Organizing the Hall Closet and Finding Some Surprises

I had been putting off the hall closet for weeks. It was one of those spaces where things just got shoved in until the door barely closed. On Saturday morning I decided to deal with it before the day got away from me. The air in the hallway already felt a little stale from all the dust that puffed out whenever the door moved.

First I pulled everything out onto the floor. There were old coats, a stack of board games we never play, and three boxes of wrapping paper that had seen better days. The coats smelled faintly of cedar and something sweeter, maybe an old perfume that had clung to the lining of the wool one. I sorted the coats into keep, donate, and maybe fix later, running my fingers along a torn seam on the navy jacket and wondering if I would ever actually get around to sewing it. The games went into a bag for the next donation run, though I paused to flip through the Sorry box and found a missing red piece rattling around at the bottom. By the time the floor was clear I had two big trash bags and one box that needed a trip to the car. My knees were dusty and I had to shake out the rug before I could even stand up straight again.

The bins I wanted were not at the usual place, so I drove over to the Container Store in Millbrook Commons. Traffic was light and I found what I needed pretty quickly. I also grabbed a couple of hooks and a pack of those new chayote crisps from the snack aisle near the registers. The store smelled like fresh plastic and the faint lemon cleaner they use on the floors. I stood in line behind a woman balancing three different sizes of woven baskets and listened to the soft clink of metal measuring cups being restocked somewhere behind me. The crisps turned out to be better than I expected, though they are a little salty for my taste. I ate three on the drive home and had to brush the crumbs off the steering wheel.

Back at the house I spent the afternoon putting the bins in place and rehanging the coats that still fit. The new bins clicked shut with a satisfying sound and I labeled them with a marker that kept skipping, so one of the labels ended up a little crooked. Ren came home while I was finishing and helped carry the donation box out. We talked about maybe doing the same thing with the linen closet next month. He mentioned the stack of towels that always slides forward whenever you open that door and I laughed because it was true. It always feels good to have one less thing hanging over your head. We stood in the driveway for a minute afterward, watching a neighbor’s dog chase its own tail in the grass across the street.

Sunday I took the donation stuff over to the drop off near the old train station before meeting Lissa for coffee. The drop-off lot was busier than usual with people unloading strollers and boxes of books. I waited behind a man who kept rearranging his bags so they wouldn’t tip. We compared notes on a client project she is working on and I mentioned the closet project. She said she has been meaning to do the same thing with her storage unit. The coffee shop was warm and smelled like toasted oat milk and the cinnamon they sprinkle on the pastries. By the time I got home the afternoon was gone and I still had laundry to fold. I ended up folding it on the couch while half-listening to a podcast that kept cutting in and out.

The closet looks better now. Everything has a spot and the door closes without me having to lean on it. I kept one of the old photo albums I found at the bottom and put it on the shelf in the living room. It is nice to have that out where we can actually look at it instead of buried under everything else. The plastic bins on the top shelf catch a little light from the hallway window now, and the hooks I added hold the extra scarves without them slipping off every time someone reaches past.