The Cupboard Under the Stairs

These guys are NOT under the stairs. Some of them live in an upstairs closet now.

Having stumbled upon an old post I wrote in 2015 about cleaning my fridge, a delightful new person I have just met ( elliethompson.uk )was so impressed by a job well done that she asked me if I had any inspiration to offer for organizing a cupboard under the stairs. (The post is called ”Some Days Are Like This” in case curiosity gets the better of you) Apparently I am very bad at remembering how to do links.
But I have so many thoughts to share on all of this! None of them are particularly inspirational, but hey, it’s unrealistic to try to be brilliant all the time. A fridge post missed the mark I think. But I digress. Thoughts in random order of importance.

• Questioning my grip on sanity for ever believing random strangers or more specifically anyone on earth would want to see the inside of my fridge. Most of the time even I don’t want to see it.
• I don’t have that fridge anymore. It finally died after a couple of months worth of death rattles, and we got a slightly smaller one with the freezer compartment on the bottom. So what was the actual point of doing all that cleaning, right?
• I feel so sad for people living in houses which don’t have under the stairs cupboards. Although I’m sure they probably have other such storage areas needing Herculean efforts of reorganization. If they don’t then what does that say about their grip on reality. I mean seriously what is a storage cupboard even for if you can’t pack a ton of clutter into it and close the door and eventually erase the fact that it exists from your memory.
• And finally, I am NOT a reliable source for advice on any kind of cupboard cleaning. I arrange mine for convenience for me and confusion for everyone else. Fridges have an interior light so it’s hard to ignore what’s happening in there. And relatively easy to find what you’re looking for. Most cupboards are dark inside and used primarily for hiding away the junk you don’t really need or use or are tired of looking at, so opening a cupboard could be a colossal waste of time for everyone involved. Not to mention hazardous to all your levels of well being. (If you have never opened a high cupboard door and had things fall out on your head, you probably aren’t maximizing the space.

Our under the stairs storage area is a little cold room filled with so many things, if Harry Potter lived here he would not only have to sleep standing up but also risk freezing to death. Last summer when we revamped the basement the cupboard under the stairs got a thorough rearranging done. All I was trying to accomplish was filling up every square centimetre with basement things to clear the spaces we had to paint. It’s a bit like a Tetris puzzle in there. I would feel bad messing with that. Plus if W asks where something is I tell him it must be in the store room knowing how unlikely it is that he will ever venture inside that hell hole to search for anything.

One of these days I will haul everything out of there and, armed with boxes and garbage bags, begin the great purge. Today is not that day though. Today I have to watch the snow melting in the sunshine. We actually had a snowfall warning yesterday! These Christmas morning simulations are quite tiresome in April. The moisture will be good for the grass I heard some cheery moron remark.

Do you have an under the stairs no mans land? Want to talk about it? I am all ears. Please let me know I am not alone.