instead of buying clear boxes (which I would never do) - I just take a thick marker (red, black, something that is easy to read from 4 ft away), find a clear spot on the box or put a white label and write on the face front of each box a brief description of each shoe - "red AK sandals", "blue suede", etc. I always know each shoe's name - they are your best friends, right? That way I still use the box they came in with, and when I clean/rotate out of season shoes, I make sure they go into their own box. The ones that are out of season or dress shoes that I rarely use, all get stacked on highest shelf in the closet. DH comes handy when I need to reach them ;-) If he is not home, I just use step ladder that I need to have in the house anyway - my 5ft vs his 6ft.

I like The Organized Home by Randall Koll and Casey Ellis -- just some really good hints about clearing out -- and seasonal changes etc. I'm not always keen on pictures of interiors used in many organizing books -- way too little stuff for OUR everyday lives -- but this book does offer great hints and ideas. Usually I find my best inspirations in books or magazines that appeal to my sense of interior style or decor -- because most homes do need storage/closets etc.

I have two rather radical suggestions -- they've been wonderful for me: DVDs: I was constantly irritated that my family'd remove a DVD from the case, watch it, and instead of returning the DVD to the case, they'd pile up the cases and DVDs on the edge of the entertainment center 'til the towers grew tall and fell over . . . and even when a few favorite movies were stepped on /broken from this lazy behavior, they just wouldn't take the necessary seconds to join the items back up again. My husband was the worst offender. So I threw away the cases. Yep, threw 'em away. Tossed all second-disks that include junk like interviews with the cast, etc. Now all our movies are all housed in those zippered cases that hold 40-60 CDs. Removing the cases means they take up MUCH LESS space. Movies are arranged by category; we have zippered cases for various categories: - Family movies - Disney movies - Action and Adventure movies - Adult comedies - and we store series DVDs together; for example, the entire 24 collection is housed together with the West Wing series in one large zippered case. The Sopranos shares space with the Little House TV series, and Game of Thrones is in a new, mostly empty case eagerly awaiting the arrival of more DVDs. We have NO TROUBLE finding movies in their cases. My family still refuses to put them away, but without the cases they don't pile up as high, and they don't spill over onto the floor as quickly. I can put them away without searching for the right case -- just the right category. I briefly considered cutting away a portion of the colorful colored title page from the cover and slipping them into the squares behind the DVDs . . . but ultimately I went for the easiest route. When I find a certain movie left in the machine, all I have to do is pick the right case and plop it into any of the empty slots. Oh, I should add this detail: I have nice, homemade matching zipper pulls on the DVD cases that let us know whether the case holds Adult Dramas or Action and Adventure. I made them from laminate samples swiped from Lowes' Home Improvement. Shhhh. They're sturdy and will last a lifetime. Now, books . . . ask yourself, Do you love books, or do you love reading? Me, I love reading. I always had piles, piles, piles of books. Finally I faced the fact that I simply didn't need -- or even want -- to keep them all. I had so many books that I rarely re-read, and it wasn't really hard to let them go to the library and to Goodwill. When I laid them all out on the floor and looked at them, I admitted to myself that they fall in the same category as the size 5 jeans I wore in high school/college -- things that I enjoyed very much at one time but will never use again. Oh, I still have some favorites, but the vast majority of books really have no monetary value, and they are easily and cheaply replaced. Furthermore, keeping them isn't free: Bookshelves cost money, and you have to dust them. And they deteriorate over time. Letting go of things that I honestly won't read again was the right choice. New fiction I'm buying on my Kindle. Digital copies are almost always cheaper, and they're so much more portable. I've been a Kindle-reader for 6-7 years now, and I have about 900 books on my Kindle. When I travel, I can bring all 900 . . . in my purse. These books do not break down over time, and if my Kindle is lost/destroyed, they will automatically re-load to a new Kindle machine (I know this for a fact because I am now on my second Kindle, having WORN OUT the first one!). These books take up no space on the bookshelf; and if I lend them to a friend, they cannot "forget" to return them. I MUCH prefer reading on a Kindle: It keeps your page number, and the book doesn't want to "close on you" as you near the end and the pages are very much out of proportion in your hand. The price of Kindles has gone down-down-down, while the quality has gone up-up-up. Disclaimer: I didn't get rid of reference books. That is, gardening books, fix-it books, etc.

A New Beginning