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Organizing the Hall Closet

Wow, what a boring title to a blog post?? But this is the story of my hall closet.

It looks innocent enough in the mustard yellow hallway which I hate the color of.  But sure enough, behind the door at the end of the hallway there is evil lurking…

yikes.

Don’t make fun please.  🙂 Like most horrible things in life this had a slippery slope to how it happened.  First the hall closet was just a normal closet with a vacuum, winter coats, board games, scarves, etc. And all the shoes lived in the guest closet.  Then Scott and I decided that we could no longer share a 5 x 2 closet for clothes (kind of unfair that the smallest closet I’ve ever had is also the first I had to share with someone!) and he moved all his clothes into the guest room and the shoes had to go somewhere and what was more important? Winter coats or shoes? So off into storage/back corner of random closets go the coats and into the hall goes shoes.

And then it all went very wrong. I was at a high pressure, high profile corporate job where it was all about looks and needed shoes. Lots of shoes. So I bought more. And when working 60+ hours a week the last thing you want to do is clean or throw out anything. So the pile just mounted and mounted. The funny thing is I had sworn up and down to Scott that if only I could leave my job, then I would fix the closet. We nicknamed it the “Victory Closet”. I left my job, and got another job…and no clean closet 🙁

Again, now working 70+ hours a week, no time for shoe cleaning. So it became “Victory Round Two Closet”. So again, the motivation- if I could just make it until May, save my money, then I could have time to clean my closet and do whatever else I wanted.  Surprise! The job was unexpectedly ended in February.

So I immediately cleaned my closet right?

No. It then became “Closet of Shame” and I just wore the same 3 pairs of shoes over and over so I didn’t have to look at it.

No more shame, closet. You have been conqured!

After 45 minutes of pulling all shoes out, pairing them together and lining them in categories in the hallway, I was able to pair down, donate a good chunk, trash a good chunk and realize 3 things:

1. I have a lot of shoes
2. I have a lot of shoes missing the other shoe…how is that possible? Are they with the missing sock pairs somewhere in Narnia?
3. My sweet husband has a lot more shoes then he lets on. I no longer felt sorry for him…until he tossed half his shoes into the donate pile (“I already have 1 pair of flip flops, why would I need two?” I said, “mmm hmm, totally…” as I shoved my pile of 400 flip flops into the corner).

So, here it is. I feel sane again. I don’t like this solution and if it wasn’t 90% likely that we are moving to another part of Dallas in a month (more on that later)- I would have completely rethought it. But for now my mantra is pair down, organize, breathe…ahhhhh

It’s funny how many emotional attachments are made with material things. For example- these chucks are what Scott wore to our dear friend’s wedding.  These silver shoes are ones I wore in my dear friend’s wedding, and these blue ones? Well those have a really fun story. Days before graduating at OU, I had received my job offer from Job 1- I immediately went to the mall, and drug my friend around until I could find the perfect “young corporate woman” shoe. These are what I settled on.  The time of the Corporate world is over for me…and so I will fondly donate these and hope they find a home with someone who treats them well.  Sniff. Goodbye lil guys!

 

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Tania Griffis is an accomplished writer, blogger, and interior designer with a Journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma. She started her popular blog, Run to Radiance, in 2011, demonstrating her design expertise through the personal remodeling of six houses to millions of readers across the globe.

Tania also owns The Creative Wheelhouse, a respected ghostwriting agency for bloggers, further showcasing her talent for creating engaging and informative content.

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