On the Role of Closets as an Aspect of Lauren's Nerdiness

-->

Everyone ready for a deep and profound truth that will rock your world?

Moving is not fun.

Okay, perhaps that wasn’t deep. Or profound. Or world-rocking. But it is truth.

I mean, feel free to hop on into the discussion here if you think I’m wrong. Is there anyone out there who actually enjoys moving? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

I didn’t think so.

Even though it seems like it should be a simple thing to just box up your stuff and take it somewhere else, moving is not simple. Besides all the fairly straightforward stuff like closing on the house and setting up utilities—and perhaps having a couple of contractors come in to do some repairs before you move in—there is the myriad of little honey-do’s that can make you crazy:

~Finish painting the family room.

~Install a latch on the attic door so the kids can’t open it.

~Replace the ceiling fans.

~Replace burned out light bulbs.

~Replace light fixtures (choose and buy them first).

~Buy a handrail, stain it, and hang it in the staircase.

~Buy and install baby gates at top and bottom of staircase.

~Finish painting the staircase and upstairs hallway.

~Hook up the new washer and dryer and relight the pilot light on the hot water heater.

~Buy an oven.

~Paint over the wallpaper in the kitchen.

~Choose a paint color to paint over the wallpaper in the kitchen.

~Buy some family room sofas so you can coordinate said kitchen paint color so you can paint over the wallpaper in the kitchen.

~List all the curtains and all the random stuff we found in the house on Craig’s List. (Two rolls of wallpaper, anyone? How about a box full of trophies? An old set of encyclopedias? Or the 1957 Electrolux user’s manual in mint condition?)

And, y’all, that is a very incomplete list.

On the upside, we have already accomplished at least that much, if not more.

However, it wasn’t until we were pretty serious about this house that I realized that it actually has very little storage space. I realize I am exposing a facet of my nerdy practicality here, but a good closet actually makes my heart go pitter patter. When we were looking at houses, for a while we were looking in a suburb out of town a ways, where the houses were newer and much larger than the older house we bought in Houston proper. And, y’all, every time I opened a large, well-appointed closet, that house would inch itself up in my esteem. If I’d open one in an unexpected place that would turn out to be sort of ingenious (the game closet in the play room in one house, the two—count ‘em, two—generous closets under the curving staircase in one house, the butler’s pantry in another house), I’d feel a surge of both satisfaction and relief.

To help you understand why I have this thing about closets and storage space in general, I must tell you about our old apartment on Broadway. Shortly after we were married, we moved up to the Boston area and moved sight unseen into one of the Harvard apartments. The location was stellar. It was a block from Harvard Yard, which meant we could both walk to work or to the T or to all the hubbub of Harvard Square in ten minutes. The building and the apartment itself were quaint and charming. But it came with the drawback that living in the heart of Cambridge always does: lack of space.

In this case, we only had about 500 sq. ft., and only two tiny closets. Most other apartment buildings had additional storage in the basement, but ours did not. So we stored our out-of-season clothes under the bed, pushed our queen-sized bed against one wall in order to make room for a dresser (Nathan climbed in from the foot of the bed for two years), and found a very small table for our eat-in kitchen. And any time we accumulated one more item, if it could not be put away, it just ended up in the corner of our living room. Now, this was not an unsightly pile of junk or anything; it was simply random. A set of plastic drawers. Boxes. Any Christmas gifts we came home with that didn’t have a “home” anywhere else in the apartment. And Lauren despised that pile of random, was scarred for life, and developed forever a desire for abundant closet space.

Ever since then, closets have been one of my favorite parts of the places I’ve lived. In our following apartment in Belmont, my heart thrilled at having a hall closet (heck, of having a hall), and I even got something I never even knew I had wanted: a pantry so enormous it had its own window. Y’all. Now that is a seriously awesome pantry. Granted, the kitchen had no upper cabinets (?), which made all the pantry shelving imperative, but still. It was an enormous pantry. And, as I’ve mentioned before, the pantry is my domain. Things are ordered as I see fit, which is meaningful when you like to cook. And no other family members really mess up the pantry like they do the rest of the house. Whenever other aspects of my life or apartment seemed messy, I would feel an almost instant sense of calm when walking into my pantry, what with its tidiness, gentle natural light, and scent of spices.

The rental house we’ve lived in for the past year in Houston has had great storage, too. The house itself has had some drawbacks, but the master closet is very large, there’s a linen closet, and the pantry is almost as large as the giant one we had in Belmont.

So imagine my dismay when I realized that our new house DOES NOT HAVE A PANTRY. And right after that, I realized that, actually, this house has NO CLOSETS AT ALL, except in the bedrooms. That means that there’s no coat closet; no hall closet; no linen closet; and, of course, no pantry. Oh, good grief.

Now, there have been a lot of other things I’ve had to compromise on when it comes to this house, so at first I just figured that this was simply one more thing, and that we’d just figure it out. And the truth is that this is exactly what will happen. The thing is, though, that I can live with a lot of those other compromises without too much grief. But the lack of storage is really stressing me out; I refuse to have another pile of random anywhere in my house! Today was the first day we’ve really taken a lot of loads over to the new house, and as I was unpacking in the small kitchen, I realized I literally may not be able to fit all my stuff in there, since the cabinet space is limited because of the layout of the kitchen. I actually left the box of all my baking ingredients unpacked for now, until I can get things organized a little better (Sadness! I’ll see you soon, bread flour and cornmeal!).

We have a carpenter scheduled to come in and build us a pantry, but when I realized that, pantry or no pantry, my stuff might not fit, I felt very stressed out. And as I walked through the house, I found this to be true in just about every room (though it doesn’t feel as urgent to me if it’s outside of the kitchen). We might just have to have the carpenter build us a linen closet, too, while he’s at it! I walked out of there tonight thinking, “This house will be fine for a while, but our next house is going to have a plethora of beautiful closets!”

But first we have to move into this one.

We’ve already taken a great deal of our stuff to the new house. The movers come tomorrow morning to get the big furniture items. And then we’ll clean out the rest of the odds and ends. I actually find that last bit the hardest, because by then you’re really tired of moving and don’t have the energy to be terribly thorough, even though you know this is your last shot. Oh, and then you get to unload at the other end. Which would perhaps be a pleasure, since I’d get to be all domestic for a while and set up my house. It’d be a pleasure if I knew where it would all go, that is. And here we’ve returned to the closet space issue…. I think I’ll call it a night!