Larry's Musings

Damned if you do....

Here is a classic case of being "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

Last week, all shelves in our master bedroom closet collapsed. It was quite an impressive sound. It was an even more impressive sight when we walked in and saw the carnage: all our clothes in a heap on the floor with some of the shelving on top, but some still partially attached to the wall.

Needless to say, I was the one who had his to-do list have one more item added.

Of course, the first order of business was to relocate all our clothes. This meant finding places to put it (the guest closet, the futon in the guest bedroom, the floor of the bedroom). Knowing how much clutter bothered my wife, I knew that I had limited time to address this problem.

So, here comes the dilemma. I have a deadline for putting new shelving in the closet, but I also know that my wife's picky about the layout of things. She also doesn't like change very much (but yet unless we changed the use of the closet space, it would be a matter of time before too much was put on the shelves again).

So, off I went to the container store in Walnut Creek. My good friend, Brian, went with me and we had a salesperson assist us to design a new closet using Elfa products. Originally, our closet had a single row of the white wire shelving for hanging shirts and stacking up things on top. The new closet would make better use of the space by having multiple rows of shelving, and by moving the hangers to where they would have just enough room, but not waste too much space.

Based on what I knew of my wife's desires (which was to have as much hanging space as possible, and to make it so that she didn't have to reach too high to get at her hanging clothes), we tweaked the design. Then came the ultimate question: Do I run the design past her?

Here are the pros for running it past her:

1. She doesn't get angry with me for not including her in the decision.

Here are the cons for running it past her:

1. It will delay the process for about a week. In the meantime, the clutter stays around the house and she gets crankier every day.
2. She will insist on duplicating the old design because she's comfortable with the old layout. This means that we will continue to waste storage space (which is sorely needed), and we will overload the existing shelves.

Of course the fact that everything was returnable, and that I could adjust the design as needed after installing it told me not to run it past her.

I spent Friday evening installing the shelving. When I was done, my wife came in and threw a fit at me (So, I was damned by doing it). I made a few adjustments afterward.

On Saturday, she didn't touch it.

On Sunday, after I put a few sample things in a few different locations and made another adjuistment, she moved her stuff in. After moving everything, we still have about half of the shelving empty (which was my point).

Looking back on it, however, I'm sure I could have handled it better and found a way to accomplish this without springing something on her. Something to ruminate on.

posted by Larry Grey @ 9:47 AM