am not one of those proper, organized or, hell, even clean housewife-y types.  Oh, I'd like to be and if you've never been to my house, I'd probably pretend to be.  But no.  This is what my house actually looks like.
• I am not good at photography.

So the Mister and I rent a 3-bedroom apartment.  Why a 3-bedroom for 2 people?  Because.  Because we got a great deal at about the same price as most 1-bedrooms in this part of the city.  Because the location is fabulous - close to work (for him) and to public transportation (for me), on a quiet street (for me) with lots of parking (for him), close to the waterfront and walking/biking paths and with no neighbours in the front or in the back (for both of us).  It is a great apartment.

But, ok, the reason we have a 3-bedroom apartment for 2 people is that we're hoarders.

There I said it.

He hoards tools, electronics and anything that "might be useful someday" if something breaks or needs to be replaced.  Or we have to move.  Or we finally get a house.  Or he, for some reason that would never happen, has more than one car.  Or he finally gets around to doing one of those "oh, we shouldn't buy that/fix that - I can make it/do it!" projects.  Or the bartering system comes back.  Or, you know, it's the apocalypse.

I hoard useful things.  Like books and clothes.

I had a system for the books, but then I tried to do the re-organizational thing and now they've been in boxes lining the wall of our front "exercise" room for about 2 years.

The clothes though, the clothes I have a system for.  Sorta.  Well, it is a system.  Just not a very efficient one.

This is the closet/dressing room.  I just call it the closet. 

People sometimes get confused when I talk about it.

"What you doing?"

"Oh, just sitting in the closet, sorting socks."

"Oh."

"So I was drying my hair in the closet when a bird flew right into the window and died."

"You were drying your hair in the closet?"

"Um, you're missing the point here."

Makes for fun times.

Anyway.  It is a mess.  I have so many ideas for it.  But little time and resources.  And, uh, motivation. 

I need to get better hangers for one.  Those are the same hangers I've had since I was a teenager.  Seriously.  Of course, I've had this storage system since then too. 

I also need to add shelves and separators (I was thinking of using magazine-ends maybe?  I don't want to buy those cube shelf ones.  Other ideas?)  Another shelf on top of the rails would be a good idea too - that's a lot of lost space!  I obviously need storage boxes as well.

I want to paint the whole room and maybe even the shelves and dressers.  And then add a room-long rail along the ceiling to hang a curtain in front of the clothes.  A colourful one with pretty patterns maybe.  I dunno.  I'm obviously not there yet.

This is the other wall.  It has shoes and jewelry and all the Mister's products, plus the hair products and my various perfumes and creams, etc.

If you look really close, you can spot the following items:

a missing door, shoe boxes and more shoe boxes, bras in shoe boxes, Liquid Advil, Liquid Gravol, a cake stand box, a kimono, a bag of bolts, Pictionary, old shopping bags, a mini Canada Post mailbox circa 1982, a coat rack (not hung, just casually strewn on top of stuff - useful!), a monkey robe, a painting of a sunset and salt and pepper shakers.

True story.

Now ideally I'd clean that up.  Then I'd take that shelf down to put in a proper vanity to house the jewelry, the lotions & potions and all this stuff:

I'd put the shoes on the wall where the makeup and mirror are.  On tilted shoe shelves going up to the ceiling.  No more stacking shoes on top of other shoes for me! 

I think the only thing I wouldn't change is my nail polish storage.  I love this system!  I can see all the colours at once and they're completely out of the way.  So far, I've got 68 nail polishes in there and plenty of room for expansion.  Love it!

So that was a glimpse into the messiness that is my home.  There is so much to do!  I really need to decide on a plan of action and get to cleaning this up.  So that's my plan for spring.  Stay tuned for that post (just keep in mind that I didn't say which spring).