Here we are again, one week later.  Welcome to the weekly Yelling Near You feature: Clutter Cave Dispatches.  Let’s get right down to business.  Here is the desk and shelves:

Although the top shelf is not visible, it is also rarely utilized and it is of little significance to the real clutter issues that lie below.   The shot last week sacrificed the far left part of the desk, so it’s a trade off and as you can see the clutter has remained minimal.  The shelf clutter from last week that was on top of the right basket on the bottom shelf has been addressed and everything even got dusted today.

In this wider shot you may be thinking, is this deja vu? No. Things aren’t much different from last week.

The toy box clutter decreased ever so slightly and got rearranged.  This week didn’t end up being one that facilitated further progress and next week will be even worse in that regard.

Just to insure I’m not cheating and piling everything on the top shelf out of view, you can see it in this shot and full disclosure is complete.   We all know that if I was cheating in some way Bitsy would let you know.

Overall the cave lost a little bit of clutter and got dusted (and as usual it was vacuumed weekly). So, that brings us to the all important Clutter assessment:

Desk clutter: <5% (no change)

Shelf clutter: <5% (down from 15%)

Toy box top clutter: 85% (down from 90%)

Overall Clutter Cave Clutter: 25% (down from 30%)

 

 

 

Now that the customary showing and shaming has taken place, I can get to the enhancement I mentioned last week.  Right after Christmas Ikea ran a 50% off sale on all of their picture frames and that was just too good of a deal to pass up so I stocked up.

I had a few frames that had been sitting idle and by adding several more frames of a couple more sizes it was time to turn the big empty wall opposite the shelves into a gallery wall.  This had long been a dream and Bitsy promised to buy me frames to make a gallery wall if I ever cleaned Clutter Cave and kept it clean.  That offer expired, but thank you, Ikea, for having a sale and making my dreams come true.

While I am anal and have some OCD tendencies, I also know that in order to make a gallery wall look nice you have to have a plan.  Where better to devise this brilliant plan than on the computer.  Several configurations were developed and the final plan is shown here:

I did make one glaring mistake, however.  The largest frames were not 17 x 11, they were in fact 17 x 13 but thanks to my scheme, which I would call organized chaos, it did not impact the plan negatively.  Having mapped out how I wanted the frames on the wall I traced the sizes on paper and cut out enough to mock it up on the wall.  No photo was taken of this step – if you can’t figure it out on your own, then you lack the skills to achieve a gallery wall like ours and I’m impressed that you are even able to use a computer.  Instead we jump right to the frames hung as planned:

This photo was taken all the way back in December because I was eager to get the frames on the wall and insure that some kind of catastrophic avalanche in Clutter Cave didn’t break the glass or damage the frames.  For about two weeks there was no change but then one night we selected some of our favourite photos, had them printed and the next day the gallery wall enhancement to Clutter Cave was complete.

It genuinely enhances the look of Clutter Cave and is aesthetically pleasing when you come in the front door.  I think Bitsy even likes it.  While there is surely an end to the improvements, I have another for next week that is far less impressive, but I’m probably just as excited if not more.