How to turn a not so walk in closet into a functioning walk in pantry for free!

We recently had some family circumstances that allowed us the chance to clean out our home completely. It became a very exhaustive but cathartic experience as we worked to turn this house from a "if I can find a tiny corner to fit it in, it's okay to keep it" or the "it's ok to buy 10 of something even though I only needed one" mentality to the point of tripping over piles of things into an open functional space that works for our family. Most of my life I've heard comments like "we can just put it in the basement" which led to "I don't want to have to dig through the items in the basement, I'll just buy another." And the cycle continues. For someone who is Type A and mildly OCD, looking at rooms like that made me cringe. 

So when the opportunity arose, I knew exactly what room to start with and what I envisioned it to become. What used to be my brother's bedroom growing up had gone from a couple extra baskets of clothes storage while he was away at college to a room full of clothes and shoes etc. once he got his own place and removed his furniture. Many moons ago, Dad and I bought almost floor to ceiling wardrobe shelving units from Ikea to organize the items up off the floor like a true walk in closet. It soon grew to my old bedroom dresser full, 4 large storage bins full, and literally piles on the floor in addition to what we folded and organized on the shelves. There was just too much excess of everything to function as a walk in closet. 

My goal for this room was to not only get rid of the clutter but also to repurpose the shelving unit into a real walk in pantry space for my couponing stockpile. If you follow me on Instagram, you would have seen my after photo of turning an old bookcase in our laundry room into a laundry station with all of my laundry product stockpile. Before this, everything in my stockpile was lined up on metal shelves from Lowes in our old playroom turned pool room after we also reorganized that room to get everything off the floor into boxes on shelves in order to put a pool table in there. It was jokingly referred to as "going shopping downstairs" because my OCD self relished in organizing it like a grocery store. Moving the remaining products upstairs has been much more efficient for the family since we're steps away from the bathrooms where we use the hygiene products and from where we cook in the kitchen with the food. One con of this effort is now I don't have to debate the effort of walking up and down the stairs when I'm craving a snack. 

Here is the before pictures of what we faced in this room alone;

Step 1: Pick a place to start sorting in the space you're looking to clean out. If you do a little bit all over the place, it will take longer to see improvement and you'll tire of the task faster. Focus on one specific category or region of the space and work just on that until it's done. The satisfaction of the effort will motivate you to keep going.

We first chose to start with the yarn from a since given up crochet hobby. To the right of the last picture above sat floor to ceiling skeins of yarn stacked into the corner between the shelving unit and the wall. Between that and the bags of yarn we found under the stairs and amongst the craft bins in the shed plus a freestanding bookcase in the dining room, we compiled over 10 containers worth of yarn, pattern books, and supplies. While being able to make back the cash spent on items never used would have been nice, our main goal was to remove the items from our home while helping others. It was important for us to not only facilitate a better home space for ourselves but also to see that the items went to someone who could use them. This yarn was split between two crafters who make blankets for NICU babies and for a local chapter of the Linus Project. 

Next we focused on the books that were under the hanging clothes as well as on various bookshelves throughout the house. 99% of them were books we'd already read ourselves so there was no need to keep them anymore. We compiled 19 boxes of books in the end and hired someone through TaskRabbit to carry them all up from the basement and into our van. Reached out to a used bookstore who unfortunately had so much stock right now, the owner would only look at 3 boxes per visit. We drove over to her store with all of them and she decided to buy essentially enough from those 3 boxes to reimburse us for the cost of hiring the gentleman from TaskRabbit. The remainder of the boxes were left out for our first driveway pickup from the Pickup Please company that collects items to benefit veterans. 

Next I started working on the first wardrobe case on the right. Very little of it was something I wanted either in size or personal style so it was quick work once I could get it all off the shelves. I kept that hanging clothes section as a place to hang clothes I was considering keeping. It helped with the sorting aspect and kept items off the floor so I could walk around. So many items had been simply stacked throughout the room due to having no more hanging space. I then was able to use the shelves above it to organize the non clothing items I uncovered like makeup, styling products, and oh so many watches. It became a running joke as I found more and more watches that we must not have had any time on our hands because it was all tucked away in here. Side note: if anyone is in the market for say 5 or 50 nail files, let me know.

By day's end, I had cleared enough items off the first hanging clothes section to hang up items I was keeping from that rod plus over the door hangers plus what had been stacked on an old TV tray table and shower chair. I now had a shelf dedicated to compiling makeup/jewelry/styling products and a space for stuffed animals and hygiene products to be dealt with later. Since I'd cleared off the TV tray table and shower chair, I was able to relocate them elsewhere in the house freeing up floor space. It was also a relief to no longer have anything hanging on the door causing it to be pushed out from the wall.

The clothing sitting in a pile loose on the floor is because I had upended one of the four bins pictured in my other photos to start going through it. We then used the bin itself to corral yarn.

Disclaimer: Yes, that is the toilet paper from my stockpile in these pictures. I had already been storing things like toilet paper in this room because it was closer to the bathrooms. When TP disappeared off the shelves at the start of the pandemic, we lived off my stockpile that was less than the amount pictured here. (Same with hand soap and redirecting body wash into hand soap refills) When stock came back in, I would pick up 1-2 (abiding by the store limit) of the 4 packs during routine weekly shopping for several weeks. We used to go through a roll a day so it was going out as fast as it came in. Now we're not using as much as fast but this is what I'd already bought before the cleanout. Never was one of the "toilet paper hoarders" that cleared shelves at the start of pandemic shopping.

Our first pile of clothing filled trash bags from the first day's worth of cleanout. 

A few more days worth of effort starts to make a difference

 
This next day's focus was to sort through the clothes in these plastic bins. I filled several more bags for donation and soon had revealed more floor space. It was amazing to see the imprint two stacked on top of each other for years heavy bins left in the carpet. The fact that I could now actually walk up to the back bins on clear floor space was encouraging me to continue. Here's a good photo example of the excess: The top bin in the photo to the right is only as tall as the arm of the rocking chair next to it. The rest of that just starting to block the light coming in through the window is extra clothes that have sat stacked on top for ages.

The progress I'd made so far gave me the energy to keep going so the next day I sorted the pile of clothes on top and inside that top container blocking the window. I was able to refill the container itself along with several garbage bags full of clothing to donate. 

One of the things I'm finding other than how much dust is getting released from pulling everything out to sort is how much of a musty smell the extra clutter has brought into our home. I had to spend a few days leaving windows and closet doors open to air out.

The next big category of items focused on cleaning out was shoes. There was shoeboxes stacked 3 boxes high all across the top of the shelves, plus two rows stacked 3 pair high on a bottom shelf, plus an upright shoe tree on the floor. We also cleared out a different bedroom closet that had 3 rows of shoeboxes stacked 7 boxes high. Some of the shoes had been stacked in their boxes so long, they stuck to the cardboard inside the box. We added the shoes to the clothing donation bags and it took 3 weeks of recycling container curbside pick up to get rid of all the broken down shoe boxes. Cleaning out this much gave me the space to push other items out to the corners of the room and have open floor space to sort and refold clothes to pack down for donation.

Having only one big plastic bin left (the 4th still full bin had been moved aside and used for a spare place to house the extra donation bags) blocking my ability to walk all the way up to the windows, I was extra motivated to reach that milestone in the effort. After looking at each clothing item in that bin plus finding a shirt that was exactly like the one I was currently wearing, I repacked it to also fit the clothes still on the rocking chair. Then it too went out of the room to be added to the donation pile. To this day, I still walk all the way up to the windows in this room and just stand there looking out simply because I love the fact that I can now. No more trying to put back clean laundry by leaning over from 3 feet away.

Fueled by the progress already made, I continue with the cleanout

You never realize just how long a room is when you haven't seen 85% of its floor space in decades.

 

This 5 drawer cherry wood dresser and its matching 2 drawer nightstand (at this time sitting across the room filled with randomness) were my only bedroom furniture most of my childhood. We moved it out of my room before painting and stowed it in here after we were done because I finally got a full matching set of bedroom furniture for my own room. The rocking chair initially was in my brother's room hence its red cushions and then moved into my room only to come back here to stay when we painted. This dresser soon became filled with clothes storage as well. The dresser and its matching nightstand once emptied are now in a new home getting proper use with someone who was willing to haul them out of here and transport them to her home in exchange for getting new to her furniture free of charge. We researched charities for furniture donation like Habitat for Humanity but everyone said they'd only take it if we could transport it or at the very least haul it from the upstairs bedroom and out to the curb for pickup. 

Once the dresser was empty, I moved the rocking chair to sit against it so I could completely reach the rest of the shelves. It was quick work at this point to delegate the contents directly to the donation pile soon giving me several empty shelves.

The three shelves with items in the center section here are shelves momentarily designated for categories of items I'd found - stuffed animals, sweatpants, assistive devices, etc. They'd otherwise been cleaned out at this point as well.

And of course, I couldn't resist the chance at this point to grab a different perspective photo now standing with my back to the windows. It still amazes me to be standing there for this picture when before I could only walk into the room as far as where the toilet paper stack meets the sliding mirror closet doors. 

Finally seeing glimpses of the finished product

With a little help from simply piling some of the floor items like the nightstand and bags of cosmetics and bath products out in the living room for the time being, I was able to spread out a little more to sort the last large plastic container of clothes. I made quick work of sorting the pile of pants on the floor for donation and transferred the toilet paper stash onto the now empty bottom shelf by the window.

Seeing so much available floor space also meant I could really tell how much dust had been on and underneath everything piled up. Knowing this was decades worth of dust, I wanted to do a quick vacuuming to get up whatever I could. You never realize how satisfying it is to find two outlets on opposite sides of the room you didn't even remember were there until you do so because the room has majorly been cleaned out.

We moved the dresser and rocking chair aside to be able to vacuum around the whole room. I noticed the other day that a great side effect of all this effort is I'm seeing some great arm definition forming from all the heavy lifting. The ability to stand in the middle of this room in the first place weeks before was unfathomable so to do so now and touch both walls felt amazing! 

That's not a sun spot on the rocking chair cushion, it's coated in dust. 

It's not easy to see in this picture but one should probably vacuum under their furniture more often. Discovered a who knows how old fecal remnant from one of our former cats.

It was so much easier to work now that I could fully stand in front of the shelving unit and further sort items. It's amazing what a simple change vacuuming the space made for my drive and my lungs. You can tell in this picture how high that one pile of yarn was tucked into the corner between the shelving unit and the wall.

It's been a long time if ever I've seen this carpet looking so bright red

Coming out of the closet... with clothes that is

Now that nothing was blocking the space in front of the sliding mirror doors, I could finally open the closet and get started cleaning that out. It too was filled with clothes and purses but also household goods like linens and CD/DVDs. 

Time to start sorting all over again. Clothes to donate got piled on the floor. Clothes I wanted to keep got added to the hangers on that same bottom rod in the shelves I was using before. 

No that's not a person or a chair under those clothes, that's solely a pile of clothes that came out of this closet and are now going into donation bags.

Once all the clothes were off hangers and off the floor of the closet, I found the pile of purses underneath.

Can you tell what the preferred color and pattern was while buying all these bags?

I donated about half of this pile and was able to store the rest of the empty purses tucked sideways into the Princess Cruises themed tote bag that used to hold cosmetics. Now it sits neatly on the bottom of the closet. Next step was to take the clothes in this bottom space I'd been saving and hang them with room to spare in the closet.

Along the top shelves in the closet I cleared out sealed tablecloths/cloth napkins and sheet sets for donation. I sorted out the CDs we had in those boxes and out in the living room by a portable boombox narrowing down duplicates and ones I no longer wanted. We sold a handful to a used music store for a small amount of money and donated the rest. The ones I kept I then sorted into the previously used shoeboxes so that each box had a specific category of CD type. Then they got stored together on the middle shelf for easy access whenever desired. The now cleared higher shelf worked out great for stowing various items I'd found within the room like a spare hairdryer and electric toothbrush.

To this day it shocks me to realize that of all those clothes in this room and a spare closet in the hallway have been narrowed down to just what you see in these two finished closet pictures.