The spring rains are here and everything is green. Plus the glorious colors of the primroses and tulips. The trees have done the bulk of their blooming so there are little spring petal snow showers ever where. The weather is warm and sunny one day and chilly and wet the next. Spring in the Pacific Northwest. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

These two shots are taken from my little craft room. My bedroom area is a bit darker, which is a mixed blessing. On the next warm dry day I plan on doing a very small bit of pruning that will give me a little more light but not do much harm to the gigantic rhododendron that lives there. It does afford me some privacy but since all I can see are glimpses of sneakers walking by up the hill, a little more would be nice. Slowly getting things organized.

Miss Mitty’s catbird seat.  She’s still spending a lot of her time under the dresser in her little round bed (she’d be under my bed if it was off the floor).  Hopefully, once things calm down in a couple weeks, she’ll begin to use this lovely bed. She does love to look out the window.

I spent Wednesday reworking the main closet. I have two. One is only 4 feet long and the other 5 feet. I got two closet organizers from the hardware store, they were on closeout for $10 each instead of $60. Very good deal. This closet, the 5 foot long closet, was made for shelves. Four wide plywood shelves the depth and width of the closet. That had to go if I was to use it for clothing. The painter had told me that he would rip out the 1 x 2’s before painting. He did not. He painted right over them. Grrrr. So Wednesday I ripped out all the 1×2’s, not easy and it left largish holes where I had to pry with screwdriver and hammer. So I patched and painted. Yes, there is a huge hole at the bottom.  It’s been there God knows how long.  Too big to just fill, needs some mesh etc… Not important at this point in time.  I then installed one of the new closet systems. I didn’t get a lot more hanging room but I did get a lot more shelf room.  I was exhaustified Wednesday evening.

The above was not my final configuration.  I had to wrestle with it a bit the next day to get something that worked for me.  Yes, I know.  I have 23 pairs of black shoes and boots.  Only 3 pairs in other colors.  Got a problem with that?  😉  My sweaters no longer reside in two tall toppling towers, I have all black sweaters on one shelf (yes I need one shelf just for my black sweaters) and the others higher.  My last housemate commented on all the black.  What can I say, it flatters more than any other color besides turquoise.  The only color as popular as black are the limey/mossy/acid greens.

Don’t hate me when I tell you that my closet always looks this organized.  It’s how I live.  My hoarder/disorganized/depression-era save everything parents gave my brother and me serious dose of aversion therapy when we were young. Neither of us has ever taken on our parents habits of storage and accumulation.  It’s not just my closet.  My craft room is always organized too unless I’m in the beginning stages of design when I pull out everything to see what works together.  I always put things back where they belong.  Do it that way and you only ever deal with it once.  Not over and over as you move things to get to other things.

The closet doors were shutters, which we had painted white. Unfortunately, the way the carpet was installed, we could not put the doors back.  All of the doors need to be planed but the closet shutters don’t have that easy solution.  The carpet installer knew this was a problem since it was he who removed the doors. I’m pretty unenamoured with some of the independent contractors we had. C’est la vie.

I used the curtains I got from Ikea that would have divided my bed area from my sitting area as closet doors. Will have to get another set some other time.  They need a good hemming but that can wait.