The Built-In

When we bought our home, one of the things we really, really liked about it was the copious amount of drawers, cabinets, and other built-in storage features.

Of course, when two people (and five pets) live in a home, those very cabinets, drawers, etc. start to fill up with the most random assortment of items. I present to you - the living room built-in (pre-purge, of course):







So I enlisted the help of my husband and we started clearing out. I took pictures of the piles to show you just how bad it truly was:



We couldn't even fit all the mess on the kitchen table. It spilled over onto the kitchen counter:



Then, of course, I made myself a drink to steel up for the purge and organization fiesta to come (ok, I also just wanted one - it's been raining and gloomy all day and I had some fun Bloody Mary mix to try).



BUT, after about an hour (ok, 90 minutes) of sorting, purging, categorizing and alphabetizing (NERD ALERT), we have this:









I have two bags of books and sundries to take to Goodwill, a full "tall kitchen" size bag of pure garbage, a box of DVD cases (we store all DVDs in those folder things - makes it so easy to find them when they are in alphabetical order) to put in the closet, and have moved all the tools and various mechanical things to the garage, where they belong.

Alisa 1, Clutter 0.