Guess what I did on Victoria Day? Organized closets! Fun, eh?

It all started when we realized that we were running out of room in our kitchen. The food cupboards were packed to overflowing, and you had to be careful when opening a door that you weren’t hit in the head with a falling bag of cookies or box of cereal. So I decided to repurpose some of our laundry room closet as a pantry.

Fortunately, we had an empty front hall closet which could be used for coat storage. Usually, we enter the house directly through the laundry room, so we’ve never needed to keep anything at the front door. Our guests are usually amazed when we offer to hang their jackets!

Anyway, this is what the front hall closet looked like before I started: (Is it just me, or is there something absolutely breathtaking about empty closet space? The cleanliness, the potential? No? Okay, just me then.)

I transferred over all of our coats, as well as the storage unit I use for scarves, mitts, hats, etc. There’s still room for some pretty baskets on the shelf when I find I need more storage again.
This is what it looks like now: 
Now, here is the embarrassing laundry/mudroom closet before I began: (honestly, it is very hard for me to admit that I have had a space in my home that looks this disorganized…even though I always thought everything was in its place…)
Obviously once the coats and storage container were out, I had lots of room to work with. I also realized I was keeping some things handy “just in case” (e.g camcorder box), which could be relocated to basement storage. The skating bag was also hidden away until next winter, although the swimming bag remains. Bicycle helmets moved to the garage, to be closer to the bikes, of course. Next, I headed to Canadian Tire and picked up a couple of Black and Decker storage units which I assembled and stacked together to form a makeshift pantry. I then transferred canned and boxed goods out of the kitchen to their new home, leaving some breathing room in the kitchen cabinets. I’m thinking a couple of hooks would work perfectly on the remaining wall space within the closet, to hang swimming/skating bags, the girls backpacks, etc. Otherwise, we’ll just save the room for each of us to keep our most-worn winter jacket handy, as it will be a pain always going to the front hall closet.

Come on, admit it: you can’t possibily have enjoyed your holiday as much as I did! 🙂

4 comments on “Spring Closet Makeovers”

  1. Kate,
    YOur "messy" closet is my organized closet on a good day -sigh!
    You should hire yourself out as a professional organizer!

  2. Not a bad idea, Mary! I could make some extra money on the side. Unfortunately, I am spending most of my leisure time these days blogging. For free. Wait a second…

  3. I LOVED this blog…because I, too, am a neat freak. I am not a successful neat freak…but I try very hard. A little secret: after my third daughter was born in 2001, I was overwhelmed with trying to keep up with housework. An article was published in Time Magazine about "FlyLady." She is a woman from the southern states who set up an on-line tutorial about how to run a house. There it was: someone to teach me how to run a home. I followed her 'program' for about 2 years. And, now, I consider myself a graduate. I am still not an A-student, but I'm not failing either 🙂

    http://www.flylady.net

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