Organizing the stash -- the yarn stash, that is

On Sunday, my hubby and I finally went shopping for an organization system for my office. Now that I've been working from home for 8 months, I have a very good handle on what supplies I use and how much of certain items that I need to keep on hand. And I am thoroughly sick of stepping over boxes and bags in my office. Both of those things made organizing my office somewhat urgent. :)

So we invested in an adjustable free-standing wardrobe, a tall bookshelf, and some additional dividers to customize the two. And after hours of assembly with Dan, and a marathon put-away session with my Mom yesterday, all the yarn was organized (wow, I have more yarn than I thought!) as was the fabric and all my books. Yes, there's more to do, but I am well on my way.

The bookshelf, as you can see, looks fantabulous. :) The white "blob" to the right is the side of the wardrobe. They are at right angles to each other.


Here is the wardrobe post-trauma this afternoon. Other than saying that the two shelves above the yarn were originally below it, I'll leave it at that.


So. Now to the trauma. I was so happy with my organization that I of course wanted to share. But as soon as I opened the wardrobe door this afternoon to take pictures, a shelf fell. Originally the yarn divider was at the top (right under the shelf that goes all the way across) resting on one shelf, and there was one other shelf before the bottom of the wardrobe. The shelf that fell was, of course, the one the yarn divider system was resting on. After a brief moment of panic, I realized that I could remove a shelf from the right, and use one of those shelf hooks to stabilize the precarious situation of my yarn. So I carefully took everything off of one shelf on the right, removed the shelf, and snagged the shelf hook. But before I could slide the shelf hook in and save the day, the shelf below fell in one corner. This became a slippery slope, where every time I moved, a shower of yarn would come down upon my head, and the shelves would slip in another corner.

To make a very frustrating story slightly shorter, I did eventually manage to rescue everything from below the yarn divider, remove the shelves, and sit the divider on the "floor" of the wardrobe, where it will now stay. The yarn still isn't all put away, though, because it turns out that the top of the wardrobe is a minuscule amount wider than the bottom, and the last partition of my yarn divider doesn't fit. Which means Dan gets to play with his power hand saw again soon. *Sigh*