Step One: Take everything out and lay it on a flat surface for inspection.
Step Two: Toss obvious items such as the Welcome Kit for a medication used fifteen years ago.
Step Three: Arrange like items together and place in storage containers re-purposed from adjoining closet.
Step Four: Shove storage containers to the back corner of overhead shelves to be culled again in fifteen years.
Step Five: Take trash to the dumpster.
Step Six: Rescue eighteen-year-old roll of wallpaper from trash and shove into a different closet for possible future use.
***
Okay, I know this isn’t the way experts clean a closet. I just thought we should keep it real on this spring Monday that is currently just above freezing. The wallpaper in question is shown in this photo of the house where we raised our children. If you only knew how we squeezed every penny for that renovation. And, how many hours we sat around that table and enjoyed life. My faithful husband often reminds me that when we move out of a house, we always take the important stuff with us.
He means the memories.
But, I took the wallpaper.
It has been in storage a long time and might be rather brittle. But, obviously, it will be perfect for lining the inside of a bookcase someday. Or making a Pinterest-worthy bulletin board. Or, something.
Or, maybe I will actually be able to toss the wallpaper next time I clean that closet. You know, in a dozen years or so, when I’m not nostalgic because our eldest grandson is graduating from high school. And, I’m not missing my dad who always helped with our renovations. And when that particular house is not for sale again!
***
Yeah, I’m never tossing the wallpaper.