Try as we may, every apartment we've lived in seems to have a little closet or extra space we don't really use that becomes the place where other stuff we don't know what to do with goes until it starts to look something like this picture....
Where's Your Clutter?
Rachel over at Small Notebook shared this photo of what she calls "The Back Room."
In our parents' home, it was called "The little room" (in the basement). In our current apartment sometimes it's the walk-in closet in our bedroom which has at points become so bad that it could officially be called "a barely reach your arm in to grab something closet." Other times, we stash things that we say are on the way out (but in actuality take a lot longer to find new homes) in our rarely used half bath.
With the new year, we've really been trying to conquer these clutter spots. We think we're getting somewhere, but sometimes we wonder if every home we live in will have some kind of "back room."
So we're curious- do you have a "back room" or "little room?" Where does your clutter go?
Comments (17)
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We have a (fully unfinished) basement, and these days I wish we didn't. It seems to only allow us an excuse to be lazy about deciding what we should let go. The upside is that it is so cluttered and awful that I don't want to go down there at all - so I am less likely to head there with the intention of putting some other item out of sight/mind.
view Amy_F's profile
OMG - I am so glad I am not the only one who loves to stash things away!! but yeah our new year resolution is the same too.....we have a closet in our living room where all the stuff goes when we have guests or just not sure what to do with the thigns lying around....
view Archie29's profile
everywhere :(
view kristeana's profile
I think the only way to not stash it all somewhere is to let it float around everywhere. Oops.
view lemonadefish's profile
most of it (decorations) go in the hall closet. Bigger things in the grage. Every few months we sweep through and put things on the curb FREE!
view jackied302's profile
We have an unfinished storage closet that, cartoon-like, will rain items on your head if you're foolish enough to open the door. I think it was originally a bomb shelter. Well, it certainly now looks like a bomb exploded in there!
view avimom's profile
Are you kidding? That closet in the picture isn't cluttered. You can still reach the back shelf, I can see the back wall, and it doesn't look like anything fell down when the door was opened.
Amateurs. ;)
view Pencils's profile
Everything is stashed in our huge unfinished basement. I can't get my husband to bring his crap to the Goodwill for nothin'.
All of my stuff down there, of course, is absolutely necessary.
view LemonCadet's profile
Tee-hee. Laughing at comments by avimom and LemonCadet. I think having a cluttered closet/basement/spare room/fill-in-the-blank room is almost normal since so many people have one. In our home, we've mainly contained it to the garage, our large master walk-in closet and the back part of our entry hall. OK, I guess we haven't really "cotained" anything! But we continue to work on it ...
view r8ermom's profile
We have a room off our kitchen that is impenetrable... full of computer relics and school workbooks and clutter... Forget the junk drawer.... this is the junk room. Gotta love Small Notebook!!!
view se7en's profile
We have areas for the crap. one part of our counter is piled with letters, papers, magazines, whatever we feel we can't toss and are waiting to shred or file. I've got to get that more organized! The other place? The closet under the stairs! When we bought this house I was delighted at the wrap around storage closet under our staircase... but then... it got out of control, and I have no idea what may be at the back end of that closet. Part of me doesn't even want to guess!
view craftyashley's profile
It's in our zombie shelter.
But the boxes are organized on shelves, and there is only a small amount of clutter that consists of donation stuff.
view stickyricemama's profile
Our clutter catcher is the garage though we use the excuse that we just moved (in October!) to justify it. I have been working on getting things moved into the house this week, however.
view lifeinthefortress's profile
It used to be our garage and guest room closet, but now the guest room is becoming a nursery, so it's all migrating to the garage via the family room and the piano room.
I have clients come over and a quickly shuffle them past the front rooms to my office. Is being pregnant an excuse?
view FaithMc's profile
We have no attic, crawl space, or basement, so everything we want stored either goes into the guest room closet or "hidden" in a corner of the living room, i.e. pile it up and throw a blanket over it. We are working on getting rid of things, but there's only so much time with help from a 16-month-old.
view magdalainn's profile
That would be our bedroom, unfortunately. But it's the only place in our apartment that is closed off (other than the bathroom), so the only area that guests don't see. :p
view Mrs.Mack's profile
Oh wow. We have two narrow long closets flanking our tv room and both are FILLED TO THE GILLS - with good intentions, at first. Oh, this one will be all the kids games and arts and crafts stuff. AND THEN IT WILL ALL GET RIPPED OUT OF PLACE AND TOSSED ALL OVER AND NEVER PUT AWAY. WRECK.
The other one is dress clothes...pillows...spare bedding...wrapping paper, random gifts to have on hand...original nintendo...supernintendo...nintendo 64 (none connected) and you can't ng.walk in it.
And then the basement...wow. attempts at cleaning the closets means tons of stuff gets carted down there...horrify
view amykate76's profile