The great closet adventure

Now before you get to thinking that's a strange title, you'd have to know that Tuesday morning, while my husband was packing for his business trip and I was actually taking a few things out of the closet to donate to charity, our closet imploded. No kidding. It looked like one of those buildings that the demolition team puts explosives in and makes fall into itself. It looked like the thing had already been detonated...

I hung up one hanger, and all of a sudden the wire shelves which held the hangers fell off the wall on the right side, taking with it the huge amount of boxes that were on the top and all of the hanging clothing. Most of the shelf supports ripped out of the drywall since very few were attached to studs in the walls, and everything bent and was a mess. Since the first falling shelf went around the corner, it bent the wire rack supports on the left side in the back so nothing was worth saving, it all had to be removed. I had a huge list of things I had to get done that day but having everything from the closet in the middle of the floor took priority. I was not in a good mood, I was hot, exhausted, and needing to do other things but now I had to deal with this mess while hubby drove away to be gone all week. Didn't the universe understand that this is not a good time for this?

I spent most of Tuesday emptying the closet, putting the clothing on the bed and pulling out all the boxes and such that were stored in there on the shelves. The bedroom had a tiny path through it to reach the outside world, and the cats were very disrupted. We have a very tiny house so space to pile things does not exist, you have to put things on top of other things. The closet is only 67x59 inches square. Prior to the implosion, we had taken the door off to give us added usable space and had baskets on the left side of the doorway, and baskets of stuff under the hanging clothes on the right side. Some of them bent and the frames that held them couldn't hold up under the weight of the clothing as well as everything falling onto them. I decided that they were going to probably be replaced with the racking but didn't know yet what I wanted to replace it with.

A trip to Home Depot was in order after measuring the now empty closet. I didn't even have the motivation to spackle or paint in there, it was all I could do just to get the tape measure from wall to wall. I decided to go with modular units that would sit on the floor and be attached to the walls for stability. I spent about an hour calculating what I was going to need and trying to design a plan right there in the storage section of the store. Those boxes of units were horribly heavy which didn't make my mood any brighter... I had help putting them into the car, and when at home, I brought them into the house one at a time, one step at a time and built each half of a unit in the living room. I dragged them up the stairs and got only the corner installed before I was too exhausted to do any more. They were heavy and hard to handle for one person but I managed, thank goodness for Ibuprofin.

I slept for a few hours in the small area on the far side of the bed that I'd been able to clear the clothing off. The cats were all freaked out about the disruption and slept nearly right on top of me because all of their usual sleeping places were now covered in closet debris and they were nervous. I got up very early and built more of the closet sections, installed them, and attached the bars to hang clothes on. I hung up what clothing was going to be in the closet but removed the hangers from many items and stored them in the new shelf units that are now in there. The basket contents were refolded and I went through my clothes and got out two hefty bags of things to donate to charity, with more to come. I got hubby's things incorporated into the closet as well.

I'm not finished though, I'm going to add shelves on the wall above the hanging clothes to put baskets with small items in them such as purses and scarves, and I still have piles of things to rehome and recycle as well as a pile of hangers on the floor to organize and dispose of. But I can sleep in my bed tonight! YEAH!