On the Home Front

Get a load of this ... laundry room discoveries

By BARBARA WOOD

I've just been through an archeological dig -- in my laundry room.

We decided to make life a little less stressful for all three of our children by building our rapidly-heading-to-being-teenaged oldest daughter her own bathroom. Now she can have all the privacy she desires, take showers at 5:30 a.m. without bothering anyone, and store her ever-growing collection of personal care items. Plus, her younger siblings will have a lot better chance of being able to use the bathroom when they need it.

To make the new bathroom we took over two-thirds of our downstairs laundry room and squeezed the laundry activities into the remaining space.

Which turns out to be a good thing because I had way, way too much room to store stuff in the space that now contains a bathtub, toilet and sink.

I didn't realize I had way, way too much space to store stuff until I had to clean it all out to make room for the construction workers. It took me two weeks, and I'm still not really finished.

First to go was the ironing pile. The ironing had long ago overflowed its basket and spread to fill the space under the ironing board.

There were layers and layers of clothes; some that had been waiting to be ironed since soon after we moved into this house nine years ago. I found clothes that weren't in fashion anymore, clothes that didn't come remotely near fitting anyone in this family, clothes I only vaguely remembered.

By tossing out everything I knew no one would ever wear again, I whittled the pile down considerably. The remainder fit in two baskets, where it will probably sit until it no longer fits anyone.

In the spirit of renewal, I even purchased a new ironing board to replace the old one, which I had borrowed from a friend when I was in graduate school and had never returned. It only had one foot and kept falling over when I tried to use it.

Next were the socks. I toss socks without mates into a basket, to be sorted later. When I tackled the laundry room, there were four grocery bags full of socks. My mother, who had the bad timing to be visiting at the moment, helped me sort them. We ended up with two bags of mated socks, one of which was too small for anyone; a bag of single socks; and a bag of socks with holes in them.

I hoped this new supply of socks would stem the children's morning complaint: "I can't find any socks that match." I find socks everywhere -- under the kitchen table, in the front hall, on their desks, under the furniture cushions. It appears to me that approximately a dozen pair of socks are abandoned at random each day.

Although the socks were taken care of, there was still the cabinet full of sheets, blankets, tablecloths, old rugs and such. And the closet full of my kids outgrown clothes. To house important things, such as 12 dining chair cushions covered with 10-year-old food stains, I purchased three heavy duty storage closets from the hardware store, purposefully going to a place where I knew they would load them in my van for me.

Not until I got home with three 100-pound boxes, plus three 80-pound boxes, did I realize I couldn't get them out of the van. And that I wouldn't be able to pick my children up from school with those boxes in there.

Since none of my neighbors answered their doors or phones, I finally had to beg an innocent passer-by out walking his dog to help me.

I filled the closets, plus four garbage bags full of items to donate to the rummage sale, two garbage bags with baby items for my sister's baby, and another bag with clothes too small for my youngest. Not to mention the stuff that went straight in the trash can.

I found items I couldn't imagine ever having the bad taste to buy, much less save for 15 years just in case 12 people dropped in to stay and we needed enough spare sheets to cover all the floor space in the house.

But I've been inspired. Next I plan to go through our bookshelves. I think I'll start by admitting I'm unlikely to ever reread my college textbooks.

Look for Barbara Wood's column in the Almanac the first week of the month. Write her at the Almanac or send e-mail to barbara@bigtree.xo.com