I put together my shelves in my utility room (yeah, my utility room’s becoming quite Frankenstein with all my additions and changes) a few months ago. There’s always that weird wall where thanks to the A/C unit and/or refrigerator/oven hole, normal sized shelves are either too big or too small. A cabinet leaves too much room along the side, but not enough for proper storage. Just enough to put a bunch of annoying cobwebs and put that vacuum crevice tool to good use. I hated that, so I got the shelf brackets and tracks and went to town.

This is what it looked like in the months after… til today.

When I tried to get all the dog blankets together, I learned that my “linen closet” was NOT going to work as it was. I had that wire-shelf system with a stability bracket in the middle. I hate that you can’t adjust the shelves, but more than that, I hate that damned middle brace. You can’t work around it very well and trying to adjust the towels without them getting bunched just wasn’t working. I had totes underneath the shelves for a while for the blankets and overflow towels, but the dog hair and cobwebs just made me have to wash them (I don’t go in there very much, but the air flow makes the dog hair slide right under the door so easily).

And… there aren’t enough shelves.

I’m big on adjustable shelves. So, I unscrewed those wire shelves and went to the store for the shelf brackets and tracks again.

Took a couple hours to remove the old ones and put the new ones on (at least adjusting just takes a minute at best). Six adjustable shelves now, and still a bit of storage space below.

So, I had some fun getting all the blankets and towels together (had them stashed in 3 different places due to usage needs)… and about two hours in I realized I had enough blankets and towels to stock a pet hotel and that closet was NOT going to work.

Well, that was craptastic.

After a couple hours of storage Tetris, I went back to the utility room to see if those shelves would be best to use. It made sense to put all the towels and blankets in there, anyway. I stashed towels around the corner for the dogs or sudden rainstorms, or if I needed “mess rags” that could be torn up or lost without me getting annoyed at losing one or two. So, why not have all the towels in there? The fancier ones I got for my bathrooms are elsewhere, but the rest could go in there. And so I spent a couple hours moving all the cleaning supplies from the utility shelves to the linen closet. And the hook system that held the broom, mop, etc. to the inner door of the closet. The only towels I have in the old linen closet are the cleaning microfibers.

And yes, the door closes just fine, doesn’t even bump what’s on the inside.

I actually like this a lot better. Even got room for my batteries and emergency kit (putting a first aid together again–hurricane season and all). I can see all my supplies–and how much I have in there–much easier. The only things I left in the utility room were things I needed specifically in the kitchen and backdoor area: pest repellant and traps, garbage bags, and food storage bags and foil.

The fun part would be figuring out which shelves for what, because what remained was scattered around.

So, I spent the better part of two days doing laundry and as I folded towels, putting them on the shelves and then moving them around on the shelves. More storage Tetris, but at least it smells a lot nicer in there, a lot less dusty… and I find it strange that EVEN after all that work, I STILL don’t have all the towels I know I had on those shelves. I finally finished putting it together this morning… just in time to have to do some frantic running about town before work in a few hours.

Just glad I don’t have to go between 2 or 3 stash spots. I just kept finding towels in different places and don’t even know where all of them came from. My dog chewed on a few and my dad did that picking at fabric thing when he was antsy or bored and ripped the hems of a LOT of towels (pretty much the whole bottom towel shelf is those “messed up towels”… and that’s probably why I got so many other good ones to put on the shelves above the past few years. I can use towels for anything and rip them up when necessary, so I don’t like to throw them out.

I’m just glad it’s done. And now that I don’t have towels and blankets stashed in totes in several different places, it already looks cleaner. Can’t wait for tomorrow morning (hopefully I can plant more shrubs before work).

August is getting better than most years… I’m determined to knock out as many DIY projects as I can before the fall and the rains come and make it a bummer to try to be outside. NOT looking forward to the porch, but that’ll have to come in a few weeks–all that planting soil is making a mess (hee hee).