More organizing

In October I shared how I decided it was time to jettison most of the homeschooling books so I could use that space in my studio. It felt like a momentous change, and it was. It was ultimately a very good change and I don't miss anything we gave away, nor did any of the children. That was actually just the beginning. In the loft and the toy closet in the loft was another huge amount of both old toys and homeschooling stuff. I decided that I could only emotionally manage one thing at a time, so we stuck to the studio. 

The more time I spent in the loft (and I've spent a lot of time there recently because that is where my loom is), the more I thought about what I could do with the space. I knew I was ready to tackle it. I also knew I would need J.'s help so I wouldn't get stuck. Today was the day. I was pretty sure I could manage the toy closet, so we started with that. 

The toy closet is where all the picture books live when there season is being stored. I knew without a doubt I was not up to sorting through picture books, so they were just a matter of moving boxes around. There was a heck of a lot more stuff in there other than books. It had become that closet where things were shoved when we didn't know what to do with them. It was filled with so much stuff that you couldn't step inside of it making it hard to reach the shelves. It was bad, and I forgot to take a before picture. 

The after picture is going to have to wait a moment though, because I want to show you something we found that I love just as much now as when I made it. 

This is one of two playmats that I made for D. and TM when they were young. It was perfect for playing with the plastic animals on. And I made it so that it folded up and could be hung up.

I'm pretty impressed by myself. 

Back to the organizing... Over the course of the day we sorted things into the toys we knew we wanted to keep, but didn't need out right now (there will need to be another blog post about that), things we wanted to give away, and garbage. Why do we store garbage??? No, I don't know, either. In the end, this is what we ended up with.

It makes me very happy to look at it. A couple of the shelves have toys that we moved over from the shelves in the loft. These were good toys that R. might want to play with, and they are much more accessible now. 

Having done that, I looked at those shelves and knew I could tackle them... wanted to tackle them. You see, the bulk of things that were stored on those shelves were the many learning boxes I had created over the years. There was a lot of emotional weight sitting on those shelves. I realized that in having moved the truly important things to the toy closet, that I wasn't nearly as invested in the rest. I spent the afternoon dismantling activity boxes or deciding that I could give them away. 

With nearly empty shelves, I could then move my weaving yarn onto them. This gives me more room and allows me to more easily see what I have. Once again, this makes me very happy to look at it.

The domino effect continued. Having moved the weaving yarn out of the studio closet, it gave me two empty shelves in there. So, I did what every organization loving person would do, I reorganized the studio closet. 

I was able to sort my unspun wool so that I could more easily see what I had and find it. I love having easy access to the things in here. Well, most of the things. I did not empty the closet completely and we are not going to discuss the other side of the closet which contains the fabric. 

Yes, I have a lot of yarn and wool and fabric. You'll notice you don't see my bags of fleece. I did a very good job of stashing them in various places. Four places to be exact. My children tell me I have a problem. They may be right, but it is now all organized.