A Place for Everything

My kitchen in Texas wasn't as big as the one I have now, but the cabinets were designed to maximize the space. Every corner cabinet had a lazy susan. All of the lower cabinets had pull out drawers on the top and bottom. We'd installed racks for the pots and pans and dividers so cutting boards and cookie sheets could stand on end. In this house, all the lower pull out drawers are on the top shelf. Seems to me that it's more practical to have the pull outs on the lower shelf - that's the one that's harder to reach. Instead of a nice, neat and organized drawer, those lower shelves consisted of what one friend described as 'search and rescue' storage. When we first moved in we put things away just to get them out of the way. It was just inefficient. I had glasses in several different places. Same with coffee mugs. We have since reorganized to make it more efficient and I actually think that we'll be able to skip adding the pull out drawers to the lower shelves. The cabinets in our new space aren't as deep as they were in the old space, but there are more of them. Plus there is a separate pantry - something I didn't have at the house in Texas. I thought it would be fabulous because it had so many shelves. But I need a ladder to get to the stuff on the tip top. I'd hoped to store seldom used appliances up there, but turns out it is actually stuffed with food from the bottom to the top.

Back in Texas I had a diva closet. It was the size of a small room and everything was in easy reach. The ceiling was only 7' high so there was only one shelf on top of each clothes rack and I didn't need a ladder to get anything off the shelves. I had two cube units to store handbags - no crowding and easy to see and reach. Now I have a closet that I guesstimate to be about 7' x 7' but it has 12 foot ceilings. The wire racks and shelves go up three tiers. I have it stuffed but I can't actually reach any of it. Because the movers forgot to bring my shoe rack, all my shoes are on the floor of the closet. I can barely open the door. I keep thinking I'll have to get California Closets to come in and sort it out. It may be beyond my capabilities. I'm also thinking that it's possible I don't need six pairs of black pants. Mark's closet is much the same, but to a somewhat lesser degree. (He doesn't have as many shoes as I do.)

Downstairs in Texas I had two guest rooms. One with a closet 4' deep and 14' long. The other with a built in wardrobe about two feet deep and six feet long plus another closet that was about two feet deep and six feet wide. Now I only have one guest room and the closet is approximately two feet deep and six feet long. Even with the extra four feet of ceiling height it's just not as much space.

Even if I assume that the storage space in the utility room and linen closets is equivalent, I've still got to find a place for all that displaced stuff from the guest room closets. Plus the Texas house had three built-in display/book shelves. All of that stuff is currently crammed into a curio cabinet and a bookcase that is too small for the space it's in.

It appears that we traded closet and storage space for extra living space. It's okay. I really like this house, but I am challenged trying to find a place for everything. I still have 23 boxes to unpack. Six of them are labeled books. I might as well wait until I find a suitably large bookcase.

I just read this to Mark and he is laughing. I don't know why...