The Last Alliance of Shelves and Men
The reason the whole Home Improvement Project began was because I wanted more shelves in my closet.

Yesterday was my day for buying my new shelving system and installing it and then putting away all my crap. In addition, I swear somewhere I saw something called "collectible shelves" which are narrow, bracketless shelves that I thought I could put above my window. I could use them for my various little stuffed animals and Star Wars watches and goofy little doodads that I have crammed on my bookshelves.

First I went to Lowes because its parking lot is much more friendly than Home Despot. This is my first time to Lowes and you know what? Other than the better parking lot, it's EXACTLY like The Despot except instead of orange, it's blue.

They had a mile long aisle for "home organization" needs and you know I went soft in the knees when I saw that sign. I think they had what I wanted except it was hard to be sure because it wasn't grouped together in handy "shelving kits for dummies" and I got all confused with the single track and the double track and which wall anchors and screws I should get (or even where they were since they didn't have them handily in the home organization area) and which brackets and how many shelves I should get and what about these shelf stabilizers? Also the bracketless shelves were either ginormous slabs like a park bench that you'd bolt to your wall OR ugly colors OR burdened with unnecessary ornamentation.

Since I'd taken the time and trouble to get my ass out there, I was determined not to leave empty handed but the longer I stood there, the more unsure I became until finally I got mad and pushed my empty cart out to the parking lot because there was no other obvious place to leave it.

I vaguely recalled seeing something useful at Fred Meyer so I drove all the way up to Salmon Creek because that's a better and bigger store. They at least had a handy sheet you could take with their shelving systems and it showed a handy picture and on the back told you what kinds of brackets and anchors and stabilizers to buy and those items were in the same area. BUT these were catastrophically ugly. Also, no bracketless shelves.

Then I thought it must have been Target where I was what I wanted so I headed over there. (Please stop for a moment to consider that I am going to my third store for one errand. This is something that I never, ever do except possibly if I'm looking for a perfect gift for a person of huge importance in my life.)

I didn't grab a cart at Target but headed off to the back 40 for a little looksee and again some flimsy sad looking stuff. All these stores are big on that white wire shelving stuff which I would LOVE if I was in college and only had $5 to organize my dorm room but at this point, not what I have in mind. They might have those collectible shelves but they didn't have them in stock at this store.

What they did have was this storage cubicle thing that I thought would be handy on the floor of the closet. I could put some crap in the cubicles and the sturdy surface of the cubicle would be good for the sewing machine and heavier things. So I had to hike back to the front of the store to get a cart because it was a tad too heavy to carry. Well, I could have done it if I balanced it on my head but I couldn't bear the thought of pimply-faced Target employees running over to "help" because I'm sure it's some sort of liability nightmare even though women in countries all over the world don't have giant red carts to carry their crap in and they just pile it on their heads and probably have much healthier necks so not to worry.

I wheeled my assembly-required cube to the register and was back home in no time Phillips screwdriver in hand.

I found a catalog for the container store and they have a shelving system that looks pretty good but costs about 200% more than what I saw at Lowe's. Plus I would have to drive to hellandgone.

In sum, I have no shelves, no solution, and I decided I don't like the cubicle thing so we might try it in Bob's closet.