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.