the office closet

Every once in awhile I forget who I am and wish I was some sort of minimalist. Ah, if only I was that person whose closet was just a shelf of reasonable items. But I'm not that person. I'm the person that has hung onto a whole shelf of small boxes that used to hold macarons in case I ever need to use them for gift boxes. And all these things do come in handy I promise I promise.

I suppose someday it would be great to gut the whole closet and have custom shelves for it but that's a way down the road project. Originally this was the one closet for the master bedroom (how did people LIVE?!) so it was meant to hold clothes and not wrapping paper so I put some bookshelves in it and they are so helpful. Over the years it changes as life does depending on what I suddenly need to store in here at quick access or not. When I'm working and all my office crap isn't in here, this is what you would see if you opened the door.

Oh, you might also see this door hook. It holds my work backpack and work bag where I have my job manager binder, clipboard, office notebook, and such.

Way at the top are six big bins that hold old personal notebooks,  throw pillows, fabric + yarn, work folders, work tool box, picture frames, guest bedding, and guest room amenities since it is still a guest room for the brave souls willing to share with Gadget & LJ.

I made these labels for them and they are pretty cute but I'm realizing they're off scale for these boxes. I'll have to get bigger ones sometime.

The top two shelves hold smaller paints and party things.

The middle one has personal/family expanding files and those boxes hold yet more party favors and blank notebooks. The expanding files hold our house purchase info and Alice's paperwork like her doctor visits, immunization records, stuff like that. I just made it myself thanks to my OCD and then found out it's a thing! It's pretty helpful, I should seriously make it as a baby present for people.

The bottom holds file folder necessary crap like "income taxes" "pay stubs" "retirement". You know... boring adult baloney so let's move on.

The other bookshelf is a shorty version of the tall one. Here I shoved all the gift wrapping supplies like the aforementioned tiny boxes, gift bags sorted by occasion: duh; old journals, and more gift boxes and giant bags.

The reason I got a shorter shelf was because I wanted to use the top space to put all the extra work stuff in here. I've been whittling and whittling away at this pile and now it's down to just these four boxes for overflow work supplies. Not seen is my work kit currently hanging out in the trunk of my car. LAZY.

Behind the shelf I had a big gap and I could have either shoved the shelf all the way over but I decided instead to leave space for larger wrapping paper.

 

Whenever that magical gut job with custom shelves happens I'll replace the light fixture situation in here. Until then: pull chain.

On top of these boxes I always end up putting things I'm either debating getting rid of or working on. I'm also piling the Christmas presents in here.

I just added this in here. Makes me smile. 

I saw somewhere on pinterest as I googled around for 'wrapping paper storage solutions' that they just bought a 1.99 item from Ikea that did the trick and boy does it!

They are sorted by color: black/white/grey, gold, and bright colors. Big time game changer.

There's even room to put the big box of cat food in here and my yoga mat and Wii balance board.

As with any closet clean-up, I revel in the fact that I can actually see the closet floor.

As you can imagine, it didn't last long.