thmore cleaning stuff tidying up, thursday

so, my brain wasn't working with coming up with a good alliteration, but what ev. so first off i wanted to prove that i am maintaining my clean living room. i even dusted again last night. so here is proof of that. now, you might have noticed that i didn't include my desk in this pic. while i am keeping the clutter off of the desk, i was just given a stack of books from my aunt to read, and they are stacked there for lack of a better place. i have also done a major cleaning on the spare bedroom and did a major dusting in our bedroom. they will be given their own blogs once i get to actually rearrange them and make them look nicer.





now, my current project is my coat closet. some idiot forgot to take the before pic because i was all hyped up about starting this project and just totally spaced. i did however take a "just after starting" pic which might even be scarrier. all of the stuff in bags, boxes, or piled on the floor and chairs came out of the bottom of the closet. jackets and such actually were hung on the bottom rack, but that is annoying as all get out, cuz you can't see the floor. in my house, if i can't see it, it ain't gonna get clean. let's be honest, even if i can see it, it will be lucky to get cleaned. so here is the simi-kinda before pic. the big black bag is stuff that i have decided to donate or trash so far. to be honest i dont know if anybody would want some of the stuff, but i'm goin the donate route first. the boxes and grocery sacks are easy. these are all books that i, my mom, and my aunt have read so they will be going to the library. hmmmm seems like i said that when i took them outta the living room and shoved them in the closet. ok, i am gonna go put them in the van right now. oh, i might as well take a smoke break while i'm out there. be right back...

....ok, i'm back. now where was i? oh, yeah so that is/was the disaster in/on the bottom of my coat closet. here is the disaster that is the rest of my closet cobwebs and all:

as you can see, i have an abundance of old vcr tapes that i picked up from an auction, yard sale, or family member. don't ask me why. i just did. i had no use for them until recently, when i hooked up my old vcr in my bedroom - no, dirty minds, it's for the g-kid to watch movies on instead of the dvd player in the living room or my computer. the problem is, at the moment, the only vcr tape i have is the lion king. i am hoping as i go through all of those old vcrs that i will find kid friendly ones that i will store some freaking where but don't have that planned out yet. there are some old 8mm films from my dad and from hubby's family that i am hoping to be able to transfer to dvd myself (yeah right!). i do plan on goin' through the rest of the stuff to either donate or trash as much as possible.

my main goal for this closet is to make it be a coat closet of course, but in a way that they don't completely cover up the floor, so we can store our spare shoes (read: hubby's nasty work boots that i don't want anywhere else). of course my tool box needs to be stored there for home repairs and YES it is MY toolbox with MY tools in it. that was all i asked for as far as presents one year. i know. i should be a dude, but i don't like girls that much although seashore and i were just discussing how hot and sexy cote de Pablo who plays Ziva on NCIS is:

mmmmmmmmm.......oops got a little sidetracked there. ok. i'm better now.

so my faithful readers (over 26! now-which is wierd cuz i think i gained a few while i was being lazy and not really posting alot. maybe i should take the hint) my question to y'all is this...do you have any suggestions on how i should re-do the shelves, etc.. so that i can hang coats up higher (not too high i'm only 5' and i gotta be able to reach them) i need to have a specific place for board games, and possibly storage for 8mm, vcr tape, and dvds. i reallly hate my ugly dvd rack in the living room anywayS. the closet is 3'x3'x8' which is really wasted space up top cuz i'll never be able to reach that shit unless somebody can come up with some kinda cool built in step or two that i could set like shoes on and then just move outta the way when i need to reach the top shelves. i'm open to any and all suggestions as long as they don't cost a lot of money, well any money. i have tons of access to scrap metal/wood out in hubby's shop (sshhhh)