Too Much Stuff

A couple of nights ago, in preparation for a house showing, I decided to tackle the hallway closet that houses most of the girls’ toys. This is where they keep the majority of them, but there are toys scattered all over different rooms of the house, with another closet downstairs dedicated exclusively to board and card games.

I like closets clean and organized, of course, but I am not very obsessed about it. I rather have the visible parts of the house organized even if that means stuffing things inside the closet and fighting to close the door and hide the clutter.

Since we put our house up for sale over a year ago, the closet stuffing has been happening more and more, as we suddenly get a call that somebody is coming to see the house after months of no activity and it is a mad rush to get things looking presentable. The girls have fun just helping me stuff things under beds, on closet floors, even just pack the stuff in garbage bags, and just take it with us in the car while we drive around waiting for the showing to be over.

I digress. I thought the toy closet would maybe be a couple hours project. I had even gone to Target earlier in the day to buy some additional plastic boxes and baskets. I actually thought I had bought too much and had planned on returning the ones I did not use.

When I opened that door, however, I realized how much I had over simplified the task. Stuff literally just flew at me. It is not a big closet, by any means, but it is a walk-in one and I could not step in it at all. I started grabbing stuff and throwing it outside to start carving a little path for me to get inside. The hallway quickly started filling up with stuff. I had to enlist Natalie’s help, lifted her over all the clutter, and planted her in the middle of the closet so she could start handing me the stuff inside.

Unfortunately, I did not even dawn on me to take pictures until we were already half way the organizing part of it. By the time these pictures were taken, I had already packed up five or six plastic bags of junk or broken stuff, and had started the sorting process.

Here is Natalie trying to fish out all of her Dora Castle figurines.



I counted up to 37 Polly Pocket Dolls, but then I found a few more, so I am sure the count is at least 40.



The girls just started collecting Webkinz during this last year, and I already filled a laundry basket with 22 of them.



The other two baskets of stuffed animals contain over 60 Beanie Babies and about 30 generic type animals. There are still more stuffed animals in both the girls’ room and we have another big plastic box full of beanie babies in our storage room. We are drowing in stuffed animals!

Five hours later, I ended up short on containers to put all the stuff that made its way back into the closet. The project is not yet complete in my eyes, but here is the After picture for now.





I wonder how long it will last looking like this. At least now I have a clear idea of what I won't be getting the girls for Christmas.