We have found, as many homeowners do, that we appear to have far more stuff than we reasonably know what to do with. We don't really remember getting all this stuff. We have speculated that, left unattended, the stuff we had before has been breeding and reproducing in the background while we slept, slowly filling the crevices of our lives.

When we moved into our house seven years ago, one of the things we were exited about was that we would each get a "Den". The two bedrooms each became a den for us where we could set up our computers, desks, books, bookcases, and hobby associated kipple. Until recently, there was not much floorspace left in either of our dens. In my den you would have to step around piles of books and computer parts which I no longer had shelf space to store. In Dodi's Den, there was an entire drum kit and a metric ton of art supplies.

With the impending arrival of (Hurricane) Celerity, we had to consolidate dens. After much debate and dragging of feet, we decided to move Dodi's den into my den (henceforth, diplomatically, refered to as "our den"). With this decided, we suddenly realized that we would need to repaint Celerity's room and, while we were at it, get new carpet and, oh yeah, remove that giant wooden art storage cabinet from the closet. On top of this, it was clear that not everything we had would fit into our den.

Commence OPERATION LIFE FILTER.

I took an extra week off work over the Christmas break and we attempted to simplify our lives, or at least our dens. In my den, the workbench which was home to three epocs of prior computer parts, 100 feet of various computer and telephone cables, and about 50 unshelved books needed to go. Mind you, all this stuff was on a bench no more than 4 feet long. We took 2 old monitors, two unused computer cases, and a pile of miscilanious parts, cables and wall warts to the computer recyclers. As part of a general book consolidation, I identified two boxes worth of books to go to charity. The workbench was dissasembled and wood stored in the garage for future projects. With Dodi's den, the Drums went up on Craigslist and we made $200 on them in less than a day. Trash was trashed, art supplies and art boxed and stored.

The result, though, can be seen on the right. The overflow is currently sitting in our living room and has been for the last three weeks. We're still waiting for the carpet to be installed (it's due in Tuesday). Even so, we're going to have to put this stuff somewhere. Where? I dunno. We considered buying a new house, but nixed the idea due to the current housing market. We'll probably end up building shelves in the garage.

None the less, we have been successful in fitting two people into one den. It's actually fairly comfortable and reminicient of when our "den" was also our "Bedroom", back in our appartment. We hope that once we can store things in Celerity's closet that we'll be able to once again see our new Living room rug. 
 
An interesting side note - while ensuring that I had the more accurate possible title for this article, I ran accross a new word: Blivet.  Apperently, a Blivet refers to any package of items which, once unpackaged, will never fit into the same space again.  This phenomena is familiar to campers everywhere.  I fear that our den contents will have the same property.  It's possible that, if you come to visit, you'll have to step over some of Dodi's art supplies or some of my old books.  If you read that we've been crushed when our attic collapes, you'll know it's because we inadvisadly attempted to stow thrones.