31 Days {Day 24} A Cluttered Closet

*This is my 201st Post Ever!  Yay!

Today I decided to clean out our laundry room closet.  Cleaning out miscellaneous closets are infinitely more annoying because it's as if none of the stuff really belongs there.  It was full of my party supplies, papers, wedding china, stuff to donate and recycling.  The coats live there too but I left them alone since it is called a coat closet.

Main Objective:  Make Room for Bike in Closet

The reason I needed to clean this closet is because I actually need the space in there to make room  for G's road bike, which has taken up residence in our entryway since June.  Since it was so expensive, he didn't want to put it in the garage, AKA the place where our expensive trimmer got stolen.  The closet was full and what I didn't want to do was redistribute this crap to other parts of the house.  This is not a before picture, more like a middle picture.

The two Ikea tables stacked on top of each other is my makeshift shelving system.  They used to be our nightstands so I repurposed them here.  The top shelf holds our party supplies, the middle shelf drinks for parties, and the floor holds paper towels, bleach and vinegar.  Without further ado, this was how it went down today.

1. I went through all the files and weeded out appliance manuals that I really don't need.  I can google almost anything that I have to find.  Some of those things are taking up a lot of space, like a recipe book that came with the Kitchen-Aid mixer that I will never use, among other instruction manuals.

2.  I had a box of china from our wedding that I don't usually need since we don't usually serve more than 6 people. I decided to wash it all and find a place in the cabinets for it.  That led to another little project which involved rearranging the cabinets better so all the dishes fit.

3.  Decide what to do with the other files that I have to keep.  This led me to our bedroom file box to clean out the files there, which was quite the chore.  I reorganized all the files and relabeled them.  I sorted the papers into recycling and shredding.  My shredder conks out quickly so I have to stop often and wait for it to recover.  If I took a picture you would see a big pile of papers.

A side note:  I recently canceled a disability policy I had since I was working as a mortgage broker.  When I stopped working a few years ago I asked them if it would still pay with me being unemployed and they told me yes, so I kept it.  Fast forward 4 years later and $65 a month, I called them again to check.  This time they actually checked and verified that if there is no income to replace, then there would be no payment.  Don't make a costly mistake like me.  Revisit all your financial decisions periodically.  Shredding all those policies made me cringe but also happy that I finally wised up and canceled them.

4.  I put the glass recycling in the car so I can take it next time I go that way.  Our recycling doesn't do glass and I can't throw them away.

5.  The bag of things that we are going to donate have some value which is why I've held off for so long.  I didn't know what to do with them.  I'm going to run everything I cleaned out today by a bunch of girls coming over tomorrow.  After that, I have to get them out of my house once and for all.  I need my closet back.

I don't have an after picture for you because I'm not totally done yet.  I'm still shredding papers as I type and there are still loads of things on our stairs.  Hopefully tomorrow this project will be complete.  The good news is that the bike is in the closet.

Mission Complete:  Road Bike has a Happy New Home

What big cleaning projects are you working on this month?  How often do you shred your files?  Have you made a costly mistake with insurance like I did?  Tell me how your month of October has been going.  Have you been inspired to clean out anything along the way?