I finally buckled down and cleared off the bookcase and did some organizing. Wow. This took me about an hour, to take the books off the shelves and find another place for them, clean out two of the drawers in the cabinet, and find the two dark wicker baskets which were not serving much of a purpose elsewhere in the apartment.

One of these baskets will be designated for “general small stuff” like the bag of coins I’m meaning to take to the bank and get magically made into money or the disappointing book that has to go back to the library. The other basket is for mail—both outgoing and incoming.

Here’s the bookshelf, before and after:

I’m intentionally NOT completely tidying this up, as I want to be realistic here. I’m not a person who will have everything absolutely just so; but I do want to illustrate that by making some changes, at least I can stop feeling like I’m living in a heap.

What I still need: two small trash baskets, one for trash (the used tissues, paper napkins, empty bottles of Odwalla, etc. from the knapsack or bag) and one for recycle-able paper, which is bound to collect if I’m trying to stop the mail in the front hall.

I found some nice trash baskets on sale at the Container Store. I think I may get a small one of these for $14.99, and get the bigger one for paper recycling for $19.99.

So, at this point, what I really want for the front hall is:

Stroheim & Romann wallpaper: $264

Drawer pulls: $3.09 each, I need 5 = $15.45

Paper lampshade: $10

http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Product.jhtml?CATID=71225&PRODID=65022