When the movers delivered our stuff a lot of it was just placed on the floor to ceiling shelves in one of her closets. And so her closet has been mostly useless as a functioning space, due to the overwhelming project of sorting what all was placed in there and why.
I always wanted to turn that into an amazing built in desk. The simple construction of the shelving, just two boards placed front to back placed on side supports meant we could theoretically knock off the front board leaving book shelf width shelving floor to ceiling and leave one double board shelf as a desk. You follow? Mr F didn't. He always wants to overcomplicated projects, which means they stagnate. It stayed like that for 18 months.
Kid is not so much a hoarder as much as she is sentimental. Having two major moves at so young of an age, meant that a lot of little things carried a tremendous amount of meaning for her, reminding her of certain houses we've had, or friends, schools, etc. Which is all totally appropriate ways of dealing with transition and loss.
So this closet was filled with weird odds and ends, her boxes of stuff she didn't want to let go of, books, curtains that don't work in this house... stuff.
Finally, I convinced Mr F to just try it my way.
That meant we had to clear everything out and sort it. Which made Kid's room impassable. We did find tons of age appropriate books for Baby... bonus... and kind of sad that they are growing up so quickly. So then we carted it all to my room where I thought I'd have more space to sort. Which made my room impassable.
Mr F obsessed over the shelves for a weekend, trying to decide which individual ones were flattest and smoothest for the desk.
Then I went to IKEA and spent $20 on storage boxes.
And my dream came true...
Kid and I sorted all her momentos into specific boxes, one for Ann Arbor, one for Asheville, one for Disney World, one for Brownies, one for greeting cards, a current one she can put stuff in.
It's totally awesome. If she wants to think about Asheville she can get down the box and go through it and then put it back.
There was also plenty of trash mixed in that we sorted through and got rid of last night.
Kid was sitting on my floor reading an airline safety brochure.
"You don't need that." I said.
Yes, I do." Kid replied firmly.
"No, you don't, they have them on every plane." I said, kind of concerned that she might start obsessing about airplane safety.
"Yes, I do, I need my own." Kid said.
"No, you don't, every seat has one." I tried.
"Well, I took this one, so what if someone took the one for my seat." Kid explained.
"Fine." I gave up.
About an hour later Kid comes into the kitchen holdling the pamphlet.
"Why do they tell you how you have to sleep? I mean why do you have to hold your kid in your lap or hold onto the other seat?" Kid asks.
"Um... they're not sleeping." I reply, laughing nervously.
2 comments:
love the desk - we sooo need to organize here....my older one is a collector (hoarder) as well.
I also love the desk. Such a great use of space!
Hoarding...Mmmmmmhmmmm...Kevin does this. So many "collections". And really, he does have collections, but he also just likes to keep random stuff. Like the bajillion pencils I found in the bottom of his back pack. I can't even imagine where he's getting them. Anywho, that's just the tip of the iceberg. At least Kid is being discerning in what she keeps. And the airline pamphlet...I probably would have just gone with making up some FAA regulations on sleeping :)
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